La Vie Est Belle

It certainly is since I met my John....

I have been dying to create a picture made from old Lexicon cards for ages and my mum kindly bought me a pack that she found in a second hand emporium last month. I could have spent ages deciding on exactly the right words to display but I went with my heart so it had to be in French. I bought some black card and a frame and glued the cards together before fixing  it to the black card. I was really pleased with the result. As for John, he was less pleased with the result as to him, all it represents is another hole in the wall.

Potty for peppermint....

If you'd have asked me ten years ago what my favourite wardrobe colour palette was, it would have been easy.....Red, Black, Camel, Silver. My wardrobe choices revolved around those four hues and not much else. Red for shock factor, black for safety, camel for professionalism and silver for those oh so plentiful red carpet moments (Saturday nights in the wine bar in Weston). These days, I am loving the whole spectrum (apart from maybe grey and brown, I am yet to be convinced of their uses). The inside of my wardrobe now looks like an explosion of M&M's with bright colours at every turn. I still smile fondly when I think of my amazing year in France and the response of the French to my colourful clothes. If I turned up to school in an orange or red dress for example, they would always enquire as to why I was wearing something so bright. And in the street? People would openly joke that I must be either a tourist or English. 

Their idea of fashion, no matter how elegant, was about blending in, not standing out. After all, why would you want to bring attention to yourself? Anyway, that's an interesting debate for a other time but for now, I wanted to show you a lovely little peppermint duo that I came across a couple of weeks ago in a charity shop in Fishponds. 

Peppermint is one of those colours that I have never even considered before but for some reason, it has implanted itself well and truly on my radar. 

£3 for the cardigan and £4 for the shoes. And if I ever find myself with a spare 5 minutes, I plan to embellish the shoulders further with some more sequins and maybe a sprinkling of Mother of Pearl beads. Just to fully accentuate the Grandma look. Just add a full circle skirt, necktie and John Travolta....perfect for a Thursday night at the drive-thru. 

Sex And The (Bristol) City

Back home and back to work. And by work I mean truffle hunting. 

Last Wednesday the sun was out so I thought I would treat myself to a trip out for lunch pour "un" and I thought why not have a quick peak in the charity shops for desert. 

This is what I found. A pretty close copy to a dress used in the second Sex And The City movie. The original dress in the film was Halston. This one isn't.......unfortunately, and at £8, it's probably several thousand pounds below the original price tag.  But it will serve as a great holiday dress......if I am lucky enough to get away again this year. This orange colour seems to be everywhere at the moment. We seem to have lots of orange and red lines at work. The only trouble is that it suits people that are beautifully tanned. This I am not, but thanks to the genius products at Dove headquarters, I can be transformed on request.

A dress for the sunshine but a dog that is not. 5 minutes and he starts to cook in all that Alaskan fur, but he likes to be at the centre of everything I do.

The iconic Miss Parker. Love her or hate her, you cannot deny what she and the HBO series achieved in terms of putting New York outlandish fashion on the tips of many tongues. 

The fabulous (ted) Baker boy

Now this little baby did make it to la Belle France serving as hand luggage and an all round fab day bag.

This was found in the same charity shop in Staple Hill as the lovely teal and black one on my previous post, hidden on a bag rack. I still can't believe that I spotted it really, it was bogged down behind many other bags all waiting for adoption. 

A Ted Baker shopper bag for £5! The interior satin is a gorgeous black and white flowery pattern in great condition. It never fails to amaze me how these things end up in charity shops. I would love to see some kind of timeline explaining their journey up to the point where someone dislikes it enough to give it away.

The only little job I and to do? The lettering on the front pocket was discoloured so you couldn't see the Ted Baker wording, so I got out the gold nail vanish and painted over it. Job done. 

French Leave

I cannot believe I have taken so long to get back to my beloved blog. I am sorry about the lack of posting. A weeks holiday to France and I have bought some of that laid back attitude with me.....ok, lazy attitude. But my friend Jo snapped me out of it at lunch this week, so I am back and raring to go. Are you sitting comfortably?..........

So, my lovely week back home in France was supposed to lead to many blogging opportunities. Strolling up and down La Croisette in Cannes, parasol in hand, a la Audrey Hepburn........oversized black glasses teamed with a silk headscarf, silk gloves and a gorgeous 1950's dress a la Grace Kelly, the list could go on. 10 or so years ago that is exactly what would have happened (much to the annoyance of my poor boyfriend at the time), but this time I let myself down. I could blame it on going with the kids and not having much time but that would be a lie. I could blame it on the surprisingly disappointing weather but that has never stopped me before.  But to be honest, I have no excuse. I just didn't dress up much. To be honest my overly ambitious intake of Rosé wine probably didn't help and the oh so attractive "gueule de bois" that followed.  Maybe it's age. All I know is that I am ashamed of myself. Dressing up is who  I am and although I certainly didn't wander around France looking like someone from the Royle Family, I didn't go to town like I normally would have done. Shame on me. 

The outfit above was meant to be my "going away" outfit until John scoffed at me wanting to take a coat to the south of France. Maybe that's where it all went wrong.  So I bowed to peer pressure and left the coat behind. And the bag. Which was incidentally bought specifically with that coat in mind. I found the bag nestling on a shelf in the St Peters Hospice charity shop in Staple Hill for a mere £4. I love the unusual shape of it.  That said, they both got left behind, never to feel the sun of the Côte d'Azur. To be fair though, neither did we.