What I've Been Wearing Lately

Hi my lovelies, are you feeling the love for spring yet?  It's around the corner, honest! (see what I did there, I  !'ed!!).
The daffs are out along the hedgerows but sadly none have popped up in Pout Gardens yet.
But what I find amazeballs-uplifting at this time of year is the winter phenomenon of the days drawing out.  That first day in early January when I look out of the window at 5 p.m. ... and it's still light.  That event in our seasonal cycle fills my soul with child-like enthusiasm, joy and hope.  So, if you live in the northern hemisphere, I defy you to not feel that love for upcoming spring right now!

Now, on to the matter in hand.  The important stuff.  Outfits.
My weekly Wednesday roundup.

Let's start with a coat.  It's been cold  (yeah, it's January, what were the chances?).

This cosy camel car coat (Dotty P) has been much in play and with winter white scarfage and taupe boots (Jones) I think it creates quite a classic look for winter eh?

More classic dressing,  black jumper and jeans.  The necklace is a jumble sale find from the 90s and worn with the dangly earrings (also from the 90s) .  This fancy jewellery took a plain classic jumper and glammed it up a little,  n'est pas?

I'm getting a bit repetitive with this week's round up as some of these outfits charged into my JEANS AND A NICE TOP POST, HERE   But these are my outfits of late so I make no apology for this as is is what it is.

But the  beaded top leads me to where I took the outfit ... to this table laden with yummy nibbles!  Drinks and nibbles at the neighbours' house.  "I'll keep it simple" she'd said when she invited me.  When I arrived to this sight, I immediately whipped out the camera 📷.  "Well, this is simple, for me" she said.

 She's an amazing cook, so just imagine what she rustled up for her "simple" supper last year - READ ABOUT IN WINE WITH THE NEIGHBOURS, HERE

With the benefit of Insta hindsight I realised that my January had been one long grey, black and winter-white knitwear fest, so I remedied that.  I added a bright blue summer cardi to go to Bro's house for birthday cake and coffee.  Which was fine as his house is toasty-warm during the day, unlike Tight-Pout's.  So later in the day a HUGE extra cardi layer was added to this ensemble, rather than turn on the heating off-timer!

My message here is clear and two-fold: 1.  A simple addition of one item of bright colour can liven up a bleak January outfit, and 2.  If your house is cold, go to someone else's!

Winter white Monsoon sweater dress, brown suede waistcoat (machine washed, Terri!) with brown tights and accessories.

I did a flat lay of my accessories on the waistcoat backdrop as I wanted to show you my old boots.  These brown leather Gabor boots (together with their black rellies) are simply 

the. comfortable-est. boots. I have ever walked in.  

They are more than 15 years old and 

I. have. never. repaired. them.  

Add to this their butter-soft suede bang-on-trend mustard lining as seen in this pic and you have the loveliest boots this side of The Pecos!

Liberation Themed Ball - doesn't TP look good as a spiv, ladies?!

And finally!  I've been doing a challenge on Insta this month and this day's subject was "midi dress".  I really couldn't be bothered to go hunting round in the archives for a midi dress that I didn't really want to wear that day anyway (and I'm not sure I even own one). So I cheated and used a photo from more than ten years ago (it's ok, I fessed up to my cheating!).

The dress was charity-shopped, and I have to say it ended up being much used as it really was a quite lovely dress.  All other items are "model's own".  I was particularly innovative with the "fox fur stole" - I simply left my faux fur collar/scarf thing draped over my shoulder.  I think it worked.

And Vronni, check out the headscarf!!!!

So my dears, that concludes this week's round up.  And what is of note in today's post is that my !-exclamation mark is demonstrably back in Pout World!!!!

I think it was facing up to a blogging crossroads on my blogaversary that got me feeling quite empty yesterday, quite lacking in puff, and finding nothing to, well, exclaim about. 

But, Tomorrow is Another Day and we  would be wise to remember those Hollywood-immortal words on a meh day, eh peeps?

Cr: Anne Cummins

Let's wake up tomorrow and smell the spring daffs!

A la perchoine,

Mary x.

WIW - The Biggest Steal EVER!

Good day to you, my lovelies, and welcome to October.

I have a corker of a steal for you today!  But first, some housekeeping.

Sweet Kathryn, a reader in New Zealand who's been with me since the start, has told me her subscription emailing isn't working.  Thanks so much for letting me know and I'm sorry about that, my dear.  I haven't changed anything and I'm not techy either but hopefully I'll have someone round soon to sort out my many techy issues.  

Meantime, please log into the blog for my reads - I'm working on my consistency but life gets in the way (that's where I find MY INSTAGRAM ACCOUNT useful for keeping in touch, so quick to post).  If other subscribers are experiencing this too, I can only apologise on behalf of blogger.  It will be fixed!

I thank sweet Kathryn and all readers for their continued loyalty, I'm so humbled each and every day when you subscribe, follow, comment or just pop in for a quick catch-up.  

Thank you from the bottom of my heart.

And now, on to today's post.

You know, peeps, I never thought of my wardrobe as a toy that would give me endless hours of fun, but that's how it's turning out.  Going into retirement with a well stocked wardrobe is pure entertainment.  My clothes are my toys and I'm actually having fun finding stuff to outfit with!  And yes I'm using outfit as a verb, for that is what it's become.  

My latest fun in the playground was purely coincidental.  Kinda serendipitous.  It started with me finding a cowboy shirt I'd bought for a barn dance some years ago and not worn since, and ended with me accepting a challenge to wear a white tee multiple ways.  Yes, life is like that sometimes.

My lovely blogger mate Anna of Mutton Years Style had taken part in a white tee styling challenge and the cowboy shirt and white tee pic I posted on MY INSTAGRAM ACCOUNT HERE was similar to one of her stylings, so for fun she challenged me to steal ALL her looks.  You know me, I took up the gauntlet immediately.  And fun it was!!!

There ensued one week of crazy creativity and rummaging,  making up lots of outfits based around the white tee.   It shows the versatility of the white tee, but it also shows the value and fun to be had from shopping one's wardrobe.   Most of these items  in the following outfits are old.  Some very old.  For example, the Levi shirt was bought in the mid-nineties in the States, as was the Gap denim jacket.  The suede skirt was bought around 2002-3.  

Yes, the challenge got me digging out a few oldies but goldies.

Some housekeeping.  During the challenge  I wore two modal tees from M&S Limited Collection (I LOVE these!) and a cotton mix tee from Peacocks.  Oh and I also tried sneaking in a graphic tee on a day when I felt a bit of a rule-breaker!

The cowboy shirt

Anna.

Me.

The Biker

Wearing a plain white tee here but ...

... lurking under this scarf was ...

... the naughty graphic tee!!

The Denim Shirt

Chinos

I wore beige chinos as I didn't have khaki.

Wrong! I found a pair of khaki silk harem trousers later.

Suede Skirt

 I added a kiddie chair and coffee cup to my "set" as Anna had been accessorising with these random items in recent days.

The Jacket

Now I thought my grey/white jacquard jacket would be perfect for this outfit.   

(Pic from the start of the blog - is that really me ?!)

But could I find it?

No, I could not, so I used the Zara jacket I'd recently acquired - TP brought it back with him after a trip to the UK (No Zara on the island and it doesn't deliver off-mainland).   I'll do a piece on it shortly as I'm most excited about it.

And I just had to show you my bootees which TP also brought back with him - Primark, and yes, we don't have one of those over here either.  

Pleated Skirt

Well a pleated skirt and trainers isn't my bag, I'll leave that one to the younger bloggers -  the look is very popular but it's just not right for this old pensioner.  So I improvised and gave it my old lady tweak.  This floral skirt has soft pleats going into the dropped waistline, so the pleating is there but you'd have to look hard to find it!  And I substituted the trainers with red espadrilles.  (Both items are 2nd Loved).

So that was some challenge and some steal!  A week's worth of stealing.  Quite possibly the biggest style steal EVER!!!

And now, over to you.

How do you think I did?

Have you stopped to think about the versatility of the white tee?

And are you having fun shopping your wardrobe?

I thank the stylish Anna for putting together so many inspiring outfits for me to steal.  I had a blast!

Now do please pop over to Anna's blog HERE to see more detail of  the challenge she joined and details of the super outfits she put together.

A la perchoine,

Mary.

Monday Mode - More Than A Beach Dress

Hi my lovelies, how are you today?

Well, I hope, and enjoying these days of September for all that they offer, no matter where you are.

How am I?  I'm a tad traumatised.  I broke a tooth on Friday, late afternoon when there was no chance of getting it looked at till Monday.  Monday arrives and I was so lucky to be able to see my dentist at 9.30am and he managed to patch it up.   But it is just that, a patch up, and there's a bigger job and a bigger bill ahead. TP says it's something we oldies just have to expect at our age - old teeth break.  Depressing, eh?

So let's find some reasons to be cheerful.

Well here's reason Number 1.

My beach dress, 2nd Loved.

Other bloggers are diving into autumn, but 

I'm clinging on to summer in my beach dress.

I just love this dress and it's really been working its little socks off this summer with all the gorgeous sunny days we've had.

All too late, now when I look at these photos, am I seeing the opportunities this dress offers other than just throwing it over a swimsuit and slipping my feet into flip flops.

You see, for 15 years I've tunnel visioned it as something for the beach only and as such, I've not really taken pics of it so I've not truly looked at it.

Only now, because I snapped it for the blog, do I see its many colours for accessorising and only now can I see that with the right accessories it's so much more than just a beach dress.

And I see this baby going in many directions.

 Do you have a colourful dress you can study, pulling out colours to accessorise with?  Creating new outfits, creating new scope for your dress?

Take some photos and find out what your

dress can really do for you!

Here's what I'm seeing from this little beach dress, just by shopping from my wardrobe:

1. Red espadrilles and necklace

2. Coral cardi with espadrilles

3. Orange cardi or green cardi, metallic sandals

4. Turquoise embellished cardi and necklace, pewter sandals

5. A blue scarf as shrug or kaftan

6. White denim jacket and pumps (sneakers).

If we have the weather, I'll try a few of those combos and post them.

 If not, then oh well, let's squirrel those ideas and have lots of fun with this little dress next summer.

Because now I know that this little dress is ...

More than a beach dress,

More than a beach dress to me!

A la perchoine.

Thieving Thriday P.S.- Le Nautique

Thanks for popping back for my postscript, my lovelies.  I hope your weekend has got off to a flying start and maybe you're taking a break from your activities, sitting down with a coffee and are catching up with a few of your favourite blogs - and if you're here then

YIPPPEEEE!  I'm one of your faves!

I split up the outfit post I was putting together yesterday as it got just a bit too unwieldy, even by my standards!  So here I give you the "where I took the outfit" element.  Now just relax, enjoy your coffee and scroll through my pics.

Scaling  the centuries-old granite steps to Le Nautique restaurant, which is set in an old wharf building dating from when the seafront part of town was an active port for sailing ships.

Life in steps.

I have a love for old worn steps, steps that evidence forever the tread of those who've walked them for hundreds of years before us.  Life is there in each small worn indentation, each foot-polished slab.  Each step has been part of million life-stories.  What were those before me thinking as they placed their foot exactly where mine is today?

Oh how I digress.  Back to the meal, I drank a glass of chilled dry rose.

The view from my table, looking out over one of the island's  many marinas.

I started with a prawn tian.

Between courses, I admired the metallic table mats with a modern naiive fish (or should I say ex-fish?) design

I should have stopped at the prawn tian, for I then struggled to get through my king prawn green thai curry and wastefully had to leave rather a lot.

In recent years my appetite must have slowly reduced.  Or rather my capacity to eat, for perhaps the appetite is still there.  It happens over time as you age I guess.  I find that I've continued to order the same meals as I ate, say 5 years ago, but I'm leaving more and more on my plate, uneaten.  This is of course an expensive habit but more importantly, it's obscenely wasteful in this day and age.  

So I am trying to get my brain to catch up with my stomach and then engage with my mouth so that when it comes to ordering, the elegant words "I'll just have a starter with a side salad" are emitted through my ojjjwrinkled lips!

I realise I have become my mum!  She used to say things like "I'll just have a soup" and now I totally get that.  I am her!

Are you noticing your appetite is not yet in sync with your current eating capacity?

TP's scallops, new potatoes and an array of vegetables went down well!

The scallops were hand-caught by divers.  

The chef always comes round to chat with the diners after the meal and when TP mentioned that the quality of scallops was second to none, the chef explained the reasons why all hand-caught seafood actually does taste better.  Sadly it's all about the catching method; sea creatures are traumatised by the whole net-catching process which manifests in their poor little bodies.

That's food for thought, eh?

Perhaps you're vegan and this is further vindication of your life choice.  

Hand catching is a more costly process but when possible I choose to

eat less, but better.

So on that slightly preachy note from my pulpit (doesn't it look like one?!), I leave you till the next time, or as we say in Guernsey French ...

A la perchoine.

Thieving Thriday! The Suit Heist

See what I did there?  Thieving Thriday?  A portmanteau merging Thursday and Friday together creates one post for both days, and thus brings me up to day (sic!) with my days?!!!

So today, instead of thieving from another blogger, Pinterest, or a Madeleine catalogue, I'm thieving from my own wardrobe today.  Thieving from a suit to be more precise.

When searching in my archives recently I stumbled upon a whole range of smart summer wear that I used to wear, BITD, when I worked for a living.  Each time I come across these stashes I haven't the heart to move them on.  I still like them, I like the colours, I like the styles.  But they're just too posh for the life I lead now, retirement life.

So it made sense to try to incorporate some of the items into my retirement life.  A few items in various shades of aqua caught my eye.

Here's how I got on.

It started with a suit.  An East two-piece - is it me or does that sound very '50s.

A two-piece, that's what my mum would call this duo.

An aqua linen two-piece suit.  Great as businesswear, I wore it loads in the noughties summers but now, not so much.  Well, actually not at all!

Got a suit YOU don't wear?

So when I stumbled upon this two-piece I thought hey, I have quite a lot of these posh suits that get absolutely zilch wear in the teensies, but I cannot bear to throw them away.  So why not repurpose them?  And the repurposing turned out to be so simple.

Thieve from the suit !!

Thieve the jacket to wear with jeans, blue or white, either will work.

This instantly brings the jacket down to the level that is my pensioner life today.  Casual, and mostly (hopefully!) smart casual.

Then let's move on to the jacket's twin.  The dress. The label said 'dry clean only'.  I washed it.  It didn't die.  It may have lightened a shade, but I'm splitting the suit so ain't no biggie!

It's a rather lovely lined sheath dress.  Thieved away from the jacket, it still needs bringing down a notch further to make it a dress I can wear day-to-day.  So I added low-wedge pink sandals and a pink necklace.

Aqua is yet another colour that my gorgeous silk butterfly scarf compliments perfectly.  

Pout Tip: Remember, if you're investing in a scarf, choose one that has pattern, one that has as many of your fave colours in the pattern as is artistically possible - you will then find that this single scarf compliments most of your outfits.

Keeping with the smart casual look I desired, I switched to another pair of low-heel sandals, this time in metallic leather.

I added turquoise jewellery; on reflection, it should have been metallic too.

My recent Woolovers purchase in embellished aqua provides a co-ordinated coverup for this time of year.

For a slightly posher casual look, I switched to a chunkier necklace and Adesso taupe high wedged heels.

But keep the two pieces apart to avoid slipping back into posh!

The addition of the jacket returns the look to special occasion posh, not a day-to-day  retirement look but fine for a summer wedding or a meet-up with the Queen at Buck House - I don't think she'd kick me out wearing this little two-piece, do you ?!!

Try it out for yourself.

So, my dears, the purpose of this post today is this.  If you have posh combos that you love, like suits, two-pieces, whatever, and you can't bear to throw them out because you they still give you joy each time you see them, then 

- Think about how you can split them to make each individual piece more casual for the life you lead now.

- Then think about bringing the tempo down on each piece - a jacket worn with jeans and maybe a complementary scarf, a fitted dress worn with lower heels, chunkier jewellery.

2nd Love your poshwear !

A la perchoine.

TOMORROW: pop back to find out where I took my aqua linen sheath!