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Born Too Late....

20/8/2015

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Born Too Late…a song by The Poni-Tails in 1958.

Before the summer departs, I want to show you my favourite and my best (oh how I miss Charlie and Lola!), pretty summer skirts.

I’d been looking for a skirt that I could ‘twirl and swoosh’ in for a while and then, whaddya know, two come along at the same time. 
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Where other skirts failed - these succeeded (though my little fella and photographer thought the white skirt looked like a tea-towel. Charming!). They magically give me a waist, are a perfect length and are available in 3 colours (blue, white and black). I say available, I wasn’t quick enough to get a black one and I can't even find the white and blue ones on the H&M website anymore (apologies). Honestly, this summer has been so frustrating regards buying, wearing and sharing clothes quick enough on the blog - I feel like it’s been speeded up somehow. I love Autumn and Winter clothes, I really do, but just when I’ve found skirts I feel feminine and pretty in, someone presses fast forward to the next season! Not sure who I should direct this complaint to, but if you are, please let me know and I will write him/her a serious letter. 
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My H&M skirts both have a definite 1950’s feel to them, don't you think? 

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The delightful Audrey Hepburn
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And the slightly unhinged, though very pretty, Betty from Madmen
With World War II and rationing over, there was more material available so skirts got fuller and as the decade went on, designs got more intricate with pleats and layered petticoats – such a fun era for fashion. 

Though, washing the clothes wasn’t as glamorous as wearing them. A lot of clothes were more than likely hand-washed (and handmade come to think of it!) and even if you were lucky enough to own a washing machine, it would have been a twin tub - less labour intensive than doing it by hand, but by no means easy. Lifting the sodden washing into the spinner with wooden tongs was hard work – though good for keeping the arms nice and toned, I’m sure!

And if doing the washing wasn’t enough of a faff – fridges weren’t commonplace either and there were definitely no freezers. So, that meant shopping every day for 
groceries – yawn! And no ready meals, no microwaves...oh jeez.

In hindsight, not sure I was born too late actually as I would have been, most definitely, a lousy (and very stroppy) wife/mother/friend/person in the 1950’s.

Mr. B:    “What do you mean, ‘would have been’?”
Me:        “Oh, shut ya face!”
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Yellow...

14/8/2015

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In my last blog, having mentioned the words comfy and comfortable far too many times, I felt the need to do something wild and crazy. And so I did. Sunday morning, whilst drinking my cup of tea, I ordered every item that I had marked in the new H&M catalogue! Kerrazy huh?! Ok, maybe not, but it was definitely exciting.  The thrill transported me back to my childhood when me and my friend next door used to go through her mums Freeman's catalogue and write ridiculously long 'wish' lists. We never actually ordered the items of course but the occasional sneaky peek at the boys underwear section gave us a thrill and a giggle. Anyway, I’ll let you know when my H&M goodies arrive.

So, yellow. It was big news last year and in my world, it still kinda is.

This stripy grey and yellow t-shirt caught my eye in NEXT a couple of weeks ago - no surprise given it’s so bleedin’ bright!
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On its first outing to a country fair, (yep, it just took off all by itself one sunny morning!) the yellow stripes seemed to attract some of those teeny tiny little black flies. I feared that after an hour or so, the yellow would be concealed by millions of the little blighters rendering the yellow stripes black. Flashback to a film I saw when I was little that showed a VW Beetle covered in bees. I Googled it and it was a film called The Savage Bee’s dating back to 1976 – not sure why I was watching such horror at such a tender age but, hey ho! Anyway, just so you know, the stripes stayed yellow and didn’t attract any more insects than anyone else’s t-shirts (or cars!) – so all was OK. Now, as luck and the law of sod would have it, this t-shirt is no longer on the NEXT website (you have to be so quick with this summer stuff!) but take a look at one similar.

And keeping to the grey and yellow theme, I love how this necklace brings my grey tee to life.

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The pretty top below was the result of a little snoop around the sales. I picked it up in New Look for £7 – bargain! Great with jeans.
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As you can see, I like to top and tail and so have teamed all 3 outfits with my yellow sandals that were from New Look last year.

I don’t always wear a lot of colour so it was good to be a bit bolder in my not-so-mellow-yellow.

Did you know that colour conveys powerful messages and affects us all physically, mentally and emotionally? Scientifically, it’s the first thing that we register when we're assessing anything.

A person’s response to a colour is subjective of course, but if we apply the rules of colour psychology to what I'm wearing here, I would be perceived as confident, optimistic, creative, youthful, friendly and approachable.

I’d like to think that I’m all of those things but I’m probably pushing my luck on the ‘youthful’ front.

Though, I still feel like a 21-year-old to be honest. (Don't we all - nudge, nudge, wink, wink!) 

M x

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Feeling Hot Hot Hot...

11/8/2015

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Last week we were on the beautiful and very hot island of Majorca.

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It was so hot that I didn’t really want to be dressed at all to be honest. I just wanted to be comfortable* so I tried to avoid anything too clingy or tight. I actually packed a pair of white jeans which I remember laughing at every time I opened the drawer – though maybe that was the heat sending me doolally.
 
And on the two occasions that I did succumb to blow drying my hair, I would have to shower again straight after just to cool myself down. Anyway, I imagine me banging on about the heat isn’t that interesting, especially if when this post’s published it’s peeing down with rain again!

So, let’s move on. I can’t include links for the outfits shown in this post because they are not current (oh my gaad, I’m so last year dahling!), so just enjoy the pictures and you can thank me later for not encouraging you to spend your hard earned cash but instead be inspired to check out the older, perhaps forgotten gems that might be hiding in your wardrobe.

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I usually wear this dress, from H&M, with a skinny belt but for comfort* and to keep cool, I wore it without. If I could have waved a wand and made 6 of these dresses in different colours and patterns magically appear at my villa - I would have worn one every day of the holiday. 
This outfit, together with perfectly smooth hair, was soon destroyed by Mr. B who picked me up and jumped into the pool with me in his arms! Oh, how I (eventually) laughed. Actually, it was very funny. The kids and our friends who were over for a BBQ thought it was totes hilaire too! Dress recovered fine from its chlorine dip by the way, but the hair - not so much!

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This is a skirt from River Island that I bought about 3 years ago and it’s still a fave of mine. Love the high split.
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I wore it casual for daytime and then more glam for an evening out. 

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Some of you will remember this Primark dress from last year. I actually think I like the palm tree pattern more than I like the dress itself now to be honest, but it was comfy*and it did the job whilst away. 

Here are some other great things that did a great job this holiday. I’m going totally off piste now as not clothes related at all – but stay with me here as you may want to consider them for your own trip! (OK, so you may end up spending some money, but not a lot).
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Look at this little gadget resting in my hand. This is a speaker that makes a good quality sound that defies its size. Charge it up and plug it into your phone, iPod or tablet etc and ‘play dem holiday toons’.  It comes in eight colour choices and as luck would have it (for you, not me because I paid full price - grr) they're in the sale on Amazon
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Now, you’ve all probably heard about the benefits of coconut oil already, but I can vouch that it’s rather good. I like that it’s stupidly versatile – like an edible/skin friendly version of WD40! I used it as an eye make-up remover, night cream for my face and a body moisturiser. And, had we forgotten to buy oil to fry our morning eggs, I could have used it for that too. A word of warning though, it turns to liquid at 24 °C (76 °F) so, make sure you take it in a container that won’t leak and that’s big enough to fit your hand or spoon into when it turns solid again, which it undoubtedly will when you land on English soil. Oh, and a little goes a long way, so you don't need to take a whole jar as shown above.
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And thank goodness for these nifty little adaptors for your appliances. Nothing new or outlandish I know but, what I did notice this year, with the kids in tow, was how many more we needed to ensure that their (very important, couldn’t possibly live without) devices could ALL be charged at the same time whilst ensuring there was a spare one for me in case I felt the need to straighten my hair at any point!

Ok, I think that’s about me done and I'm sure you have more important things to be doing but before you go, let me show you some tiles (I told you I was going off piste!) - I love tiles.
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These are the walls in a rather swish hotel loo in Palma that we visited on the way to the airport. My kind of tiling. Smash ‘em up and create your own pattern - no spacers or match sticks required!

And keeping on the tile theme, I bought myself this pretty coaster whilst we were away....
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....it will go nicely with my other tile coasters - which I made myself by the way. Simply order samples from Fired Earth and cover the backs with felt so they don’t scratch your surfaces. 

Et voila....
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....be afraid, Kirstie Allsopp, be very afraid! 
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Salud! Here's to being out on the tiles in the comfort* of my own home! 

* I keep mentioning the word comfort. Think I need to do something wild and crazy as I’m getting way too comfy for my own good!

See you all again soon with a (less random) new post. 

M x

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     Melanie has a knack of injecting her knowledge, personality and humour into every piece she writes which keeps the reader coming back for more. 


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