Day 32 | Lulu? C'est Moi!

Bonsoir mes amis et mama! I'm sliding in a bit late - with the pics of today's little ensemble. So Apols the light isn't great for a phone selfie. Truth is - I've had a very lazy Saturday sans enfants, avec le podge! We got up and I broke my juice 'fast' with clean and lean pancakes, bacon, black pudding, grilled baby toms, a wonderful mushroom melange wot I make and some agave syrup - which is a perfectly good alternative to the Maple Syrup I went to Tescos to get and forgot yesterday!

Nana Alert...

We've been pottering around our neighbourhood all day. Spent a lovely half hour in the Amnesty Book Shop and had Rooibosch and an Americano at the Boston Tea Party - a locao Bristolian cafe chain - well worth checking out if you're in the SW. We did Sudoku, read a Beidecker on Rome, and pondered the big question about who will replace Brucey on Strictly Come Prancing.

We're settled on Julian Clary - who isn't in the running, but should be.

The Dress: Worn inside out - I feel less dumpy in it this way.

The Rest: Lovely little Benetton jumper with 3/4 sleeves and a V. Gap Cardy - best charity shop purchase ever - cost me a quid in the 'sale' had it 7 years - and it doesn't owe  me a penny! Grey marl tights, green plastic ring. Betty's ring and a little grey beret...

The Shoes: Glorious faux snakeskin clompers - a sort of dull green. Ted Baker. Also bought in a Sale - years ago and dragged out every Spring. Might be my fave platforms. (My treasured De Havilland's had to be discarded after a freak accident involving my crystal ball - I am NOT lying!).

The Doo: Woefully undone and messy - you couldn't drag a comb through this haystack!

The Pancakes: 100g organic oats, 200g ricotta/cottage cheese (I use a combination), 4 eggs. That's it! Beat them all together (I grind the oats a bit if they're big). Add a little soy milk to loosen the batter.

Use a really good pancake pan - and you don't need to butter it.

Pop a ladle of mix onto pan and jiggle it to level it. (These make thick pancakes not crepes).

When you see little bubbles popping over the whole surface - flip for a few more seconds.

Pile up, interleave with grease-proof paper if you can be faddled.

Yahoo! So good for you it's perfect!

Day 17 | Java Jive

 Morning! I'm weaning myself back off coffee - so you'll not get much sense out of me today. I've woken up with the same headache I went to bed with and I'm feeling decidedly flimsy as my dear pal Hilary would say. So to distract everyone from the peaky, strained  - mad behind the eyes,  little face that greets them today - I've gone with more Purple!

I do love purple - it's the grown up girl's pink - which I also love. Truth is there isn't a colour I don't love - except perhaps mustard. Although I could be persuaded to wear mustard for the right shoes. What?

Today I've had to modify the line of my jumper. Worn at full stretch it made me feel frumpy and fat. I am neither and so I had to raise the hemline - to uncover a tapering line into the bodice of the dress. It's a small adjustment but it makes a huge difference. So far it's staying put.

I love the corsarge of yesterday's outfit - so I've added it again to day - with all the placcy, junky jewels too.

So to be honest - I feel like yesterday's coffee grounds in the ooky bin - but I think I look pretty acceptable no? A cute little happenstance is that the colour of the jumper picks up the remains of the purple chalk slices in my hair. Bonus!

Note: No make-up was harmed in the making of this blogpost. I may be forced to wipe on a pink smile before I head out to fetch Bakery Thursday on a Friday. (Oh do keep up).

The Dress: Worn underneath stuff.

The Rest: Gorgeous purple jumper modified. Shocking Pink 'Ladder' tights - Jonathan Aston. Pink and purple knuckle dusters. Betty's ring. Pink Silk corsarge. Debenhams. (check out their hat dept in the Sales - for loads of brilliant silk flowers and stuff - pick up the scruffy ones cheap and borrow someone's iron to smarten them up - smart huh?).

The Shoes: Carmen Miranda purple suede sandals. Kurt Geiger.

The Eyewear: Purple cats eyes sunnies as yesterday. I pick most of my sunnies up at TK MAXX but I can't actually remember where these come from. I've had them a long time.

The Do: Undone

The Bakery Order: 1x giant steak pasty, 1x cheese and onion pasty, 1x yoghurt topped flapjack, 1x Cherry Bakewell and 1x Chocolate Bus. 1x organic 6seed loaf - thick cut.

The youngest teen used to have a huge sausage roll - but now prefers to have the fresh bread with some soup. The oldest is a veggie and has hummus to eat the crust of his pasty with. I don't have cake or pastry or bread.

I am a blinking SAINT! 

Just saying...

As if to match my mood Ken is playing Leonard Cohen singing Suzanne... from Ms Vega's 'Tracks of my Years' segment.

"She is wearing rags and feathers from Salvation Army counters ..."

Day 12 | Swinging My Pants with Orla Kiely

Yoo hoo! Super Saturday proved to be a bit of a let-down for the Englishman in my life. The sun is shining in the SW on Slumpabout Sunday and we have been out and about in it. Podgey went all northern and abandoned his jumper going about  bare armed!

Really iPodge -  take heed of the old saying ' the wise gal ne're cast a clout til' the Summer Sales are out... ' This applies to chaps too you know. The man who ventures out without his pully in the Spring time - will be shivering and whining by the time you're walking back through the park at sundown!

The lovely day was too much of an opportunity to debut my new ugly/beautiful shoes So I've gone for a monochrome riff with little splashes of mismatched colour. Red handle, jade knuckle duster, mauve sunnies... Pink lippy - oh yes and and and.... Purple Pony Tail!

Loving my new hair. The blowdry fell through overnight - unusual for a Charlie doo - but it did take a bit of a battering in the construction this time! So my hair is a bit crunchy today. I'm looking forward to seeing what it looks like without the benefit of a swish swoosh!

I've prepped the kitchen ready for the sparks who is due tomorrow morning. His partner is about to have their first baby and she's due any minute NOW - so we're bracing ourselves for a delay. I've got a little pressy for the newborn and the mammie. A little bit of luxury - after all her hard work and before all the rest of the hard work!

In the meantime - I've found a place for all the kitchen tchotsky that accumulates on the surfaces. Lord I would NEVER be able to have a pristine, empty counter, kitchen. Imagine having to remember where EVERYTHING is!? I'd have a nervous breakdown trying to find the salt for my egg!

No I'm dreaming of a concrete counter-top, fronted with recycled scaff boards - the kind of kitchen you can make a mess in without having a hissy fit about crumbs and coffee spills.

I digress... of course I do.

The Dress: Worn conventionally without anything underneath. It's Sunny today.

The Rest: Black ballet cardigan - Gap. Black and White graphic patterned long skirt. Primarni. Stainless Steel cutwork heart on leather string. Present from iPodge - Milan. Betty's ring (which is a Cairngorm stone found by her husband in a setting he designed for her too. Given to me for my birthday. Treasured. ) Jade, plastic, knuckle duster. Boots.

The Shoes: White placcy, ugly, beautiful gladiators with rubber soles. Pradamark.

The Eyewear: Purple plastic fantastic sunnies. TKMaxx sale - they were £3.00! I MADE myself walk away from a perfect pair of red, cats eye sunnies - French Connection. Spotted in Boots and they were perfect for this outfit. Too exxy for an impulse buy in new hair week!

The Bag: Orla Kiely, jute bag for Tescos! I collect them.

Day 5 | Biba Diva

Blurry Rock Diva Shot. Or not! 

In every wardrobe lurks the perfect little leather jacket - no? Mine is this little corker - coveted and lusted after for many months. I have photographs of me in the nude/beige and the black version taken in-store, long before I landed my own. I have no shame  in matters of fash-on. In fact last year when considering my finances and thinking very, very hard about my shopping habit - I hit on my version of Chiconomics.

I realised that the shopping, searching, trying on and catwalking it about in the changing room part of the process represents a very high proportion of the overall 'happy' measurement when buying clothes.

So!  Thinks I. What about I give myself all of that excitement and fun - and none of the guilt? 

I could document how cute I look in an outfit - without ever handing over the moolah at the till. This my friends proved to be a perfect way of indulging my love of shopping without troubling my bank account, and while finances have evened out this year - I still take little changing rooms selfies to add to my collection of 'Clothes I Don't Own'.  Genius!  No no... No need to thank me - my little gift to you x.

I appear to have lost the top of my head and my leg in this photo - Podgey is no Bailey.

Ah ha! The missing leg...

To the details! 
After yesterday's Breaking Amish remodelled for Fixing Up the Shedish - I headed for the glam of a pair of 70's inspired platforms and the aforementioned Biba jacket. (I finally scored an almost brand new one on Ebay and saved myself over £200 smackers - the power of visualisation my friends.)

The Dress: Worn right side up and right way around!
The Rest: Uber soft, gunmetal, scoop neck tee with cuffs - Whistles. Most excellent beige Biba leather jacket worn with the cuffs unzipped. Ancient but fantastic, greige lace tights. Betty's ring, green knuckle duster and green perspex, printed bangle. (Present from sister I think).  Gorgeous semi-precious stone necklace on burgundy ribbon, Harvey Nicks - bought with birthday cash from generous FatherOne a few years ago - in a sale. It was eye-wateringly fancy and expensive even with 70% off! Can't now remember the designer...
The Shoes: Fave and much loved Ted Baker platforms - green faux snakeskin and suede.
The sunnies: Gucci - natch!

Live by the Heel - Die by the Heel my friends...

I'm giving myself a hefty 7/10 for this - I felt very cool. We bumped into Dino - the owner of a little Italian restaurant and deli supplies business while we were out and about - and an appreciative up and downer from a stylish, Italian chap is worth a few points I'd say.

Off to catch up on the Rugby - no spoilers...

Podgey = Proud Englishman
Luli =  Gobby Welsh Bird

Result = Loud sofa-shouting action come match day!

Here's one of those in-store pics. You can see the jacket and the sunnies better. Also my much loved, now long gone, blonde hair...