Dear friends. June has been a satisfying month. I did quite a lot, and the weather improved. Highlights included a visit to the Kettlewell Colour Studio, a beach holiday on the Greek island of Skiathos and a couple of cycling adventures. I also saw an excellent exhibition of Vivienne Westwood's private collection, prior to auction.
Dear friends. Today's book spotlight is a story that will make you laugh and cry. It's a colourful, vivid and evocative account of a Blackburn boy's battle to become a performance artist and remain true to himself.
Northern Boy is the debut novel from award winning Iqbal Hussain.
Dear friends. Dreamy Dresses is Jacqui's prompt for this month's Style Not Age challenge. Five style bloggers from the UK and Ireland interpret a different prompt each month.
Regular readers will know that until recently, I seldom wore dresses. I had around 3. But this year I've satisfied my inner gamine by finding some shorter, retro style dresses.
I wore my Voodoo Vixen nautical dress for an outing to Christie's with Penny from Frugal Fashion Shopper. The auctioneer had put on a splendid pre-auction exhibition of the Vivienne Westwood personal collection, which comes under the hammer this week.
It was a very inspirational exhibition and very well done. As it was a chilly day, I'm wearing my dress with a Kettlewell short tie wrap in soft white. Shoes are from Boden.
Below: a quick snap of the building, with a neon Westwood logo.
 |
Thanks to Penny for the photos. If you'd like to see more pics from the Vivienne Westwood pre-auction exhibition, check out my post about June on Friday (28 June). The auction happens on 24 June so I'm sure there will be pictures in the papers too. (Who still read a paper? I do, The Times on my tablet).
.jpeg)
.jpg "Latest Books Reviewed: Is This Mutton")
Dear friends. I've always been fascinated by the way perceptions of women's beauty have shifted over the centuries, so I was thrilled when Marsha chose Beauty as the prompt for this month's Tell Us About challenge.
Each month bloggers from around the world give their own unique interpretation of the prompt.
Dear friends. We're back after a fabulous 10 days on the idyllic Greek island of Skiathos.
It was our seventh visit and yes, I've already booked for next year. We're seasoned travellers and have been to several other Greek islands, as well as beach holidays in Hawaii, Italy, Turkey and Portugal. But Skiathos ticks all our boxes - and indeed the lengthy list of criteria.
I'll be sharing more about the holiday in my review of June, next Friday, but in the meantime, here's one of my evening outfits.
Skiathos is a laid back place and no-one tends to dress up, but I like to take at least one sequin top. I spotted this beaut in one of my favourite colours last summer, at M&S. I'm wearing it with crops from Roman and my ultra-comfortable sandals from Vionic. Plus my new prescription Gucci sunglasses from Boots. They're a bit spendy but well worth it.
I wore this particular outfit to one of our favourite restaurants on Skiathos, the Windmill, high up with views over the town and bay. It was our 14th wedding anniversary.
We tend not to take too many pictures now because we'd rather be in the moment, but I wish we'd had a couple of pics taken of us in the Windmill. Ah well. Below. on the water taxi. It's a 10 minute journey from our hotel to the main town.
A relaxing beach holiday is a must for me and we usually go in June before the school holidays. Our next holiday will certainly be a bit different: cycling from Land's End to John O'Groats, 1,189 miles. We'll be in an organized group with our baggage transferred each day. Still, it's quite daunting, particularly in terms of packing. No huge suitcase, as I took to Skiathos, with the priority being cycling clothes for all weathers.
What are your holiday plans? Do you like to dress up on holiday? Do tell in the comments.
Sharing my posts with these fantastic sites.
I'm back tomorrow with fabulous blogger friends Penny, Debbie, Suzy, Mary Katherine, Leslie, Marsha, Jill and Sue for our different takes on the prompt BEAUTY. Hope you can pop over.
Bloggers, Instagrammers and YouTubers are invited to share their posts in this weekly link-up. Readers can find new blogs to enjoy and bloggers can find new readers.
Cheryl of Cheryl Shops with My Top 10 Books of the Last 5 Years
Mother of the Bride in Las Vegas from Pamela of Style Yourself Confident. Doesn't she look fabulous!
Jill from Doused in Pink with A Casual Capsule Wardrobe for Summer
Dear friends. If you're anything like me, you scrutinise hair care products to check their ingredients, while keen to find hair care solutions that work.
I was pleased to be invited to try a new range from well-known Vegan brand Vegamour. Not only are their products free of sulfates, parabens, silicones, gluten and artificial fragrance, but they're a good natural alternative to products which can give unwanted side effects.
The range I tried is called HYDR-8, formulated for those with dry, damaged hair.
Dear friends. I was never keen on Jeremy Clarkson during the Top Gear days. And The Grand Tour is even worse, because the stunts and the gents are so jaded.
So I was as surprised as anyone to find I LOVE Clarkson's Farm (Prime). We started watching as soon as it launched, back in June 2021. We were in another lockdown at the time and new programmes were quickly seized upon.
Dear friends. I visited the Kettlewell Colour Studio in Somerset at the weekend, and today I'm showing my new purchase, their Tilly dress.
I don't know what's come over me because it's my fourth dress purchase this year, although the other three were retro styles. All this from a person who said she hardly ever wore dresses!
