I feel very lucky to live within striking distance of a park. As someone who grew up near nature, living in a city can sometimes feel very stifling. The park is like a sparkling emerald in a sackful of builders rubble and when I go there I can at least pretend that I am far away from the urban jungle.
I bought the frock that I'm wearing today a few years ago from a charity shop in Holloway.
Needless to say I was immediately drawn to its zesty colour and quirky print but after also seeing that it was 'MADE IN SWEDEN' (just like me) I knew that we belonged together.
I wonder how it ended up in England?
The pose in the next pic made me think of Desiree, she always pulls off the best poses.
If there was a prize for wicked posing, she'd win it every time!
My beloved on his trusty two-wheeled steed...
I love our daily jaunts to the park :)
Soon the ground will have dried off and we'll be able to lay on the grass and watch the clouds drift by, I can't wait!
Here's a wee happy tune for you to tap your foot to, enjoy ;)
The sun finally decided to make an appearance in the afternoon and a mass exodus ensued here in our neck of the woods. Houses were emptying at a rate of knots and people were pouring into the park. Sun starved North Londoners are grabbing even the minutest opportunity to bask in the sun. Every single bench was occupied with impromptu picnickers and the boating lake, playground, skate park, tennis- & basket ball courts were all a hive of activity. There were so many people feeding the birds that even the pigeons had had enough. I think it is safe to say "DING DONG! THE WINTER IS DEAD!"...good riddance!
I bought the frock that I am wearing today from the same charity shop that the green maxi from Thurdays post came from and I've had it for just as long.
Once when I wore it, two Swedish ladies started slagging it off to each other after spotting me wearing it on a bus, thinking that it was safe to do so cause they were in London and I wouldn't understand what they were saying. As they were getting off the bus I beamed a smile at them and said 'ha en trevlig dag' which means 'have a nice day'. I wish I'd had a camera cause their faces were priceless.
Today there were no people slagging my frock off though, instead it got a few lovely compliments :)
The guy at the local Afro-Caribbean cosmetics center where I buy my liquid eyeliner & henna even asked me where I had bought the dress saying that his wife would love it.
For me a life without wearing frocks like this one would be a very dull one indeed.
Give me psychedelic prints, a rainbow of colours and one-off vintage pieces and I am a very happy woman.
Speaking of a rainbow of colours, check out the visual delight I am treated to on a daily basis...
The wig emporium two doors down has expanded yet again, they keep on going from strength to strength, wigs are very much in demand seemingly. This is the one that I've got my eye on...
WARNING: Posh pinkie in the reflection, who needs a Royal Doulton teacup when one has a camera ;)
Hope you've all had a cracker of a weekend with some sunshine to make you smile..
Thanks a million for all your lovely comments, I'm so sorry if I haven't been around to visit your blog or left a comment in ages, I hang my head in shame. I promise I'll try my best to get around to visit you all before next week is over, you lovely peeps ROCK!
Loads of love,
I'm wild about "tarty textures" and I have a few frocks made from crinkle effect stretch fabric.
I bought this electric blue beauty on eBay a few years ago...
This is pretty much a dream frock for me as it incorporates several of my obsessions.
I love ostentatious 80s frocks that make no excuses for being bold as brass.
Delightfully sluttish textured stretch, ravishing ruffles, perfectly puffy shoulders and an in-yer-face primary colour to boot, it ticks all my boxes!
Vintage 80s dress, Steve Madden boots, layered tights, FROCKTASIA earrings & necklace, a selection of bangles.
Mark & I went to a wee birthday get together at Mike's pad last night. I met Mike when I went out with Leslie a few weeks back. His awesome band Super Full Moon were playing at The Old Queens Head where Erik was doing a gig too. Mike is a super talented singer songwriter and all-round lovely chappy and it was really nice to meet some of his fabulous friends and have a wee jam too :)
You can check out Mike's band on ReverbNation HERE, they are brilliant!
I was a wee bitty woolly headed after last nights festivities it has to be said but my hero and instructor extraordinaire Jon pulled me though it, he's such a star!
So in a few weeks my certification will come though and we can start planning for the next stage of our diving education which will be the Rescue Diver Course. I'm really excited and I can't wait to get cracking with it. Hopefully we'll be able to do some dives at Wraysbury in out wetsuits before long but the current water temperature is still a bit too much like an arctic enema for my liking.
Here I am looking ultra glamorous & feeling like a bag of old and moldy ass...
How am I holding that poor plastic baby? It's probably a good thing that I've never spawned!
Last night I had a horrible nightmare. I was stuck in a scenario that was similar to Stephen King's The Mist but instead of being besieged by giant arthropods and tentacled monsters I was being stalked by bloodthirsty zombie bears...
I must have frowned like a wee grumpoid in my sleep cause when I woke up the normally faint creases in-between my eyebrows had turned into furrows deep enough to plant something in.
Mark often tells me off for scrunching my face up when he's taking photos but I can't help it.
More often than not it's got nothing to do with being displeased, worried or angry. Bright light, reading for a long time & lack of sleep usually does it.
Curse my frowny furrows of non-worry!
Still I mustn't complain, for a face that has been exposed to the elements and endured the emotional roller-coaster that is life for almost forty years, its holding out not too badly.
I was keeping a beady eye out for any pesky zombie bears in the park, you just never know ;)
We actually bumped into a couple of zombies a few week ago when they were filming up there.
I think I'd probably wear something a bit more like this instead, a super long maxi dress would greatly diminish your ability dodge bloodthirsty bears.
The apocalyptic soundtrack would have to be this tune, enjoy ;)
I bought the frock that I'm wearing today in a charity shop on Peckham High Street a couple of weeks before I got married in 1998. I had planned on getting hitched in it but three days before the big day I found another frock in the same shop that felt more right for a December wedding & one that looked better with hubby's kilt and pirate shirt ensemble.
I remember getting my fishnets tangled up in my boot zip when I was trying the dress on in the charity shop and spending what felt like hours in the changing booth trying to untangle them but to no avail. In the end I had to shamefacedly shuffle up to the counter to borrow a pair of scissors & cut myself free.
Something similar happened to me whilst travelling to The Dandy with all my gear last Saturday. I was wearing layered tights and the bleeding nets got tangled up in my camera bag zip, don't ask me how?! No scissors to hand so I ripped the buggers and removed them once I got to The Oxford, thankfully I had a pair of opaques underneath.
I'm not into the formulaic White Wedding, I've been to a few and it's really not my bag.
After a quick thirty minute "Will you?...I do" session at the Southwark register office, we went for a pub crawl with our guests. People could come and go as they pleased, no sit down dinner (with awkward table partners), no tedious speeches, no unwrapping of yet another frigging toaster, just a bunch of our favourite peeps getting together and having a hoot and a half!
My beloved mum who came over to attend our nuptials and "wedding crawl " insisted that I'd have my hair cut before my special day. Me being a complete skintoid even when it comes to spending other peoples money went down to the "blind barbers" and had my hair absolutely butchered, so my wedding hairdo was an interesting Spock-esque bowl cut. I didn't care though, I was getting married to the loveliest man I had ever met and that blew anything else out of the water. If I would have had to get married dressed in a hessian sack & as bald as a coot, I would have still felt like the luckiest girl in the world that day.
Did you have a traditional white wedding or did you go with something completely different?
Do you still have your wedding dress and if so have you ever worn it since your big day?
I know that quite a few of you have chosen not to go down the 'getting hitched' road but do you still have an item of clothing from when you first got together with your partner or X, something that you could never part with?
Today's tune is my favourite by Green Day...it simply had to be, enjoy ;)
Today was another beautiful day here in North London.
Is it safe to say that spring has sprung now?!
I started reading my First Aid book this morning, Mark says it's all pretty straight forward, common sense stuff which means I'll probably have to read the book twice before the information anchors itself in my flibbertigibbet brain. These are all very valuable skills to have and I am really happy to be doing this course. Last time I took a First Aid course was at school about three hundred years ago, so if someone collapsed in front of me today, I'd be hoping that someone else could step in and help but hopefully by Saturday night I'll be more than confident to intervene myself should it ever become necessary.
Remember Lilo, the angel winged Canada goose that stole my heart back in February? Since the first time I spotted her, Mark and I have been making regular trips to the pond to feed her and her friends. In the middle of the pond (or boating lake as the council likes to call it) there's a little island and whenever Lilo wasn't about that's where I gathered she'd be as she obviously can't fly. I'd never actually seen her swim until the other day though. She'd been "missing" for a couple of days and I was starting to worry about her. I went up to the park as per usual, took a spin round the pond but no sign of her however as I was leaving I spotted her bobbing across the water. It's very good to know that the birds have a safe roosting place, away from the local foxes.
Wearing my vintage 70s lurex dress today made me feel all disco and had me searching YouTube for the funkiest tunes from that era.
