Memories from 11 years ago

Hi there!

Phew, made it to the holiday!

I finally got my computer back after it went wrong about a year and a half ago.  I gave it to my friend N who is an IT guy and he did repair work on it for me before lockdown. We then didn't see him for ages and then he had to reinstall software for me after I set up passcodes.

He did actually give it back to me in March (he had to do a job at the local school so did a doorstep drop!)  but I've not actually used it till now as I was using my school laptop!

I used it on Wednesday for the first time as my school laptop is in for upgrading and what a delight it was to find all these old photos on there in neatly organised and dated folders, courtesy of my late Father-in-Law who was the central repository for all photos for the family!

I was having a look and found these photos from 11 years ago when CBC and I went to Exmoor for our first May Bank holiday together.

Ah, it was such a lovely holiday.  We had a night in Cheddar Gorge as CBC had a cycle Sportif race in Wells (whilst he did that, I went potholing in Cheddar!) 

We then drove to Exmoor for 2 nights, staying in a delightful historical B&B called Cutthorne which we went back to about 2-3 years ago.

Young CBC!  Ah, I remember this photo so well where he looked like Mr Tumnus! And that green jumper was one I always liked him wearing!

We had the most delightful walks in Exmoor. It's a really underrated place.So quiet and lovely.

On the way home, we stopped in Bath for the day and went to the Spa AND visited the Jane Austen centre.  Here I am mooning over Mr Darcy.

Happy memories.

Hope you are well!

xx

 

Does exactly what it says on the tin

 

As a teacher, sometimes you have a hard time marking children's work and it is sometimes a bit disheartening.  

However, sometimes, they write or do something that really makes you giggle.

In this case, you need to read my instruction in the box.

Then look below as to how he interpreted my instruction.

It made me giggle a lot!!!

TARDIS Tuesday- Amy Pond in The Curse of the Black Spot AKA- the day I had bright pink legs at school.

 Hi there,

Oof, I'm tired! Went to bed waaaay too late last night after doing some marking I've been putting off as I've got reports to do and need to use the marking for those too.  Definitely felt rather ratty at school today.

Today's outfit for TARDIS Tuesday is 11th Doctor companion Amy Pond's outfit from the historical series 5 episode, The Curse of the Black Spot, set aboard a pirate ship. 

Image borrowed from:
https://impossipondrobe.livejournal.com/11393.html

She begins in a pink and grey Uniqlo checked shirt, worn with a peach-coloured cardigan.  She wears a very short fitted denim skirt with hot pink tights and brown knee-high boots.

Later in the episode, Amy dons a tricorn hat, a grey buttoned man's coat and a brown leather strap to hold her cutlass once she becomes part of the crew.

Here's my version:

I wore a similar version of this outfit back in May 2018, 3 years ago but with a few changes.

The first thing I started with was the shirt.  My shirt is also from Uniqlo, bought second hand but it isn't exactly the same shirt, though I think it is pretty similar.

I added my pink Primark tights- the pink tights are pretty iconic. I got rid of a lot of my bright tights collection and shared them with bright tights lovers Polyester Princess Ann and Becky as I decided I didn't like them but I kept this pair for this very outfit.

The next element I added was the skirt.  I don't have a fitted denim skirt (nor do I want one) but I do have this black Zara skirt which my work colleague gave me when she moved back to Canada 6 years ago.  Finally, I added my brown knee-high Italian boots, bought from eYe Boutique in Ilford back in 2009 or so.

 I got lots of compliments on the outfit today from colleagues as they don't often see my legs apparently, even though I wear leggings all the time!

When I got home, I added CBC's grey Reiss coat for the above photo but sadly all the Tricorns were in the loft and I annoyed CBC as soon as I got home, apparently with a whinge-fest and ratching in my bag to find my camera, so I wasn't going to ask him to get them out.

If only I had the red hair.

I should add that I put on trousers over the top to cycle in- there was no chance I would be cycling in this skirt!

Ah well, better get on with those reports!

Hope you are well.

xx

Lobsters and Langoustines

 Hello there Friends,

I hope you are well. It's going to be one of those Sunday evening waffle posts with a random outfit photo thrown in for good measure.

Let's start with the outfit:

This outfit is one I would definitely like to wear for a swing-dancing social when/if we will ever be able to do those again.  I've often seen girls wear a BRILLIANT big trouser look which I've not really ever been able to recreate (also I worry about getting hot because I sweat and go bright red when swing dancing so generally a sleeveless dress is my best way to go.

I wore this for school and felt really happy with the outfit. Sadly, for me, being rather pleased with it, it was a commentless outfit- no one mentioned it.

I started with this cute blouse which has a pattern of Langoustines on it.  I LOVE lobsters so the print made me think of them.  It comes from a label/shop called Compania Fantastica but purchased from Castle Collection in Leigh on Sea, one of my few new retail purchases in 2020. I realised that I could achieve the Swing-dance look by adding these big trousers from ASOS (purchased  in 2017).

The Flamingo cardigan is from Collectif but I bought it in a charity shop in April.  The shoes were Charity-shopped also in 2018.

Accessories were these 60's-style earrings from Lorelai LQ, my Erstwilder Lobster brooch and my HM Samuel cross necklace (worn for my wedding).

The weekend has been a fairly average one.

Friday night, I got home from school around 6.20pm to find CBC wasn't home and his phone appeared to be switched off. I assumed he was in the pub with work colleagues but as he'd done an all-nighter the night before, I'm always concerned when he is AWOL and not answering his phone.  Around 19:05, I finally got a text to say he was on the train and would be home in 10minutes or so but at 20:10, when he finally came through the door, it transpired he'd fallen asleep on the train and ended up much further down the line. As trains are only every 30minute at that time of night, it was a long wait. Sigh.  After finally managing to get him out the door to the Chinese to get some take away (I was tired, had no desire to cook and the kitchen was a horrible mess).   As soon as we got home, I served up plates and he was asleep on the sofa.  No amount of cajoling would wake him so I ate mine, watched a funny movie called 'Crazy Rich Asians" and then decanted all his back into the containers and put it in the fridge.

The next morning, we got up horribly early at 7am, after having woken up a few times. A frantic-putting together of outdoor clothes, making thermoses of hot drinks and making sandwiches over what we could find and stale bread and we set off to CBC's school arriving at 8.05am.  We were there to help out with the Duke of Edinburgh Bronze award expedition day.  We were all supposed to camp on the school field on Friday night but, because of the wind, that was cancelled. It was a shame that, because of Covid measures, we couldn't go to the usual camp site in Danbury and walk around there, instead, the students had to do a walk based on the countryside around town. 

The 20 groups set off in intervals.  Our first job was to drive to a flyover and help supervise a check point.  After all the groups were through there, we headed off to go to the next check point which was in a more rural setting, after redirecting a few straggling students who were heading off in the wrong direction.  We stayed there a while and had a little meander around, chatted to some students. We were singing a round called Old Bill Jones and a dog walker walked past us. We just carried on singing and when the next group of students came, they told us the dog walker told them we were singing.

After that, we went on a little drive to go and check the students were ok.  At one stop, we found some Three Cornered Leek which tastes very similar to Wild Garlic.  I picked a load (ironically, when we got home, I discovered it is growing in my garden, and it is apparently incredibly invasive!) to make pesto out of.

Our final destination was the car park at the golf course where the students would be ending. Along with another colleague, we went for a circular walk, whilst keeping an eye on the GPS trackers as to when the first students would be arriving, and then headed back. We saw some horses, an open air cinema and a starling popping in and out of a nest in a tree hollow (I have a video, will post tomorrow) and then headed back.  The students ended up arriving in dribs and drabs- we collected map cases, trangeas and GPS trackers.  Annoyingly, the last 2 groups ended up being an hour late as they started heading totally in the wrong direction at the last minute and CBC had to go and rescue them. We finally got home around 5pm.

After a VERY welcome cup of tea and a shower, we got dressed up nicely (oh so nice to get dressed up for a good reason!) and headed out to the Thai restaurant which was beautifully quiet with only 2 other tables occupied (unlike many other venues in the area which were very full) where we had a really delicious meal.

When we got home, CBC wanted to watch Eurovision. I, knowing he would fall asleep pretty swiftly, suggested that it was cold and we should take the laptop up with us to watch it sitting in bed.  I was correct and after about 3 songs, he was asleep. I switched the laptop off and went to sleep too.

This morning, we got up around 9am. CBC got dressed for cycling.  I got some washing loads together and put them into the machine. After a shower, I joined church on Youtube (and last week's service which I'd missed).  After that, I did some putting away, sorted the horrendous kitchen, hung up washing, put more washing in, emptied the compost caddy and did the weekly 'school teabag ripping up and putting on the garden' procedure and then mulched my strawberry plants and added some straw around them (which I've seen Sophie do in the past) to use the straw with came in my birthday hamper.  I then put away clothes.

CBC and I then went to the local garden centre (he was very impressed at its size - it looks tiny from the outside) and we picked up 3 new plants and 125litres of compost, 110litres of top soil and a bag of horticultural grit as well as some Willow trellis to try and tame the Clematis along as it ripped down the previous metal wire one.  There's also a greengrocers stall who sets up there every weekend and we bought some plastic-free veg from him- potatoes, asparagus (Kent), aubergines, sweetcorn, carrots, cherry tomatoes.  Then a brief trip to the COOP for bread (and lots of reduced bits).

When we got home, CBC repotted the new plants, we put up the trellis and then we finally filled my birthday planter (which CBC recently put on casters) with soil.  I then planted Gladioli bulbs in it. I plant to put wildflowers in it too and to plant my Dahlias in it (they're doing well in their individual pots.  I also planted out my remaining Courgette plant- although I'm worried about its chances of survival in the bed (the other two look awful!), it's just too big for the pot now.

Finally, I plated up the left over Chinese from Friday and we ate our dinner watching some more Eurovision. He lasted 3 songs before going to sleep. 

One week left of school!

xx

Music about birds

I love birds! I've been fascinated with Bird Song for quite a few years, more so since I started teaching some bird song lesson as part of my Year 2 Music curriculum.  There are about 14 birds whose song I can recognise easily.  

Back in 2000, I went to Iceland for a 3-4 day trip. It was the most jam-packed wonderful holiday.  My Mum has an Icelandic penpal, Erla, and she worked at the Reyjavik radio station and she got tickets for us to go and see the Iceland symphony orchestra on the night we arrived in Iceland. 

It was a fantastic concert to see because it was all based on Bird Song and also included a flute concerto by Haukur Tomasson, which was brilliant for me to see as a flautist.  

Many composers, throughout the years have been fascinated by Birdsong and incorporated it into their music, as well as those I saw in that concert and I thought it would be an intriguing blog post to share some examples of less familiar, as well as more familiar music inspired by Bird song.  Some composers have used it in a stylised way, others in a more precise way, carefully transcribing and translating bird song onto instruments, others, it is a descriptive influence rather than something tangibly recognisable.

Here is a piece of music about Bird song by the Finnish composer Einojuhani Rautavaara entitled Cantus Arcticus.  This piece is interesting because it has instruments imitating birds from the Arctic countries but it ALSO has recordings of these birds that play at the same time as you perform. You hear SO many different birds singing.  Rautavaara travelled very far north to Liminka in Northern Finland to record bird song in the marshlands.  This piece was in that Iceland Symphony orchestra concert and since I couldn't read the Icelandic programme, I had no idea that there would be sections of recorded birdsong where the orchestra was silent.  I was most perplexed when I heard the peeping begin.  I play this piece to my Year 2's.

I've been fortunate enough to perform this twice, which was fun as it starts with flute solos!  There are three sections

The next piece we heard in that concert was A flock descends into the Pentagonal garden by Japanese composer Toru Takemitsu. The composer had a vision of a single black bird leading a flock of white birds into a beautiful Japanese garden.  He was influenced by an American composer called John Cage and the piece also features pentatonic melodies- pentatonic music uses only 5 pitches.  Takemitsu is hugely influenced by nature and lots of his pieces have really evocative titles.  Perhaps this piece isn't particularly easy listening for you but there are some wonderful imaginative sounds in it.

Aside from the flute concerto, the final piece in that concert was Olivier Messiaen's Oiseaux Exotiques.  This French composer was utterly fascinated by Birdsong and he wrote many, many pieces based on Birdsong which he went out and transcribed from more common birds to the more exotic ones.  Oiseaux Exotiques features a solo piano as well as various wind instruments.  

I played this piece in my second year at university and played that screechy piccolo part! I remember my friend Ian playing the e flat clarinet part and he accidentally turned over 2 pages in the concert.  Luckily, I was tacet at that time and realised, so I calmly turned his page over and pointed to where we were.

Here is another  piece by the French composer, Oliver Messiaen, called Le Merle Noir- this means The Blackbird and it COPIES the song of the Blackbird , my favourite bird who actually sings LOTS of different patterns. It is for solo flute and piano and features solo sections of very fast jagged music played just by the flute and really does resemble the Blackbird.  I performed this for my 2nd year recital at university.

Onto the less modern music, easier listening perhaps.

Another French composer, Camille Saint-Saens wrote a piece about an AVIARY- this is a big cage/enclosure where lots of different birds are kept so it is supposed to sound like lots of birds twittering and singing together:   This is part of his Carnival of the animals and is very fun and fast. I performed this for the first time with my orchestra for a children's concert 2 years ago.

A relatively new composer to me, Herman Beeftink,  also wrote a piece for 3 flutes called Birds.  These are utterly charming pieces and I really can't wait to buy these to try!

The famous German composer Beethoven wrote a symphony for orchestra called The Pastoral symphony and  in one part, he gets the wind instruments (instruments you blow) to imitate bird song such as the Cuckoo and the Nightingale.  Here is the little section featuring the bird song.  This is one of the loveliest flute solos to play in the orchestral repertoire and I've been fortunate to perform it several times. You will also hear the oboe and clarinet joining in.

A Baroque composer called Gliucelli Respighi wrote a piece called The Birds for orchestra.  It is a proud sounding piece of Baroque music but listen out for the cuckoo and other birds in the music.

Another early piece of piano music is called The Cuckoo by Louis-Claude Daquin.  Can you hear the 'Cu-ckoo' repeated lots at the start?  I learnt this as a child and it is a really fun, not-too-hard piece to learn.

A modern composer from Britain called Johnathon Harvey wrote a piece called Bird concerto with Piano song which  is very clever as it uses the piano AND electronic instruments as well as a small orchestra AND 40 different recorded birdsongs.

The patriotic-sounding Romantic composer from England called Edward Elgar, beloved of the Last Night of the Proms, wrote a piece called Owls which is SUNG by a choir.  Listen out for when the choir sing, "Nothing," as this sounds like the hooting of an owl!

Perhaps one of the more famous Bird-inspired pieces is by the famous English composer, Ralph Vaughn-Williams, who wrote a piece for solo violin and orchestra called the Lark Ascending, which was supposed to imitate the sound and idea of a Lark flying free in the clear air.  Here's the opening section for solo violin- where the bird takes flight.

Finally, we are nothing without the real life musicians, our birds.  Here are some common birds and their songs- can you imitate them?

There are lots more pieces about bird song , but I thought this might be a pleasant introduction to some listening for you.

I hope you had a lovely day.

xx

TARDIS Tuesday- Clara's floral outfit from Hide.

Good Evening,

I hope you are well.

I am fine though I'm bemoaning my Bean plants which seem to have not taken well to being shoved out into the cold!  Poor things! They're gone all white and frail looking.

I've had my third teacher training student taking a lesson this year.  I go years without any and I've had three want to do lessons this year!

Today's outfit is 

This week's TARDIS Tuesday is one that I have tried to do a few times.  It is her outfit from Hide, an episode from Series 7 of Doctor Who.

Here is my picture of the outfit which I took at the Doctor Who experience. Clara wears a very 1990's button down dress with a navy casual-looking blazer, a red satchel, black wedged lace-up shoes, a little owl necklace and then some of the time, wears a Barbour jacket over the top.

Image borrowed from this Pinterest but ultimately belongs to the BBC

You can see it on her in these two pictures and you can see her leaning against the ancient stones of the spooky manner where the episode takes place.

IMage borrowed from ClaraOswaldCosplay.comhttps://claraoswaldcosplay.com

Here's this week's version:

It's almost identical to to the last time I wore it but this time, I have the screen accurate jacket but in a tan colour rather than the original grey.  This is quite a hard Clara item to find as there are SOOOOO many Barbour jackets available but the correct one doesn't turn up very often.

The dress is really comfortable to wear and works for my shape well. I wore Navy leggings rather than black tights- they are easier to cycle in.

My navy blazer is a comfortable jersey material- it looks smart but doesn't FEEL too formal.

I wish I could cycle in these Clarks shoes but wedges don't work too well with pedals!

This is an outfit I must wear more for work.  I  like it!

Hope you had an enjoyable day!

x

Style Imitating Art- Simultaneous Dresses- Three Women

 Hello there,

Today, I thought I'd join with Style Imitating Art after missing it for a couple of weeks.

The curator this time was Terri at Meadowtree Style and she chose the following painting: 

Sonia Delaney's Simultaneous Dresses (Three Women, Forms, Colours)
Painted 1925

Usually, according to Terri, her style is bright coloured, abstract, concentric circles but this painting is a little different from her usual style and nods to her other creative outlets, costume desining for Ballet, Stage and Films also.

There's some great strong colours and patterns in this painting and I could see lots of ideas to go with but today, I decided to focus on the main 3 women in the picture, rather than the background:

And yes, I decided to create a trio of outfits.

Each of these three outfits has 2 charity-shopped items in them (and the middle one has 3).

Let's look at each one individually:

My first one nods to the lady on the left.  Her main colours are blue and white.  I started with this Phase Eight Chevron skirt (CS Harp Southend) since the model is wearing triangular shapes. Karen Millen blouse (CS Scope Hexham). I DID want to find a pale pink top in my wardrobe to reflect her very pink skin, but I'm not sure I still have such an item that would work so instead.  My Florentine-bought blue boots completed the look (not charity shopped). I kept the accessories simple- just my bee necklace which bears no relevance to the outfit.

My second outfit is based on the central lady and I started with focusing on the brown, tan and burgundy shades on her outfit which I reflect in my Anokhi cotton trousers (CS Oxfam Harrogate).

I DID want to wear my brown vest-top but couldn't find it so instead, I went with this Tu broderie-anglaise-trimmed top (CS Barnados).  For the shoe front, I wore my recently bought Clarks Somerset T-bar sandals (CS Haven's Hospice).  My Nan's wooden necklace fitted with the vibe and I wore my 'fake plait' headband.

Outfit no. 3 is, in my opinion, the most boring outfit of the lot and is based on the lady in black. I had a dress with a similar neckline but much shorter so instead, I wore the same shoes as before along with Mango Culottes (CS Dog's Trust) and teamed it with a ruffle neck vest top from Beale's in Hexham before it closed (Sad!)

If you think you could put an outfit together based on this painting, let Terri know by tomorrow night (Tuesday)

Here are the details from her on what to do:

Send me your picture of your SIA inspired outfit along with a small blurb on how you were inspired to meadowtreestyle@gmail.com May 18th. I’ll share the submissions on my blog on Wednesday May 19th.

Anyone can participate and you certainly do not have to have a blog.

If you do share your inspirations on Instagram use the hashtag #StyleImitatingArt so we know you are there. You can also tag us in the images. Our Instagram names are: terrigardner_meadowtree, daenelt and 14shadesofgrey.

Even if you DON'T participate, let me know what you WOULD wear in the comments, if you had time to join in!

xxx

Dinosaurs and all that rubbish

Hello there!

Hope you are well.

I'm so glad it is the weekend!  It's been a long week but one with some good moments and some hairy ones!

The hairy involved me suddenly realising last night at 8.20pm, that I had left my handbag/rucksack on the train!

The good thing about it was that:

a)  my phone was in my pocket,

b)  my purse was on the floor at home

c) my lanyard with my bank card and all my important ID cards and train ticket etc was round my neck.

However, my front door keys and a Royal Mail Delivery card with my address on were in the bag as well as a few other things of sentimental note!

I knew exactly where I left it and at what time.

The frustrating thing is, there is just no way to phone a railway station.  If I could have just PHONED Shenfield station, I would have known where and whether my bag was there and had been picked up. But no, all lines are to a central source and most of those had shut at 5.30pm on a Friday. I hoped, upon hope, that because of Covid cleaning rituals, that a cleaner had picked up my bag instantly (as I was in the first carriage they would have checked and the train had terminated there, but feared if not, that a stranger was in possession of my keys and address!

This morning, I decided to get the train back to Shenfield to see if I could find anything out about it and happily- it was there AND I managed to get it back.  That was all rather a storm in a tea cup.

CBC had gone out cycling at 8.30am with his work colleague so after fetching the bag, the train was going back the other way in 4 minutes so I got the train back and went to the parcel delivery office to pick up the parcel from Royal Mail- it turned out it was a Hape harp that I had ordered from eBay! I saw one of these first at the Sage centre in Gateshead in their shop and had tried one and was suitably impressed by this lovely instrument for children. I remember it was £25 but I was going on a train and had no space at all in my luggage for it.  Next time I visited, they didn't have them. The previous week, I'd played some harp music for my Year 1's and I wished I had a harp-like instrument to share with them.  I didn't have one but I remembered the Hape harp and happened to have a search on eBay and found one for sale for £6 including postage.  I ended up finding another one for £12 as CBC liked the first one so much, we decided we wanted one for home as well so that was the second one arriving! I'm happy to have 2 for my initial price expectation!

I ended up walking around town with my bike pannier stuffed with the large parcel as well as the extra rucksack.  Charity shops were all very kind and allowed me to put my folded Brompton bike and very full pannier behind the till whilst I browsed and even in Wilko, after charming the very nice security guard, he let me park it (not folded) by the tills whilst I looked around.

I ended up with a very full pannier with vegetables from my lovely plastic-free greengrocer (he's called Karim- we introduced ourselves today!) and the harp and then a large jute grow bag for potatoes and a few other bits (including  a large bag of Wotsits- I don't buy plastic-crisp bags very often but I bought some today) 

When I arrived home, CBC had just arrived, his bike was parked by the garage and he was evidentally just about to open the garage. I parked up by his bike like a statue and gave him a surprise.

After we both had showers (he was super muddy and I hadn't had time to wash my hair in the morning), we drove to Leigh on sea to go for very late lunch. We were lucky to get a seat by the patio heater at Brunch co. and had delicious food, served by a charming, helpful waiter.  We also nipped into Scape Interiors and the Refill room where we acquired an Auberine plant!

Heading home, we went into the garden (after taking these photos)- I planted out my runner and French bean plants and CBC cut back the rampant Acanthus which seems determined to achieve World Domination at some point soon (you can see it at the very back on the right in the photos).  We also added water to the Coir compost I bought last week and I planted out some tomato plants.

 

Here's what I wore out for our trip.  This is the Dinosaur Run&Fly dress I mentioned in last week's post. I really like it being oversized.  I teamed it with my very old Primark cotton cardigan which has holes but is much loved and my red charity-shopped Clarks desert boots.

Here's a closeup of the 'Stuff'/'details' (thanks for the terminology Sheila/Vix).  My sterling silver bee necklace and these clever earrings from Lorelai LQ which are made out of repurposed bubble wrap mailers. I thought they suited the foliage from my dress.

Some good moments this week. I weeded a 1/3 of one of the raised beds at school and planted some very tiny Chard seedlings I've been trying to grow at school on my windowsill.  Had a bonkers session with my Year 2's on Thursday afternoon. Because it was Eid, we only had 36 in Year 2 in total (out of 90 children) so I just did a big Samba session with them all in the music lesson time which was great fun but DEFEANING!  After school, had a great session with my small drumming club- they are SO good and really are creative with their improvising. We've been doing some snare/tom-tom work which they are loving and I am too. I do like being able to get to know some children more- I've got a great bunch of boys and 3 girls.

On Thursday night, I finally got myself into gear and got a second piece together for our orchestra- I decided to write them an original Samba. It meant I went to bed around 1.15am getting it all typed into Sibelius and producing parts etc, but it was worth it- they made a great start on it on Friday.

Another good moment was the Year 5's who did their test on recognising different textures (monophony, antiphony, homophony, polyphony) and seemed to ENJOY doing the test- they did really well on the test too which was pleasing. 

Only had one horrible lesson this week which was with Year 6 and mainly because some of the boys just really lack manners and common sense. One on one, they are charming, but collectively, can be a real pain.  One of them felt so bad about his behaviour though, that he recounted the events to his mum and told her he felt bad about it so she emailed me on his behalf to apologise and we were fine when I next saw him.

Hope you are have had a good week!

xx

TARDIS Tuesday- Clara's outfit from Kill The Moon

Hi there,

Hope you are well.  I've got a stonker of a headache tonight and I had 3 good lessons with children today and one not so good one (it's that cocky, end-of-year-6 "We're so funny and cool and won't listen," combined with obnoxious difficult class anyway).

An annoying Scrabble moment earlier- I had a word which if I placed it, would have got me 86 points from only placing 5 letters- my opponent placed something there for a measly 38 points. Grr! I've also been playing against Beethoven!  He's an AI player but he's very, very good! It's funny because I am doing some work on Beethoven with Year 6.

Anyway, onto today's outfit.

This is worn by Clara Oswald in an episode in Series 8 entitled Kill the Moon.   It's a kind of ridiculous episode in which the premise is that the moon is in fact an EGG which hatches into a creature, which lays another egg! 

For a lot of the episode, she wears a red/orange spacesuit but when she's not out on the Moon surface, she wears this black and orange floral smock shirt dress along with a tan belt, black tights and a pair of wing-tipped brogue shoes from Dune.

Here it is:

Image borrowed from:
https://claraoswaldcosplay.dreamconnect.de/?p=639

I did a variation on this outfit back in 2014/15 (I did a post but can't find it!) using my Cath Kidston Paisley floral dress
And here's my version this time:

A fellow Doctor Fan and cosplayer had bought this dress second-hand from another cosplayer but it didn't fit her and she was desperate to sell it so asked me if I was interested in it. I was tempted and she offered it to me for a reasonable price (not a reseller price) so I decided to give it a go!

I was surprised when I received it as I thought it would be a cotton material but it's some sort of synthetic.  I wore it to church and found it really comfortable though, as always, tall girl problems with it being very short on me!

I was able to wear it with the screen accurate Bertie heel lace up shoes featured below.  Clara wears them with a few outfits so it was nice to be able to team them up.

A year 5 girl stopped me in the playground this morning and told me I looked beautiful!  I was rather surprised and touched! Much as it's nice to be told someone likes YOU or something you've done more, it's still nice to be told that!

I think I'll get my hair cut in Half term when I visit Northumberland.  Even though I'm finding it a pain being long, I will miss the length!

Tomorrow morning, I have my first new Junior Recorder club starting. It's going to be weird not starting in September but also doing it in the Dining Hall. Not quite sure how the music stand situation is going to work out yet!  Ah well, we'll give it a go!

Hope you are well.

xx

Weekend Wear

Hi,

Hope you are well.  I am fine- what a changeable weekend we have had.  

Yesterday was constantly wet, today, beautifully sunny and warm! Bizarre, how different the two were!

Yesterday morning, I woke up around 7.20am (so annoying that I have to drag myself out of bed during the weekend but, "PING!", I'm wide awake on a Saturday.)  I went outside to bring in our handmade stool which we'd left outside in the rain and whilst I was there, filled the myriad watering cans (ha! CBC seems to have forgotten about how annoyed he was about the watering cans) and every available receptacle with water from the water butt.  It's annoying how the waterbutt is leaking though!

Anyway, after an annoying 'waiting to do something' morning and early afternoon, I gave up on CBC who was having a nightmare trying to fit a new cog to his bike wheel and who was angrily trying to work it out after he lost an important link, I ran to the station to catch the next rail replacement bus to town...I was SO hot by the time I'd reached the station...but importantly, made my coach!

In town, I headed to the charity shop to look for something specific, which I didn't find, but I did come out with 2 lovely Ted Baker shirts for CBC and a brand new Dinosaur dress from Run&Fly which I've admired online for ages! It IS a size 14 and is thus rather baggy on me, but it feels quite comfortable!

I then headed to Mr Simm's sweet emporium to stock up on sweeties and headed to the nice greengrocer to stock up on Veg. The nice man remembered me and asked how my Mum was, last time he saw me, I was stocking up on things for for her (which I then dropped down the stairs).  Annoyingly, I had just missed the half-hourly rail replacement bus by 2 minutes after finishing here so I headed to Wilko for a look in the garden section. I came out with 3 bamboo toothbrushes, a large box of Coir compost (it's really good as you add water and it makes 40litres of rich, peat-free compost and weighs a lot less) and some seeded Desiree potatoes that were going cheap for 10p (mainly to avoid them going in the bin- there were SOOOO many though!).

When I got home, I planted out 2 of my tomato plants as well as 2 of my courgettes (please God, let them survive another night- I didn't cover them tonight and I know snails are marauding as I have removed them from several places and it is now raining!) 

Sunday morning, CBC went off to cycle 100miles (yes, that much) and I joined in with a church service online from a localish church which was lovely.  Super impressed by the vicar who played the piano AND led the worship singing- he was really good!  One of my favourite songs, which I've not sung for SUCH a long time, was part of the service, here it is below.

After that, after realising that CBC would not be getting back any time soon to go for a walk to see the Bluebells with me, I decided to go by myself.

Here's what I wore today.  This vintage Indian top was one I bought last week in the charity shop in Maldon.  Teamed with a belt (Primark-10 years ago), charity shopped Mary Jane shoes and Tescos leggings

And specially for Sheila and Vix, here's the stuff/details...

Yes, I look haggard and scruffy, but I don't care! I was happy in the sun!

I discovered that the Bluebell woods were only 2.1 miles walk from my house- the last time I'd visited them, I'd gone the long way and it was 5miles or so to the same point!! Ha, it was such an easy walk! It happily took me past the Garden centre as well and I ended up picking up some Tomato planter things as my tomatoes were SUCH a mess last year, I want something to make them neater! I also bought some raspberries and a Brownie on the way home for  a garden and tea treat for us.

I'll share some Bluebell photos soon although I left my camera at home and they are only phone ones! 

I felt so good after the sunshine and it was lovely to have a little garden time with CBC.

I harvested some salad leaves and Spinach tonight which also felt positive!

Hope your weekend was great!

xx

Bank Holiday weekend

Ah, the British Bank holiday weekend! A free day to do what you want as well as your weekend- such a treat! The May Bank holiday is the best one in my opinion- generally because all over bank holidays come in my school holidays anyway so it's a real joy to have an unexpected day off!

What did I do with mine?

Well, Saturday morning, CBC and I got up and had some cereal and watered the garden.  I sorted some washing and then suggested to CBC that we drive to Maldon for some lunch, a little look at the shops and perhaps a walk. He agreed but then proceeded to faff in the garden for a while, picking dandelions as well as us putting up some new Trellis for the purple Clematis which has ripped the inferior quality metal ones off for the past 2 years.

Finally, we were on our way and headed to Maldon.  We parked in the main car park (despite the Plumberow school having free parking on a Saturday....) and then headed to Mrs Salisbury for lunch.  Alas, there was a big queue. I suggested that we should wait as they had a garden.  CBC told me they didn't have a garden and only had the courtyard passageway so he suggested we head to the river to go and have lunch on the boat which is a tearoom.  We walked down and I regretted the absolute bag of bricks I had (which was a large selection of containers to visit Maldon's newish Zerowaste shop) as it was much further than I thought it was.

When we reached the boat, we had to wait a little while for a time (and watched a pair of Starlings steal sugar cubes from a table!) When we got on board the boat, we discovered (from the menu), that they had stopped serving lunch 10 minutes ago so we went back to town.

We phoned Mrs Salisbury's to see how the queue was and they said there was a queue but they were confident we wouldn't have to wait too long. I headed off at top speed to secure my place in the queue whilst CBC thought of his stomach and headed off to the bakery for a snack.  Luckily, I did go ahead as there were 4 people behind by the time CBC arrived.

Happily, we got a table in their lovely, HUGE, spacious, walled garden (I was right!) and ordered.

I ordered a chocolate milkshake and a cheese, ham and tomato omelette and we decided to share a pot of tea as well.   CBC grabbed himself a blanket and we played Bananagrams whilst we waited for food and filmed a little video for Lara and Tim as Mrs Salisbury is their favourite establishment to have lunch in as a treat. The food and drink was lovely and Mrs Salisbury herself is really kind and efficient.

After that, I headed off to have a quick peek into the charity shops. I ended up buying 2 copies of Eva Ibbotson's 'Journey to the River Sea' for my little sister for 25p a piece (she studies it with her Year 6 children but only had 2 copies in her school so I've been buying copies for her in charity shops whenever I see them- I think I've got her 8 copies in total so far!)

I also bought a pretty white cotton sleeveless shell top and an Indian vintage top/kaftan

The Zerowaste shop is called Silo Refillery and I managed to get some great things from there: that I don't usually get in my regular refill shops:

• NOODLES! First time I've seen those in a refill shop
• Washing Powder
• Crisps
• Body lotion
• Vegan jelly sweets
• Licorice wands
• And also:
• Washing up Liquid
• Sesi shower gel.
• Recycled toilet roll
• English Tea blend leaves (finally finished the 7 year old tea leaves!) 

I then met CBC (who'd had a happy spree in 'the best WHSmith') and we headed home. 

For dinner, we decided to have another treat and went (with our usual containers) to the Chinese takeaway.

The next morning, CBC and I got up at 7.30ish and I left the house at 8.10am (impressive for me!) as CBC's work colleague arrived for a 90mile cycle with him. Smug that I left before him.

I got the rail replacement bus to Southend and then cycled towards Southend Central c2c station. I had about 20min to spare before the connecting train so I headed to the excellent greengrocer near the station and phoned my mum to ask if she wanted any plastic-free loose veg.  I filled a large bag (my own) with 4 broccoli, 7 cucumbers, 5 satsumas, 5 peaches, 4 monster Braeburn apples, a bunch of bananas for her (all that for £8) and headed to get the train.

When I reached Mum's station, disaster struck as I tried to carry my bike down the stairs with the large bag of veg in the top.  It was top heavy and the entire lot toppled down the stairs! Noooooo!  Managed to get it all back in my pannier and headed outside to meet Mum.

When I got to hers, we had a lovely potter round her garden to look at what was new and had a MUCH needed cup of tea (I had headed out without breakfast to make the rail replacement) and a brownie.  It was so nice and sunny! She mended a top I'd brought a long (seam had frayed) and we had a nice leisurely chat. She was delighted with the fruit and veg and said she'd cut up the fruit and freeze it for her smooothies in case any was damaged. I ended up going home with 4 of the cucumbers as I'd told her they were mini cucumbers (they were 7 for £1) but they were actually fairly large!) and 2 Broccoli.

At which point, my sister arrived and picked us up (masked up) in her car to take us to Leigh on Sea where we all visited the Refill room.  My sister filled THE MOST ENORMOUS jar with pasta. I stocked up on coffee for CBC, Pistachios for CBC, Vegan garlic and herb cheese (made of Cashews- delicious!) shower gel, Branflakes, Farfale pasta, cleaning spray Dhal Yellow Split peas and a few other bits.  My sister paid for my shopping as she'd thought she'd bought me a voucher for the Refill Room for my birthday but it turned out the process never checked out so she decided to pay for my shopping instead! No objection from me, even if £20 of it was on CBC stuff! We then headed to Stop the World Cafe for lunch.  We braved the front bench that was not under the awning as it was the only available table and proceeded to get drenched as it started to rain.  Luckily, a table under the awning came up but we were FREEZING!
 

I ended up wearing my Buff round my head. It was so cold! We all had a breakfast- mine was the veggie one with the mushrooms substituted for a sausage.  I then bought them both cake.  It was the FIRST time it has just been the 3 of us without my niece or anyone else for about 10 years! We all loved it!

We ended up having a look in a nearby charity shop.  My sister ended up buying a few things for my niece and naughty me ended up buying a complete Summer outfit! I think I'd given up on my  1 item challenge in April since I'd already failed at it (Will go back to it!_)

At this point, I was planning to cycle back along the seafront all the way to Southend to catch the train back but my sister offered to drive me home (I think we were all enjoying each other's company so much!) .

CBC had just arrived back when I got back and we all drank tea in the garden.  Thankfully the rain had stopped. Mum and my sister headed off home (they live in the same town) and then CBC and I decided to read together under a blanket on the sofa as it was turning cold.

For dinner, we ate left over Chinese.

On Monday, CBC and I spent most of the day doing chores and doing some reading.

I managed to clear up a few annoying piles of clothes in the bedroom.

It had been a lovely bank holiday weekend with lots of enjoyment.

xx 

March books

Trying to catch up with my March reads.  I am so desperate to try and actually review my books this year!!! And now I have to somehow write about my April reads!

8.  Where were you Robert?  Hans Magnus Enzensberger

This is a German translation into English.  It concerns a curious teenager, Robert, who has strange eyes.  When he rubs his eyes and happens to be looking at an image of a place, he somehow time travels and ends up there.   It's such a curious and imaginative story with Robert ending up in all sorts of places- Soviet Russia, rural Australia, the home of his Grandmother...and back and back in time Robert ends up...you wonder how on earth he will ever get home again.  The translation is by Anthea Bell who is a superb translator (she translated my beloved Famous Five 19 sequel books by French author, Claude Vollier) - I love the feelings, the historical details- I have such a strong sense of place and character in this book.  Robert learns much along the way.  I didn't expect to love this book as much as I did.  I thought it would be one of those books I read once and give away but I really like the idea of reading it again. 

9.  A day in the death of Dorothea Cassidy -  Ann Cleeves

Dorothea Cassidy is a vicar's wife, social worker, kind soul and is involved in all aspects of lives in the town where she lives.  But she is found dead in the park, beautifully laid out in a floral display.  So who would want to kill her?  This was intriguing.  It wasn't the usual, 'everyone-thinks-the-victim-is-wonderful but they have a dark secret'-type of plot, it was a bit different and very intriguing. I genuinely wasn't sure who the killer was, which was interesting, and I got it wrong who actually was the perpetrator.  I liked the lead detective in this case. I'm not sure if it is a series or not but it was great Whodunnit and I wouldn't be adverse to reading more books of this genre by Ann Cleeves.  I give it 4 out of 5.

10.  Uncommon Type- Tom Hanks

This book was kindly given to me by Hazel when I expressed an interest in it. (I have subsequently passed it onto an ex-blogger, Char, who is a Hanks fan and, who I hope, will pass it onto other ex-bloggers who are Hanks fans.)  It is a set of short stories which all have the mention of a typewriter in them, in some, a key plot device, in others, a mere mention.

There are a couple of stories that are linked by characters (dotted throughout the compilation) and I liked meeting these characters a few times, even if I found the second adventure (in which they seemed to be travelling to the Moon in a homemade rocket!) a bit bizarre! I liked the first story in which 2 of the characters begin a relationship.  Another really lovely story was about the purchase of a typewriter from a specialist shop.  The typewriter at my grandparents' house was a huge part of our childhood and we LOVED sitting up there in the study typing away on it.  I still have some wonderful typewritten letters from my Grandad- they are so synonymous with my grandparents that this book made me feel nostalgic to own one (CBC would NOT be best pleased if I indulged though....something to do with filling up every single ounce of space or horizontal surface).  The stories were all different but all had a wonderful imagination and sense of place, even if some of the characters felt a little 2 dimensional. I really enjoyed this book.

11.  Foxglove Summer - Ben Aaronovitch

Confession- I read the first book in the Rivers of London (aptly named that) series and wasn't that fussed by it after loads of reading friends raved about it, recommended it to me and told me I'd love it.  I bought that and this book at the same time and didn't bother to read this one for a few years.  In the meantime, I read a short novella called October Man on holiday in Italy as I had run out of actual books, didn't want to read my Kindle, and borrowed it from my Mother-in-Law.

In this story, Peter Grant, PC and wizard in the police force, first new wizard in 50 years goes out to Herefordshire to investigate whether 2 missing girls has anything to do with magic.  In the search, he encounters talk of the fey folk, he is accompanied by the Goddess of the Beverley Brook in South London.  This book was SO much better than the original Rivers of London book and I found I enjoyed all the whimsical writing- there was a real sense of mystery in the solving of the crime and we learnt more about the history of the magical world and I sense there will be more revelations in future books. A fun and imaginative read with serious elements as well as some very apt observationally comedic elements. 

12.  The 7 professors of the North - John Fardell

Another book which I bought from a charity shop, this is, I guess, a sort of Science Fiction story for children.  It is wonderfully imaginative and takes us to very far north!

Sam's parents have an unexpected conference so luckily, he's saved from staying with an awful auntie, by the arrival of Professor Ampersand to takes him to Edinburgh, along with his grandchildren Ben and Zara to stay.  However, his arrival to the quirky home of inventions is interrupted by the arrival of a very ill Professor Gauntraker who, along with Prof A. was one of the 7 professors of the Far North. a university on Nordbergem, a small island inside the Arctic circle.  But the wonderful place of education was devasted by the betrayal of theft from it by Professor Murdo.  All the professors were left for dead but mysteriously managed to escape home and begin new lives. But now, Professor Murdo is back in Nordbergen!!! At this point, the professors are attacked and kidnapped by agents of the villain and taken to Nordbergen. It's up to the 3 children to try and rescue them before Professor Murdo unleashes a secret invention so dreadful, it could mean the end of the world!!! They are aided in their journey by the mysterious method of a secret train that takes them as close as they can to Nordbergen and are helped by a motley collection of characters.  The description and characterisation of this fun sci-fi kids book is really delightful and I really did picture the place and the feelings of being in them with a pounding sense of urgency and time ticking away! I loved the secret train and its history and really wish it was true! There was a great ending to this story and I thoroughly enjoyed it! 

13.  Letters to the editor- Ralph. A.  Hummel

I was sent this wonderful collection of letters last year, crafted by my lovely blog-friend Ally, one of the cleverest and most kind bloggers I know.  Ally has written many letters to the papers over the years to the New York papers which have wonderfully (and rightfully) been published and Ally had compiled them into one book.  Sadly, when it arrived, my husband accidentally spilt a cup of coffee over it and I quickly dived in and put kitchen-roll paper in between the pages and put it safely out the way to dry.  Of course, I then completely forgot about it until March, when, to my delight, I found the collection had dried out and hadn't been ruined in any way, just had a vague stain on a few pages.  Hurrah! Ally is an attorney so a lot of the letters have a legal theme and a lot to do with ethics but there are comments on political issues, reference to the boycotting of Jane Fonda because of her legal views on war (written AND published at the tender age of 15!!!!)  a strange request from a first Law boss regarding a Christmas tree written in a very witty, succinct way, an unpublished letter expressing love for a memoir but rewarded with a letter from the author of the memoir, reference to the treatment of disabilities, reference to sexism from radio presenters and a whole other set of letters.  Ally has SUCH  a succinct, clear writing style that shows the supreme intelligence and sensitivity I know her for and I felt able to understand the things I was reading about.  There are little hints of Ally's working life and I felt honoured to gain insight into a dear blogging friend's life outside of the blog.

What did you read in March (or indeed April....which I hope will come soon!) 

xx

Turquoise wings

 Aren't you lucky, you get 3 outfits this week!  I can tell it is getting warmer as I am more creative and having more fun with my wardrobe.  This outfit was worn 2 Sundays ago and I felt like I had wings or fins. This pretty green skirt looks like it has fins- it was a birthday present in around 2009-2011 from my Stepmum and Dad and unbelievably, I only shared it on the blog once, in 2012 here.  I wore it with this top from a brand called Sun and Sand. I bought it at Spitalfields Market when I was 22 and it was the best stall ever- everything on it was made of white cheesecloth with printed butterflies and flowers on them! I bought this top as it was so different from anything I owned. I still love it! I added a wooden Peacock butterfly necklace from the now closed Ladybird Likes and a charity-shopped turquoise cardigan! I wore it in honour of my Mum who came over with CBC's birthday presents.  Of course I cunningly managed to put her to work since she was in the garden...she helped me get some compost out of the compost bin and trimmed a few things! She took this photo!

I wanted to share a nice thing or two from today.

I had a student teacher lead the music lesson today. She did really well and it was nice to give her the opportunity. She's helping me with choir this half term which is so nice.  When I went to the classroom to pick the children up for their lesson, their regular class teacher told me that the British Bird poster that I had made for the children and put up in their classroom was really popular- a little boy, apparently, has been asking to go over and look at it every time he has finished his work and he seems really fascinated by it.  He told her that he's been looking out for birds and he'd only seen a Collar Dove before.  I told him to keep looking out for them.  The lovely thing was, that later, after my lesson, he and another boy came rushing back to the Music Room to tell me that they had seen a Chaffinch.  They were SO happy.  Later, when I went outside to fetch my next class, they told me a Gull had flown up in the tree.  

Another lovely thing was how hard the children in the orchestra had worked on the Tetris theme- considering we have only done it for 2 weeks, it sounded really good. I was so impressed with them- they had clearly all gone home and practiced!

I'm starting Recorder Club next week but doing it before school and I hope that I get takers for it as I needed to ask parental permission for it because it involves making sure they are there for 9am.  I had about 40 children who said they'd like to join it (in year 4) but I just worry about the parents responding as they proved in Lockdown, that they don't respond to things I send. It's free and they won't be missing proper lesson time so there shouldn't really be any objection but who knows how they will respond.

The caretaker showed me the work and developments he is working on in the conservation area and it looks so pretty.  I'm going to take some wildflower seeds in next week to plant in a bed that is there.  He's so lovely, this caretaker and like me, hates, hates, hates, hates waste!  We always gleefully egg each other on if there is some reuse or recycling we can do! 

Hope all is well with you!

xx