Thrifty footwear...

Today, I bought a pair of shoes... from a charity shop!

I have to admit, I normally avoid thrifted shoes like the plague, I can't get my head around the thought of other peoples feet having been in them for the fear that, well… I may actually catch the plague.

But these looked brand new, they still had stickers on the sole, so I gave them a chance.

I also swiped them from the rather nice window display, they were centre piece. I really hope the girl doesn't get into trouble for ruining the display.

I'm not sure what my shoes are doing watching Eastenders mind you?

Total spent today: £5.

ps. no plaguelike symptoms so far. Woop woop!

"love you"...

Today, I have another necklace post. I'm not feeling confident about the outfit I'm wearing today. I was, until my daughter said how awful I looked in it. Aren't teenagers brilliant?!

This beautiful necklace was half price in Accessorize, The Arc Shopping Centre, Bury St Edmunds.


It is just so pretty I can't stop looking at it.

Oh, I went back to my local garage today for the first time in a while. I used to go in there at least 3 times a week to top up with petrol. I've avoided it recently. You see, the last time I was in there, the assistant said her normal goodbyes, then as I walked out the door she called after me "love you". I stopped dead in my tracks, almost said it back (through habit) but managed to hold my tongue... and got into my car truly perplexed.

It was quite obviously a complete slip of the tongue, like when you call your teacher 'mum' or 'dad' at school (mortifying). Don't get me wrong, I am quite familiar with her but not that familiar. But it did make me smile :-)

I couldn't post today without mentioning how sad I am to hear the news that Patrick Swayze has passed away. "Nobody puts baby in a corner". RIP Patrick Swayze.

Total spent today: £6.

Vintage Louis Vuitton...

Today, I wore some of my longest serving wardrobe items.

A green wrap dress which was £10 from Topshop a few years ago. This trusty dress has seen me through thick and thin (and yes I'm talking waistline), even pregnancy; Snakeskin shoes, really cheap, but still look like new, (mainly because they absolutely kill my feet so rarely get an outing); And the Piéce de Résistance, my really, really old Louis Vuitton belt.

I was so excited when I bought this belt 10 or more years ago which would probably count as vintage now. It came in a little brown box with Louis Vuitton embossed on the lid... seriously, the box was exciting enough, it was, and still is one of my little treasures.

The only thing I've bought today is the chunky necklace. £3 from Matalan. It's a chameleon necklace, it's actually shades of brown, but today mysteriously changed to green to match the dress, 'nice one necklace, hi five for you'.

I hope you've all had a fabulous weekend. My highlight was going to watch Julie and Julia. Have you seen it yet? If not, please, please go see it.

Meryl Streep is amazing as the wonderful Julia Child and Amy Adams is the blogging obbessed Julie Powell. It really is a must see for all us bloggers who will associate only too well with Julie's blogging lifestyle, her over excitement at her first ever comment, which turns out to be from her mum, (we've all been there!) through to her struggle with keeping up with the blog.

Total spent today: £3.

* Pièce de résistance is a French term (circa 1839), translated into English literally as "piece of resistance", referring to the best part or feature of something (as in a meal), a showpiece, or highlight.

The Derren Brown Experiment

So, Wednesday evening, we watched one of the UK's most famous magician/illusionist/mind twister/weirdy man, Derren Brown, predict the 6 winning lottery numbers. Tonight, he has shown us exactly how he did this.

There has been a lot of speculation on the web and in the press about how he did this. Mostly pointing to foul play/camera trickery, and I have to admit, skeptical me does buy that explanation.

However, just for fun, I'd like to try out the method Derren claims to have used, so I'm asking for your help.

I need as many people as possible to give me 6 random numbers between 1 and 49. I won't use your actual numbers, it will be a combination of everyones.

The next UK draw is tomorrow night, so please take a minute just to help out in the experiment asap.

If by some bizarre reason it works, I'll be sure to compensate anyone who offers their numbers! Tomorrow's draw is worth 7 million pounds!

To get the ball rolling (scuse the pun) here are my 6 random numbers:
03 - 07 - 17 - 44 - 32 - 29

Good luck everyone!

ps. I'll post the results up tomorrow evening along with the 6 numbers we collectively picked (with the secret formula) and let's see how we get on!.

pps. If you don't know of Derren Brown, he is worth looking up, he's quite a freaky dude that I'm strangely drawn to. Unfortunately for me, he is more likely to be drawn to my boyfriend.

ppps. If you never hear from me again, I've probably won and am off sunning myself in Barbados, but I'll send you a postcard... ;-)

pppps. Another sweetie giveaway is coming soon... check in soon to find out more!

Julien Macdonald is a STAR...

Today I am wearing my new BARGAIN Julien Macdonald skirt from Debenhams The Arc Shopping Centre, Bury St Edmunds.

My fabulous mum actually found this and bought it for me for one of my birthday pressies a week or two ago. It was reduced by 70%!, although still cost £28, but I just adore it.

I got caught out yesterday with the weather. I'd stupidly assumed our autumn had arrived as it was so cold and grey in the morning and dressed accordingly. Come the afternoon, the sun decided to put his hat on for one last random mini heatwave.

Not wanting to be caught out again, I went sans tights today, but did wrap up in a bright red cardigan. (Needless to say, it stayed cold all day – the law of sod*).

As I waltzed into the office (a tiny bit on the late side), my father in law said: "ooh, you look bright".

"Thank you" I said.

It was only later when I realised that this may not have been a compliment.

Total spent today: £0, present from mum.





*Sods law is derived from Murphy's law – an adage that broadly states: "Anything that can go wrong will go wrong and usually does."

Welcome to my world...

I didn't think it was possible to feel boredom as an adult, but today for the first time in a very, very long time, I was bored.

I was bored of my recently turned teenage daughter talking to me in text shorthand:
Me: "Can you tidy your room please Daisy?"
Daisy: "tbh i cba mutha" (roughly translates to 'to be honest, I can't be ar*** mother')

I was bored of my 2 year old son insisting on me being a horse and riding him around the house whilst he sang repetitive songs in my ear, first time was funny, 150th time was tedious and talk about housemaids knee.

I was even bored of snacking through half the contents of the kitchen cupboards before moving on to the fridge.

So, I did what any good bored person would do. Went for a walk.

I live in a beautiful tiny village in Suffolk, I'd forgotten how beautiful it is.

Around 500 people live here. We don't have a shop in the village, the nearest shop is a car ride. The hub of the village is The Green where we have village get togethers.

We are surrounded by other tiny, delightful villages. Bury St Edmunds is the nearest small town. Unfortunately it can cost up to £20 for a cab home after a night out in town.

We have two pubs. The White Horse and The Bear. It's funny, no shop but two pubs. The White Horse is nearest our house so I rarely venture the extra few metres to The Bear.

Ah good times, many an accident I've witnessed at the stream. Mainly the rope swing attached to the tree here, and mainly involving adults. It is currently a bit lacking in water to call it a stream.

We have some resident kamikaze geese that live on the village green. There used to be more but in a recent tragedy one was killed in a hit and run accident. It was splashed all over the press (well, in the parish magazine) with a call out for witnesses to contact the police with any information. They never found the killer.

The preferred mode of transport out in the country. 'Just popping up the pub love'.

I've never noticed this. We have a phonebox. An oldy worldy phonebox.

And lastly, this is what I come home to, at the bottom of my garden is a gigantic field. I sit and watch the sunset here, contemplate life, sometimes run in and out of it for no real reason other than I can.

In the middle of the field is a big dip; a large crater. I was told that a plane crashed into the field during WW2. I often sit and ponder how terrifying that would have been to witness, then I remember that my house wasn't even a twinkle in a housing developers eye back then.

I hope you enjoyed the tour of my village.
The End.
xxx

STOP... poncho time!

I can't believe I haven't posted for so long, it wasn't an intended absence but as addictive as blogging is, it's also all too easy to fall out of the blog way of life, so my apologies gang – but I'm back!

Today I bought a fabulous poncho* from Tesco (I'd only popped in for some bread). Actually I have two. The cream one shown above AND a purple one.

I've always felt that ladies avec poncho look somewhat floaty and sophisticated. Unfortunately I haven't quite mastered the art of wearing the poncho in a sophisticated manner, I'm more cowboyish, so for the meantime you will have to make do with a model who wears it so perfectly!

The only downer to buying said poncho was that when I arrived at the checkout, I noticed the label size was different to the hanger size, so annoying when that happens, I mentioned this to the lovely checkout girl (who quickly morphed into bitchy checkout girl) who felt that I may be happier with the larger size I'd picked up. Hmmph. Totally put out, I still went to swop it for a smaller one and didn't go back to bitchy checkout girl. I just hope it fits! I can't face taking it back to the tune of "I told you so" smug, bitchy checkout girl.

When I arrived home, had a strange text convo with my mum.

Mum: "Come and watch football here if you like 5 thirty"
Me: "Ok, will do x"
Mum: "Good"
Me: "Was that your world record attempt for the shortest text ever?"
Mum: "N"

Mum hasn't quite fathomed out how to do punctuation in texts bless her but she is rather comical, technology is a bit of a blur to her. But I've realised that we regularly spend over £1 a time on similarly random discussions.

Total spent today: £10 (well £20 if you include the fact that I bought it in two colours, but I prefer to gloss over quite frankly irrelevant facts like that).

*The poncho has become a fashionable item both in fashion as in pop culture, after being the most notable outfit of the Man with No Name, played by Clint Eastwood, in Sergio Leone's "Dollars Trilogy". Interesting fact of the day.

Love letters...

Today I've been to my old favourite shop… Matalan.

My bargain of the day wasn't my blue dress (airport chic contender, see below) (ebay £6).
It wasn't even my cardigan (ebay £2).

It wasn't even these cute peeptoe white wedges with a bow (matalan £6):


It was though, these dangly earrings (matalan 75p!):


I love matalan. I've penned a little note to tell them how much:

Dear Matalan,

I heart you massively. I love you more than I loved that elderly man who walked into the cinema on Sunday to watch 'The Proposal', wearing his jumper tied around his waist, but the wrong way round so it looked like an apron (I didn't know that was still an acceptable fashion?).

I know some of my friends and family don't agree with you. They don't understand you Matalan. They take one look at the crumply, jumble sale type outer, but they don't take the time to delve into you and find out what you're all about.

I've neglected you for a week I know. But I drove past you on my way back from the airport and blew you a kiss, you were never far from my thoughts I promise.

I'm back now, and we can start up where we left off, I'll visit you at least 3 times a week, how does that sound?.

And thank you for your surprise 75% off sale today. You always know how to put a smile on my face.

Yours always
Shopaholic
xxx

So what do you think? A teeny weeny bit creepy and weird? Uh huh, I know.

Cheryl Cole's got new hair then…

I dunno, I leave the country for a week or so and everything goes mental.

First, Sainsburys, my large local grocery store uses my week away to completely change the entire store around. It took me over an hour to locate and buy 4 items at the weekend. Whilst I am grateful they chose to do it whilst I was away, (they were probably thinking it would be a nice surprise for me) I just wish they had given me a bit of notice, it was a shock to say the least.

And secondly, and more majorly, Cheryl Cole goes and changes her hair colour! Here she is with her new hair:


For those of you who are not familiar with Mrs Cole, she is currently one of the UK's most famous, most photographed and most loved ladies. She is part of a girl group 'Girls Aloud' and also Simon Cowells right hand woman on X-Factor. She's also married to one of the UK's most hated men, Ashley Cole who plays football for Chelsea. The fool cheated on her, but in true Footballers Wives fashion, she took him back.

I don't mind admitting that like many women I know, I do have a bit of a girl crush on old Chezza. Here she was with her previous hair:


So which do you prefer? new reddish/purple hair, or old gorgeousness hair.

Even though Cheryl can probably carry off any colour or style, I'm not so taken with the new tresses, it's gonna take a while to grow on me. Although I hear that colour hair dye is flying off the shelves already.

Also, I'm interested to know, if you live outside of the UK, have you ever heard of Cheryl Cole?.

Yoo hoo! I'm back…

Well, the holiday I have been waiting a year for has been and gone, it was glorious. Glorious sunshine, glorious sangria and glorious sunburn.


Oh, and I bagged myself a cowboy. (Ok, so really he is my other half, but he probably will shoot me for posting a pic of him).


So in the interest of fair play, I too became a cowboy (yes, it was one of THOSE types of holiday).

I know quite a few of you will still be waiting to go on your holidays… so from experience, I bring you my 10 commandments of holidaying:

1. Thou shalt attend the gym thou joined six months ago with a view to getting that perfect bikini body. Going to the gym to sit in the bar drinking coffee and eating croissants, or 'watching' the family in the outdoor gym pool whilst sunning oneself on a lounger does not count.

2. Thou shalt 'defuzz' more efficiently prior to boarding any flight, at any time.

3. Thou shalt not try 'HARDCORE' sunbathing more than once. It can only end in tears.

4. Thou shalt not sunbathe all week in the same style bikini, it renders the sexy, strapless dresses reserved for the last few nights totally useless and a waste of valuable packing space in the suitcase.

5. Thou shalt moisturise and exfoliate religiously to avoid coming home with peely, patchy skin, making the 'show off the tan to friends' totally non applicable.

6. Thou shalt not down copious amounts of double vodkas and redbull in the local karaoke/drag bar until 4am, thus fooling oneself into believing she is Mariah Carey, when everyone else knows she is Mariah Scarey.

7. Thou shalt not depress oneself looking at all the thinner, younger and more attractive bodies on show all holiday. As I learnt today, this is the only reason boyfriends' wear sunglasses throughout an entire holiday.

8. Thou shalt not waste one entire day and evening of the holiday with a hangover from hell after downing copious amounts of double vodkas and redbull in the local karaoke/drag bar the night before.

9. Thou shalt not fall asleep on the 4 hour flight home next to a stranger. When you awake unexpectedly to find your dribbling face an inch or so away from aforementioned stranger, it makes for an awkward end to the flight.

10. Thou shalt not weigh oneself on day of return from said holiday, please allow at least 4 weeks prior to going anywhere near the scales. And that is an actual law.