A winning Walsall weekend

Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to go to the West Midlands, buy something fabulous in the vintage shop Second to None whilst getting quietly inebriated, then adjourn to the pub to drink some more, chat, laugh and eat chips.

Look how many accepted the challenge!

There's Vix, Fiona, Vanessa, Curtise, Gisela, Em, Lyndsey and Annie.

Gisela won the medal for Top Bag Buyer, Vix won Hostess with the Mostest AND hottest in a bikini, Em won the Early Bird award...

Fiona won Most Professional-looking Photographer and Chief List Maker..

Curtise scooped Most Likely To Be A Character In Jane Austen Whilst Taking Lots of Photos, Vanessa and Annie jointly won Most Adept At Avoiding Being Photographed...

Lyndsey won Best Newcomer. I think I might have won The Hey Big Spender award.

All winners!

I love this action shot, you can just see how much fun we were having. I feel I've gone for quality rather than quantity (ahem!) on the picture front...and the Winner of the Lazy Blogger Award is...

Easy peasy lentil loaf to go with Sunday dinner. I put that robe on as soon as it was dry.

That's my haul of goodies on the line. I got up on Sunday morning and put them straight in the washer. There's a folksy wench dress, a Dollyrockers geometric print beauty and a housecoat by Fifth Avenue Robes. Probably the least flattering shape of the three, but lovely soft cotton in a fabulous print means I am going to wear it to death.

Vix took us into the local wig shop. Simply cross the threshold and find yourself in 1975. Hair bobbles! 99p!

A day out with the girls on Saturday, washing on the line, a bit of gardening and a roast dinner on Sunday. That was a top weekend. Thank you everyone for all the laughter. xx

Great Dixter and a party

It seems such a long time ago that I took these photos at Great Dixter, this perfect little Elizabethan manor house and garden, most famous for its last incumbent, Christopher Lloyd. It's only actually three weeks since we visited, but goodness, everything looks so different here now.

Summer came to an abrupt halt after Autumn elbowed it to one side.

This was a family home for many years. The last inhabitant died 8 years ago, but lived here his entire life without any of the home comforts we find so indispensable.

I coined it Ascetic Aesthetic. It may not be quite right, but it's not a life of coffee machines and central heating. I am such a nosey parker, I love to see how people live on an everyday basis.

Everything is done in the best possible taste.

Oh look here, it's Top Cat. He marched straight past me, ignoring my pitiful attempts at small talk. That face has purposeful written all over it.

The very last of the summer sun. What a place to enjoy it.

Those are Oast Houses, very typical vernacular architecture found in that part of the country, used for drying hops out before they get used for making beer.

This to me could be the very place where the opening pages of The Portrait of a Lady are set. Quintessentially English.

Well of course, once all that beer has been produced, somebody's got to drink it. And that is what parties are for.

Another 50th. They are starting to come thick and fast now, even though I am still only a VERY youthful 47, who has years to go before it happens to me.

These are my girls from college. We have known each other since we were 18. It's always quite a raucous affair when we get together.

The theme was Hollywood glamour, so I wore a 1960s long chiffon evening dress described by the girls as 'very yellow, very booby and very glam'. They nicknamed me Canary for the evening.

'Nobody puts Canary in a corner.'

My last nickname from this group, after a conversation about my snaggle tooth, ended up as Tanny McPhee. Even now it makes me snort with laughter.

I've had a cold, but it's on its last legs now, so I feel ready to go out into the world again. Hmmm. I think I might go on a rail journey tomorrow...

Charleston House, East Sussex

Another day, another artists' garden. This time Charleston House, that remote farmhouse used by some members of the Bloomsbury set as respite from their town life.

I know some of you aren't keen on the various personalities involved, and you may have a point, however they did create a lovely living and working environment, and I've long wanted to experience it for myself. 

The main inhabitants were Vanessa Bell, Duncan Grant and David Garnett. Vanessa and Duncan had a daughter together. Duncan and David were lovers. David eventually married the daughter of Vanessa and Duncan, Angelica. Poor girl wasn't told who her real father was until she was 18. She grew up believing her father was Clive Bell, her mother's husband.

I seem to be turning into the kind of person who shares juicy gossip over the garden fence. 

I sound a bit flippant about it, but actually I was shocked and rather put off them.

Why don't we take respite from all these shenanigans by admiring some blooms of Bloomsbury? 

That's another homemade frock there. It was a pair of curtains we inherited when moving in to this house, then it became a rather unflattering kaftan, so I remade it into a romantic looking frock. 

It's a really lovely, soft fabric, there's plenty of tummy room for eating and you can wear wooly tights with it to transform it into an all year round outfit. That ticks a lot of my boxes.

The interior of the house was decorated by Vanessa and Duncan as an art project and it really is full of charm, character and colour. However, visitors are not allowed to take photos, so you just have to absorb it and appreciate it in the moment.

I really enjoyed their approach to interior design: experimenting with painting pieces of furniture, and murals on the walls and doors. There's a mish-mash of furniture, patterns, colours. They embraced imperfection and that fits in with my aesthetic.

Glorious colour on a late summer afternoon.

The ladies in the shop and house at Charleston were all dressed in a really arty way. Long grey hair with bright red lipstick, big funky jewellery, unusual dresses, possibly homemade. They looked wonderful.

This is where we stayed: a beautiful little cabin at the bottom of a lovely lady's garden, found on airbnb. Have you tried it yet?

Oh I do like to be beside the seaside!

Right then pop pickers, ready for the next installment of our escapade darn sarf?

Recognise this place? Yep, it's Prospect Cottage, previously home to Derek Jarman the film maker, situated on the slightly otherwordly place known as Dungeness. 

He managed to create a garden in an ostensibly barren and inhospitable environment. Now he's no longer with us, appearances suggest there is no longer the will to keep it up in the same way, but it still felt magical to see it in real life.

Dungeness is a very distinctive environment, apparently the largest open shingle beach in Europe. It's a weird mix of discarded fishing paraphenelia, massive moody skies and an ethereally utilitarian beauty created by the odd mix of Heath Robinson type buildings randomly dotted about. 

I found it charming and compelling. It reminded me of my idea of places like Newfoundland. Separate and romantic in a tough bleak way.

When Derek Jarman bought his place, it was just him and the fishermen, but now I get the impression that the money is moving in. We saw a very luxurious beach house being built. 

All the wandering around in the sea air did the trick. We took our appetites and repaired to the Pilot Inn for a massive plate of dinner. It was almost bigger than me. A great icebreaker. Several of the other punters engaged me in fish and chip based conversation. 

And no, that is not a load of codswallop. 

The other place we visited by the sea, was Hastings. That part of the country is so historic. They call it 1066 country, because that is the year the Battle of Hastings was fought. There is actually a little town called Battle, where the fighting took place. Loads of places are mentioned in the Domesday book, which was commissioned just 20 years later by William the Conqueror, the Frenchman who won the battle and became King of England.

I've heard mixed things about Hastings. I think it had become very run down, but it has had a lot of regeneration over the last few years and the Old Town in particular has been reinvigorated with lots of charming quirky little vintage shops. The buildings are amazing, a lot dating back from Elizabethan times.

I can imagine the narrow alleys and back street pubs filled with sailors and pirates in years gone by.

We only had a bite-size taster, but it has whet our appetite.

I do love it when a pussy cat throws itself at me whilst I go about my business. They always have the most interesting secrets to tell.

Vita Sackville-West and Sissinghurst

I came across Vita Sackville-West, the author and gardener, for the first time about thirty years ago when I first started wearing vintage clothes and being interested in historical females who had achieved something in their field. I find I like hearing about history from a female perspective, it's often more interesting. I love reading biographies, and hers was one of the first I picked up.

She led me onto other biographies and people of the time, the first of which was her lover, Violet Trefusis, for whom she briefly left her husband.

Violet was the daughter of Mrs Keppel, who herself was the lover of the King, Edward VII. Mrs Keppel was the great grandmother of Camilla Parker-Bowles, and the King the great grandfather of Prince Charles. Apocrypichally, CP-B said to Charles when they first met, 'my great grandmother was your great great grandfather's mistress, so how about it?'

What an opener!

I bought this Victorian brown bear's head when I was 19, believing I would one day live in a castle. I named him Sackville. By my early 40s, it had become clear that I was more terraced or semi-detached material, which rarely feature minstrel's galleries, so he went off to live out his days in a stately home in the South West.

Anyway, to come back to the subject in hand, Vita was quite masculine in appearance and liked to dress as a man. This watercolour, by artist unknown, which lives in one of my old sketchbooks, shows Vita in pursuit of Violet. I produced a homage showing me and my cat Wellington. He lived to the ripe old age of 18.

I still have that red dress, somewhere in the dressing up trunk. I must dig it out and give you a twirl if I can squeeze into it.

So I think it's fair to say my recent visit to Sissinghurst, the amazing garden Vita built in Kent with her husband Harold Nicholson, has been in the pipeline for quite some time. 

Me-made sheet sun dress and necklace, clogs by Lotta from Stockholm, and bag from lovely Krista

It was worth the wait.

Originally I had my doubts about visiting gardens in late September, but I needn't have worried. The weather was extremely kind and the planting is clever enough that there is still plenty of colour. I'm talking dahlias, woodland anenomes, decorative sages, lavenders, black eyed susan vines, roses even.

It is actually called Sissinghurst Castle, because that's precisely what it is: the reclaimed ruins of an Elizabethan castle. At one time it was used as a prison for French soldiers captured during the seven years' war. 

When Vita and her family went to live there, there wasn't a lot remaining, but they lovingly put it back together. In an unconventional arrangement, Vita had her rooms in the tower, Harold had a cottage and their two sons lived in another little house. What a great arrangement!

We went and visited a few other places, mainly house and gardens, on what was a rather cultural trip. I'll be writing about them soon. I hope you'll join me!

Going, going, gone!

From what I can tell, the current zeitgeist is all about culling, clearing the decks, making space and a bit of money as a side order.

Well, I'm in. In like a greedy mouse in a cheese factory. In like a...oh I don't know, you tell me?

My Spanish Senorita reigns supreme in the spare bedroom. I've just noticed she has a guitar and I think she might have just noticed the layer of dust on that mirror which is making my photos look all soft focus

However, unlike Curtise, who has set about things with a clear head and a great system, I've done things the wrong way round. I've sold things and then tried them on just before sending them out. And sometimes I've thought, 'Oh, I rather like that. Too late'.

But the fact remains, that I have only got rid of things I don't wear very often, so I've done right, right?

I got that gingham duvet cover in a charity shop about a month or so ago. But I'm really torn. I want it on the bed and as a dress on me. Decisions, decisions

This 1960s Kenny's of the Philippines kaftan was comfy and when I wore it to a party recently, it got a lot of love, but the truth is, navy isn't really my colour, and it's polycotton, which is not my favourite fabric.

This on the other hand, is in my favourite colour, green. It's a beautiful empire line brocade evening dress with a train at the back which made me feel very regal, by the English brand Blanes, but the fact is it was a bit too big for me and there was no way of making it smaller without ruining it. Plus, I only wore it to go out to dinner once, and I have a not dissimilar dress shown here. 

So I paraded round the house in for the afternoon before packing it up and sending it on its way.

Unlike Edith Piaf, I may have some regrets.

How about you, what's your approach to getting rid of stuff? Got any tips?

Chinese lanterns at dusk

I love to have flowers in the house, and my favourite kind are those collected from the garden.

So at dusk I set out to fill some vases. The nights are drawing in fast now, so by the time I had finished the solar powered exterior fairy lights and Chinese lanterns had come on.

I love twinkly lights outside. It's like dressing the garden with sparkling jewels.

He put up lengths of wire which run the width of our patio, and then we tied solar powered fairy lights to them. When all the lights come on, our back garden and patio look like Las Vegas.

Viva La Bling.

The vases get distributed around the house. This looks a rather holier than thou still life. Or maybe we're all just praying that the lovely late summer weather continues.

I look at Miss Wong and she looks at me. We never tire of one another.

A few weeks ago I had a craft day making this Vix and Dee style lampshade. I have the house to myself today, so I had better go and make the most of it!