This and That

A week or so ago we had a bit of this.

 

I dressed up like a baglady, it was so cold. I am wearing 4 jumpers in this pic, no kidding.

I realised I had to put in place a winter warmth strategy. Comforting soups and casseroles? Hot water bottles? Wooly hats? Thermal underwear? Thick socks?

NO! Instead I bought this. Obvious, really. Nothing better than a silk scarf to keep out the cold.

 

It's Hermes Groenland, who could resist a scarf with husky pups and polar bear pups on it?

 

 

Study this pic carefully.  Do you see the tiny rip in the sofa cover? I know, it's hard to spot.

Someone who shall remain nameless, MONTY DOG, did that.

 

With all the cold I am dreaming of summer and this.

From here

 

And I have been trying out this, very woody and exotic, love it.

Tom Ford, Bois Marocain

 

I am going to be Talitha Getty in Marrakesh, but without the youth, good looks, money and the sad ending. Or indeed Marrakesh.  I expect we will go to Bournemouth.

The best exotic North African perfume I have tried is this. Divine.  What about you?  Tell me your perfume secrets!

Andy Tauer, L'Air du Desert Marocain

Last night we finished watching Series 5 of this.

What a ride! And I now know the French for a "grass" which I am sure will come in useful. 

Look!

That is what my sweet husband gave me for Valentine's Day.

This is what I gave him. That man is a saint to put up with me.

In my defence it does look just like Monty Dog.
 

And that, as they say, is that. Or this?

Shoptastic

Unlike Daphne, my hair is naturally this colour..
Wearing my new spotted silk scarf from Phase 8 and leopard print belt from Zara

Dahlings, I really feel I have been neglecting my role as deranged marsupial style icon to the masses.  One cannot just leave it to Daphne Guinness.  But recently I have been sooo occupied with riot control, kettling and star charts that I have scarcely had time for matters sartorial.  Do forgive me.

Things have not been going that well on the clothes front. Remember the terrible skirt I bought on-line (now safely returned to the Big Warehouse in the Sky)? Well I have experienced another Nasty On-line Buy - ("Nob") - yes, I have had to invent a whole new word to cover this recurring nightmare. I present my latest Nob.

Dress X- Small from Gap, shurely shome mistake, which explains why I am doing the Monty Python Mr Gumby stance.
Nobs - will the nightmare never end?

 Last week I went for a little light shopping with two Mummy friends. We hit up the local Happy Valley Shopping Centre.

Of course, union rules provide that no mother of male children can pursue retail activities without buying some sort of sporting equipment for said male child.   So we found ourselves in the Sports Shop discussing the merits of size 4 bats versus size 3, octopus grips, knocking in (isn't this what got us into the union in the first place?) and oiling your bat.

Look at these prices - but these are for adult cricketers who take it Very Seriously

  

I wondered whether I should get one of these hats - who knew Philip Treacy sold off the peg numbers like these? 

 

Things hotted up when we went into House of Fraser.  Look at these shoes!  When did shoes get so high? And so fetishistic?

These and the shoes below are Kurt Geiger

The leopard and red ones are very understated I feel, for Minnie Mouse

Look close - these are bugtastic

The result of a plot between orthopaedic surgeons, insurance companies and personal injury lawyers?

The girlfriends and I had a laugh trying on lots of clothes and coming out of the changing rooms in fits of giggles - it was like being a teenager again...  I did not buy anything except for the spotty silk scarf I am modelling in the first pic in this post.

But you can't keep a shoptart down - this week I popped up to London and had a toddle round Oxford Street, ending up in Selfridges.  I spotted this chap by the Creme de la Mer counter, probably about to spend the fee from his latest movie on a pot of skin serum.

Mr Clive Owen

He looked at me with ill-concealed lust  failed to register my existence and so I had a good peruse of the OPI stand and bought this orange polish from their Summer 2011 Texas range.

  

On the right is the OPI polish, on the left  a polish from Accessorize in Starlet, cheap as chips but my goodness, it stays on like a dream

When I had finished annoying the OPI ladies by putting the polishes back in the wrong place (nail polish, bringing people together) and walked back past the Creme de la Mer counter Mr O was still there - bless, either he was lurking, hoping to talk to me or there was some terrible shortage of premium unguents for Hollywood A listers.. He was very tall, tanned and striking, in a dark suit.  But I just know he wouldn't have Mr Blighty's drafting skills...

I faced the ever hectic MAC counter at Selfridges and bought a lipstick called Vegas Vamp.

I hear that lipstick sales are up, an indicator of economic downturn; hear that Mr B? I am not spendthrift, I am an important economic indicator...

I like MAC - they don't take themselves too seriously.  I picked this lipgloss up a while ago - it's got a pic of Cruella de Ville on it, a true style icon indeed, though not dog friendly..

A few other things winked at me and asked me to take them home:

  

Orange belt from Zara

Dress from H&M - I took Piglet and his knitted vest from Winnie the Pooh as my style inspiration

  

Silk dress from Zara

 In fact it was only Mr Owen who did not to wink and beg to come home with me.

Just as well.

He would have hated my moisturiser.

The Planned Post Is Now Toast

Dahlings, I had such a lovely post planned for today.  It was going to be so elegant, so stylish, so sophisticated, so so so...er...

It was going to involve a delicious discussion of eye shadow.  Should I embrace the new eye shadow shape or will I just look like a demented panda let loose on a paintbox?

Very mauve eye shadow look from Harpers

Gwyneth on cover of March's Harpers with
lots of blue eye shadow

Also from Harpers, some complicated stuff with eyeliner  going on here

I was also going to touch on scarves and discuss the fun I have been having trying to learn to tie them a la MaiTai.  MaiTai is the Goddess of Scarves, actually she is quite simply a Goddess, and she has these great how to videos on her blog. http://www.maitaispicturebook.com/  I have decided that remembering to arrange your scarf into the basic bias fold is Key.  It makes all scarves look better, even non-Hermes ones (sigh - note to Mr B: I have been terribly good recently in all sorts of saintly ways I can't quite recall at the moment, surely a Hermes scarflet would be deserved??  NO  - I DON'T CARE WE JUST HAD THE RADIATOR HOUSING THERMOSTAT MCWHATSIT ON THE CAR FIXED FOR THE PRICE OF A HERMES SCARF, IT'S NOT THE SAME..) 

I was going to show you recent scarf purchases. (Note to Mr B: sourced at my spiritual home, Bicester Retail Village and thus heavily discounted (FF 2011) and so begging to be bought, crime not to etc etc)

Fendi scarf from Bicester Village

Dior scarf also from Bicester Village

Lots to look at on scarf

Even a bit of leopard print

I was also planning on a little light discussion of brooches, with which I have become ever so slightly obsessed, ever since I first clapped eyes on Faux Fuchsia's bee and Chanel numbers.  And then a new blogger I have discovered, Mrs Exeter, posted a picture of her recently acquired Chanel brooch. http://dressingmrsexeter.blogspot.com/

I have sourced a few brooches but must admit to having technical difficulties re secure attachment and so things drop off me now and again, at my age I am just thankful it's only a brooch and not teeth or  support garments.

Bee brooch from Butler and Wilson, £28

BUT NO, ALAS, the whole elegant swellegant post has been DERAILED.
Instead of glamour, I bring you:

MRS BLIGHTY JUMPING UP AND DOWN ON A LOAF OF BREAD

 It's all the fault of the bl**dy bread.

I bought Kingsmill Secretly Seeded, seduced by its stealth health claims and the jolly little arrow proclaiming "no bits".

Ha! No way was Boy 1 falling for this: there was much muttering along  the lines of " most disgusting  ....killing me....poison.....toxic....bits...revolting"

This morning for breakfast he requested cheese on toast, which I lovingly made.  Since I had an entire loaf to get rid of, I gambled on him not noticing the Health Bread under 1kg of melted cheese. Big mistake:  howls of anguish from Boy 1. All this with minus 5 minutes to school run.

Suddenly I found myself picking up the whole loaf in its plastic bag and throwing it at him, while ranting about spoilt children; Boy1 deftly parried the incoming loaf missile and burst into tears.  I then grabbed the bread and proceeded to jump up and down on it, at the same time shouting incoherently about starving children in Africa, aware even as I did so this was not very logical behaviour.

Reenactment

Boy 2 then burst into tears.

 Suddenly I was overcome with Maternal Guilt.  I had reduced both boys to tears, even innocent bystander Boy 2,who was no doubt traumatised by sight of mother losing the plot; I had damaged his delicate little psyche. Forever. He would never recover. He was Scarred for Life.

"Sorry darlings, sorry, Mummy is soooooo sorry" I grovelled as I cuddled Boy 2.

Boy 2 sobbed a bit more and then explained that he was NOT crying  because of his mother's nutsy behaviour.  Oh no, our sensitive little soul was wailing for another reason altogether: the biscuit accompaniment to his Muller Crunch Corner was soggy and thus not providing him with the comestible enjoyment to which he has become accustomed..in other words if his brother was going to throw a hissy fit about the breakfast offering, he was sure as hell not going to be left out..

Balls indeed

If you need me, I'll be in the bread aisle of our local supermarket, testing the texture of the bread.  With my feet.

The Return of Tights of Death and a Surprising Discovery

Hello ladies, just when you thought it was safe to go back on-line - Tights of Death ("TODs") are lurking, waiting to get you!

These are cracking, a fine example of TODs. What was I thinking? The peachy pinky colour makes my legs look like uncooked sausages with nasty additives in them. Just because they came from TopShop is no excuse.

They are equally ugly off. Look, weird pointy shaped feet! And the stretchy lace material is harsh and itchy, with a horrid lumpy seam up the side of each leg.

I even tried to make them work by channelling Kylie in her "Can't Get You Out of My Head" video. Not a success I feel.

But at least I have outdone Kylie in the plunging neckline stakes, my plunge goes all the way down to my feet. Which makes walking difficult.

As if one pair of blancmange like tights was not enough, I bought another pair in the same colour. I thought they would look lovely with this TopShop dress. Instead on me they look vaguely surgical, as if purchased from one of those large specialist chemist shops.

The label on the tights says it all - I am a "soft touch" to take strange TODs home.

I was so unsettled by the TODS I had to play dress up, to restore my image as a style guru. Note my lions head brooch, all us fashion bloggers are majorly into animal head accessories. And see how I followed the lovely MaiTai's example by folding a silk scarf into a top. I think my colourful outfit looks very "What Katie Wore". Katie wears wonderful clothes in a very original and often quirky way, and is such a pretty girl. In fact Katie often wears vibrantly coloured tights or leggings but never TODs. She carries off her tights with great panache, due to her youth and slender limbs.
http://www.whatkatiewore.com/

The scarf is Kenzo. I like it a lot, not least as it came from the Oxfam charity shop (ever the bargainista).

Finally, look at this, found at the bottom of the bed!

I picked him up at the airport in Sweden years ago and took him home with me - what can I say, I was single at the time, with a weakness for Scandanavians. His name is Anders and he still likes to keep in touch. Mr B is very understanding. The other night Anders and I sat up late drinking Aquavit and talking about the old days; I don't remember anything after that, but it must have been a wild night for him to end up in that state, with my Pervo Glove entangled round his antlers. Life really is full of surprises.

Have a nice weekend everybody and stay away from Aquavit (and moose)!