Dear friends. A simple cream shift dress today, a great choice for those days when you don't want to be particularly colourful. I wanted the pretty vetch in a nearby park to take centre stage,
The dress was an amazing charity shop bargain. It cost just £5 in a shop in Wimbledon last year. I haven't worn it much but pledged to give it a twirl at Gunpowder Park, Waltham Abbey.
Dear friends. Today I'm bringing you a new book spotlight. Cassie Raven is the antithesis of the usual crime thriller heroine. She's a pink haired, tattooed, feisty mortuary technician.
Dear friends. I'm thrilled today to feature the latest book from O J Mullen. I'm a big fan of his gritty and tightly plotted crime thrillers. This one is in the unusual setting for this genre of an ad agency. It's my stop on the blog tour for The Wrong Woman.
Dear friends. Here are my reviews of books published this month. Thanks to the publishers for early review copies in return for an honest review.
In the Goodreads Reading Challenge I'm at 75 books (target 100), 22 books ahead of schedule. My reading has slowed down a little. As a NetGalley reviewer I'm typically reading books several months before their publication, and the months November to December seem to be quiet for publishers.
Dear friends. Blogging is the topic of this month's Tell Us About challenge, chosen by Debbie of Deb's World.
Tell Us About sees 9 bloggers from the UK, US, Australia and Portugal responding to a different prompt each month. All bloggers are welcome to join the link-up with their own posts on the topic.
I've been blogging since 2006. My first blog was A Curious Girl's Guide to Life, which I no longer update, although it will presumably always be "out there" in the ether.
Dear friends. I've just had a colour refresh - style not hair - and it's all good because the colours I've been naturally gravitating towards are indeed my wow colours!
If you think I'm talking in gibberish, let me explain. Regular readers will know I'm a big fan of colour analysis. I was re- confirmed as a spring a couple of years ago, but as I was more concerned then with how I would mix winter and spring colours, I didn't focus on wow colours.
Dear friends. This is the time my garden is at its height. It's fairly small and I focus my attention on spring and summer planting.
It's now July and 1 of my 4 dahlias is flowering; the phlox are out, in very splashy colours, and "shed corner " has returned to its former glory, with brightly coloured containers.
Dear friends. This summer I've been wearing far more skirts than I normally do, having bought four pre-loved Boden skirts from eBay.
It got me thinking about my Boden skirts over the years. I can see why some of them worked less well for me, and why some were outstanding.
Dear friends. A quick post to share an absolutely phenomenal list of books. They're titles I've either just read, or am about to read. Some of my favourite contemporary writers are here: Elizabeth Strout, Clare Chambers, KL Slater. You'll be wanting to pre-order.
Dear friends. Had a delightful outing with friends from the Kettlewell Colour Club to see the BIBA exhibition at the London Fashion & Textile Museum.
BIBA was a fashion brand started by Barbara Hulanicki in 1964. It became very influential and along with Mary Quant, was one of the fashion retailers shaping "the London Look."
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.
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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).
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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!
Dear friends. The two main highlights of May were the Chelsea Flower Show and our 4-day cycling holiday along the Way of the Roses. I'm going to major on the flower show as you can read about the cycling break here.
Plus the rest of the month's trivia. Picking up from where we left off, with the last few days of April.
Dear friends. Today I'm creating a few outfits for spring and summer holidays using three pieces from Cotton Traders.
I chose a pair of striped trousers, a tie-front top and a cotton shirt. All very versatile, as I hope to prove.
#StyleNotAge Challenge
Dear friends. It's my turn to set the challenge this month in Style Not Age, and I chose quite a difficult one: French Girl Style.
It's difficult because I like to wear bright colours, as you know, and French women don't.
Dear friends. We're almost at the halfway point of the year (already!) and in the Goodreads Reading Challenge I've read 58 books out of my target of 100.
Dear friends. We've just spent an enjoyable few days in the north of England on a guided cycling tour following the "Way of the Roses."
The Way of the Roses is a spectacular coast to coast cycle route which passes through both the red rose county of Lancashire and the white rose county of Yorkshire.
Dear friends. The wild and savage Cornish coast is the setting for today's evocative thriller, Hidden Depths. It's my day on the blog tour.
Dear friends. A fabulous prompt for this month's Tell Us About challenge, courtesy of Suzy from Suzy Turner, our Portugal-based Yorkshire lass.
Music plays a huge role in my life so apologies if it's a long post. You might want to get a coffee or a schooner of sherry, depending on what time of the day it is.
My elder brother was 6 years older than me so I inherited his mono Alba record player, Sid, and many of his records, including some Beatles LPs. With our younger brother, we were forever bartering records. Certain unloved records would change hands quite often.
The first single I ever bought was Goodbye Yellow Brick Road by Elton John. The first album was David Bowie's Ziggy Stardust. It cost £2.10 from my mum's Freemans catalogue, and I paid 10 pence for it over a number of months with my pocket money.
Ah, David Bowie. In July 1972 I was watching Top of the Pops, which was required viewing in those days, when this gorgeous boy with red spiky hair came on, flanked by his outrageous musicians. The song was Starman, and it changed many peoples' lives, including mine. I was 11 and from then I was smitten.
He chimed with a part of my personality that resists the ordinary, or going with the herd. At this time most of my school friends were mad on Donny Osmond or David Cassidy, and later the Bay City Rollers, but they did nothing for me. David Bowie was pure talent, constantly evolving and being different.
I saw him 3 times in concert, including the Serious Moonlight Tour at the Milton Keynes Bowl in 1983. I had only just passed my driving test. I had a massive print out of directions from the AA because this was pre-Google and sat nav. I'm amazed now that I drove there on my own, from Plymouth, aged 22. The support acts were Madonna and Ice House. I was gutted that the balloon I'd proudly captured was taken away from me at the exit!
In 1977 my heart was beating loudly for one of Bowie's mates, Iggy Pop. I'd seen in my weekly read, New Musical Express, about Iggy's new album The Idiot. I pre-ordered it via mail order without having heard him at all, convinced he would be wonderful. Of course, he was, and I saw him twice in concert and adored the subsequent albums Lust for Life and New Values (the others, not so much). I also collected what was available from The Stooges. They were way ahead of their time.
The punks would sit outside the Virgin record store in Plymouth on Saturdays, looking very exotic. I would loved to have joined them but was too conventional to dress that way.
However, I did go to Plymouth's new wave venues, The Metro, Clones and occasionally the Polytechnic, and saw bands including X Ray Spex, The Be Stiff Tour, 1978, Wreckless Eric, The Buzzcocks and The Ramones. (This sounds like my husband's idea of hell).
At school we had a Friday lunchtime record club for the sixth form and we would take in records for Mr Glynn to play. Ninety nine per cent of my cohort were what we called "Boring Old Farts" who liked prog rock: bands like Yes, Led Zeppelin, Rush. My friends Dave and Sue would endure ridicule when Mr Glynn occasionally played our records: Devo, Throbbing Gristle, Talking Heads, Television and the Psychedelic Furs. Class!
David Bowie stayed with me and I have every album, some of them in multiple form factors (vinyl, cassette, CD, streamed - we Boomers were stiffed!).
In the 90s I was keen on (and still am) Radiohead, Elbow and the Manic Street Preachers. Plus anything that Tom Verlaine (ex Television) wanted to throw out there.
Coming up-to-date: I'm a sucker for nostalgia so I adore seeing 70s bands I never actually cared for much Back in the Day (Madness, Squeeze, 10cc.....). I enjoy an Abba tribute band, and loved the Voyage Abba-tar experience.
I listen to Boom Radio and Johnnie Walker's Sounds of the 70s. And I've also become a devotee of classical music.
Suzy from Suzy Turner, who came up with this prompt, has had musical influences ranging from pop to rock, shaping her journey through diverse genres. From Madonna's catchy tunes to the soulful rhythms of Motown, music has been a constant companion, inspiring her creativity and enriching her life.
Marsha from Marsha in the Middle grew up when AM radio reigned supreme. Elvis would be crooning in the background along with Tom Jones and even a little Frank Sinatra. As music changed from the crooners to rock to heavy metal to hip hop, Marsha’s tastes changed, too. Or did they? You’ll have to read her post to discover the answer!
Debbie from Deb's World goes back in time to her teenage self, rediscovers some favourites from watching Countdown on TV and realises she was very naive when it comes to song lyrics!
Jill from Grownup Glamour takes a look at the music she has enjoyed.
Penny from Frugal Fashion Shopper recalls how pop music was very much part of her life as a teenager and tells us about her musical influences, which were mostly on television. But she reveals that music does not really feature in her life now.
How about you? Did you have similar musical influences or were yours totally different? It's a fascinating subject, do share in the comments.
There's plenty of time to write about your musical influences, or interpret the prompt in a different way. The link-up is open until 24 May.
Next month's prompt, courtesy of Marsha from Marsha in the Middle, is Beauty. Posts go live on 20 June. How would you interpret Beauty?
