How To Control Your Crisp Habit

 Hi there, sweet people.  I bet you're starting to rush around now that we've hit December.  Christmas is coming up for real.  I'm guessing quite a few of you find yourself surrounded by lists, like moi.   And if it ain't (sic) listed or diarised, it don't (sic) get done.   

I already have one man down - today I realised I missed a hairdresser appointment over a week ago.  Little appointment card details didn't get transferred to the diary, you see, so this was an appointment guaranteed to be missed.  I have to grovel to the hairdresser tomorrow.

So, we're jingling into to December.  I impressed myself in November.  I decided I would go a month without a vice. And I did it!   My chosen vice was crisps (chips).  Not one crisp has passed my pout in 30 days.  Well actually 34, because I haven't gone on a crisp binge come 1st December.  No I am sailing elegantly and confidently into the month without any desire for my salty addiction.

You see, I decided that if things need addressing, then I'm going to take a light-touch to them.  Just calmly tell myself this month I won't eat crisps.  I can eat crisps in December, if I want.

It's been so easy to get crisps out of my system with that approach.  I haven't gone charging into December, frenziedly tearing open a pack of M&S reduced fat sour cream ridges (which I adore!).  Nope, I haven't missed them, not one little crumb - the small broken bits are my thing.  My jam, I think the Americans say right now.

Crisps were becoming a naughty habit of mine. They were my mindless eating.  During November, I made up little dishes of more healthy foods in the evening.  Sliced apple, shelled walnut halves, little sticks of a good cheese, grapes, a few cheese biscuits.  It actually felt far more elegant, simple, controlled.  Conscious eating.

That's going to be my approach, I've decided.  Make small changes to my life.  A light-touch approach.  Baby steps, each time I identify changes that are called for.

I haven't got any Lent-style deprivations lined up for December, I'm not obsessive about this month thing, but January is going to be the classic, G&T/wine free.  Fancy joining me?

So it perhaps sounds like I'm setting myself up for failure by moving on to my OOTD and stating that I'm still a bit of an old wino.  To qualify that, I'm still feeling the love for the colour.

I bought this bargain of a fancy sleeved wine top a few weeks ago.

 I thought initially that the sleeves were too long and would get in the way when doing chores, like washing the dishes, cleaning the bathroom etc.  They don't ... I just avoid chores.  Simples!

Isn't it wonderful what a blog can reveal about its author.  I saw spots on this pic and realised it wasn't my top that was speckled, it's the mirror.  Clear proof that I'm avoiding chores.

 

This winemance has sent messages to my brain to search out more wine stashed away in my wardrobe (goodness, I'm starting to sound like I have a real problem with the stuff!).

I remembered I had a wine-coloured jacket, which I bought a few years ago but I don't think I've ever worn.  A blogger lured me to it; it fitted her climate and lifestyle, doesn't really fit easily into mine.  But 'tis the mini season for jackets, so I slipped it on.

I added grey suede boots and a grey muffler.

I  decided grey jeans with this little ensemble would look too contrived, I thought blue denim gave more of a just-threw-these-things-together look.  What do you think?

As the day was quite mild, this little OOTD was all I needed for a trip to M&S Food Hall and a sellotape buying expedition, for 'tis the mini season for sellotape too.

My nail finish didn't look too bad with wine, thought it might clash.

These have lasted more that 3 weeks. Got to think up a new colour by Thursday, Pout nail day.

Seems we ladies are divided on the issue of nail gel.  2017 has been my year for trying it out. My nails have grown for the first time in 3 years.  But let's see what 2018 brings. 

Later, I swapped the jacket for a down jacket and the grey suede for black Chelsea boots.

And I enjoyed my morning constitutional along the east coast.

 

The day was looking calm but moody.

The clouds later turned to rain clouds.

But no matter, I've made a cup of coffee and I'm up in my garret chatting with you guys!

Thanks for popping in,  my dears.

I'm now off to assess where I am with my lists and will charge back into Christmas preps.

How are you doing with your lists?  With your preps?  Got your house dec'ed up yet?  

I haven't, I have, err, technical problems.

A la perchoine.

Winteryfying Summer

Hi my dears.  How was your Halloween?

I was visited by some pretty scary characters!  They deserved a good rummage in my treats stash.

A few posts ago I wore a coral top, here, and from your comments I was reminded that I am not just a One Coral Top Wonder, that I have a similar coloured top that I wore during the summer months.  Thank you for reminding me, my darling reader Laurie, for when deliberating on what to wear for my Girlie Cuz meet-up, up popped the idea of taking that summer top here and wintryfying it. 

And I expect this is what this trans-seasonal dressing thing is all about. Taking winter clothes and de-layering them in spring. Taking summer clothes and making them somehow a bit warmer in autumn. 

So that is what I did.

My summer Peacock coral top with Rita black jeans and Clarks snakeskin textured courts (word blanked out as some of you have a thing about that reptile); an old but still-loved East necklace to link in the black.

Then I layered on the Primani with scarf and biker jacket.

And thus, my summer top that I had hereto thought belonged exclusively to white jeans, I now find works with black bottoms and a light scarf and jacket.  Intensifying the colours around the top transforms it from summer through to winter.  Season switching really is that simple.

I can see this random summer buy as being something I can wear pretty much all year round, merely switching darker and lighter colours on the bottom half and following through with similar footwear, and layering.  

I can see it with stone coloured ankle trousers next spring.  (Won't that colour combo be gorgeous?!)

 Yes, I'm starting to see quite a few possibilities for this style of top and this colour. 

A coral fluted top is not just for summer.

Do you have items in your wardrobe that you bought for one specific season then magically you discover, with a bit of experimentation, that they actually work all year round?  I bet you're much better at this stuff than me.  Why am I always one of the last to get the memo?!!



But oh my darlings, I'm not a big fan of clocks-back time.  Just look out the window.  It's pitch black and it's only 6pm.  Ugghhh.  And the dark makes it somehow colder than it was on summer time just a couple of days ago.



Now, to take your mind off the scary wintry scene outside my window (and the scary sight of me on your screens!), I'll leave you with a shot of my glittery pink/brown nails.  Again!  Yes, you could say I've become a little bit obsessed with them.  If friends don't mention them within a few minutes of meeting, I can't hold back and just have to point their eyes in the direction of my sparkly fingertips. 

I am a girl possessed!

Queue the scary music ...

A la perchoine.

The Pumpkin As An Accessory?!

The pumpkin.  Autumn is the time to celebrate this humble vegetable and do glorious things with it which go beyond the realms of our British imaginations.   Right now I am reading of pumpkin spice, pumpkin muffins, pumpkin lattes, pumpkin body lotions and ... pumpkin martinis, which taste surprisingly good, so I'm told.

Yes, pumpkin fever has hit the blogisphere.

As a nation, we Brits tend to be quite conservative with vegetables in general and pumpkins specifically.  We can barely get our heads around scooping out the pumpkin's innards, popping that in a soup then gouging facial features out of the carcase and calling it a candle holder. 

So I decided to fly the flag and try a bit of pumpkin innovation myself.  I see further possibilities for this most voluminous of vegetables.  Why stop at cocktails and body products? 

I see it as the perfect accessory.  After all, others accessorise with hoovers, roller blades and Sainsburys carrier bags (you know who you are!) so why not a pumpkin?

 A few days ago we visited a farm shop.  So, what did I wear?  I wore grey.  Only grey. 

Grey patterned top (Next), grey jeans (Peacocks) ... and grey boots.

Yup, these babies are new.  I sneaked out a-shoppin' whilst The Photographer was playing golf and found these in Debenhams.  I lucked out on a day when the store was offering a huge discount on boots.  I'd been looking out for grey boots for some time and when I saw the deal, I pounced.

Lucky ole me eh?

The fact is that these boots have a high heel and my legs appear longer. IMHO.  And I desperately need extra length to my stumpiest of pins which usually appear to be short appendages bridging body and footwear.  The trompe l'oeil of these boots is that I appear to have legs!

I'd thought to go out in just a cardi (grey), but the weather had other plans on how to style The Pout.

The weather decided that  it would follow my outfit cue - it was grey.  A warmer layer was required - grey, of course.

So the day being grey was the perfect final accessory for my monochrome look.  Oh, and a cross-body being the final final accessory.

Then at the farm shop, I thought maybe I could use a pumpkin as my final final final accessory, but it was orange  and lacked my chosen monochromicity. 

Now, I had always believed that with pumpkins, similar to Fords and black, you could have any colour you wanted, provided it was orange.  But a revelation awaited me in the vegetable stalls. 

Pumpkins apparently come in grey too, here a light grey to match the light greyness of my outfit. How fortuitous.  The ultimate grey accessory. 

And they even come in a darker shade of grey to match my jeans.

Oh, which to choose?

The greys stopped there.  It seems there are not 50 Shades of Grey in the pumpkin world.  I counted two.  Two doth not a best selling book nor a film make, but two was sufficient for the purpose of the monochromaciouness of my outfit.

Yes, you can accessorise an outfit with a pumpkin, dear fellow fashionistas.  Slice it mid-section, gouge out the pumpkin's top half and call it a beret, is my humble fashion tip for today.

To break the monochrome rut paradise I had found myself in, I had my nails gelled glittery soft pink.  Here seen against my laptop keyboard, which is grey, of course.

A la perchoine.

Bikers, Scones and Peacocks

Hi, dear readers.  Well, we're passed the middle of October and storming at breakneck speed

 into November (quite literally for some poor souls, my heart goes out to them). 

Life is so fast-moving at the moment, so fast that I don't seem to take it all in.

 I had one of those blogger blocks today. 

I sat at my laptop and thought, what on earth have I been doing this past week?

Fortunately my essential aide memoire was to hand.  My photo folders.  Oh how vital are these visual prompts and my blogger's diary these days.  Otherwise I wouldn't remember what I did yesterday.

The camera doesn't lie and it tells me that last Thursday I wore this.

Black pencil skirt, black/grey striped top, Gabor anklies, batik silk scarf.  The latter is from a charity shop so yippee, that sneaks me in for one of dear Terri's 2nd Loved linkups, which I'll post here.

Oh yes, you perhaps noticed that I slipped on a biker jacket too.

Yeah, yeah ... I hear you - I didn't pack one.  But I keep a few things over here to dip into and this was a dip that filled me with excited anticipation.  It's a £14 Primani find.

I have to say, darlings, that I was very pleased with this little outfit.  I felt really good in it.

I'm sorry the pics aren't the best, TP must have been having a down-day (but, my dear reader Anne, they will get better!)

I felt that my little outfit deserved a proper outing, so I took me and it out for tea at the pretty 

Powder Mills, Battle

It was actually tea for three.  For this pretty peacock strutted his stuff alongsIde whilst I drank a prosecco on the terrace, taking in the glorious colour that is the autumn afternoon sunlight.  It was beautifully warm, so the jacket came off and I sipped elegantly, feeling the love -  of nature,  wildlife and our beautiful October Indian summer.

Not satisfied with watching me sip my bubbly, Mr P also decided to join us for tea - he stepped tentatively over the threshold of the front door ... !

The restaurant was beautifully set up and fit for, errr, a peacock!

Tea was served in the pretty conservatory.  My pics don't do the scrummy scones, the bird or the place the justice they deserve.  I must have been on a down-day too.  

So I leave you in the competent hands of the Powder Mills' camera pros ...

Join me on the drive up to the Powder Mills.

Be struck by the beauty of its pretty wisteria.

Get chummy with the locals.

Wander around its pretty gardens.

Stroll inside and feast your eyes on the décor ...

Then say goodbye to this fine fella ...

The peacock, at Powder Mills.

And to ...

the peacock, at Orsett Hall, by Tricia Gould (the Designers' Guild).

Now, I hope I don't bore you with hotel interiors, dears, it's just that I do admire a good bit of décor and I'm hoping some of you do too.

And finishing where I started off (before my ramblings!) ... biker jackets.  I can't believe how useful they are and how much I am having a blast wearing them.  Perhaps you are feeling the biker jacket love too?  When I recently posted a biker jacket outfit, bloggerTerri's wonderful reminiscing got me reminiscing myself.  This song sprang to mind, so thanks Terri for taking me back about 45 years to when my cousin first introduced me to this little ditty.

I hope I don't bore you with my music pastes either, it's just that I do admire a good song too.

Arlo Guthrie, singing talking The Motorcycle Song.  Please do give it a listen!

So that's one of the things I've been up to, folks.  Now I'm off to my photo folders to refresh my addled memory on what else I've been doing recently!

A la perchoine.



Paint It Black

Hi my sweetie pies!  Ready for your weekend? Have you got a relaxing rewind of a few days planned or is it going to be jam-packed with house tasks and socialising?

I did have exciting plans with a lovely friend which have had to change a tad, so maybe a quiet dinner is on the cards, coffee with family and just a little housework.  Does that sound like a pensioner's weekend?

I don't know about The Pouting Pensioner, I'm feeling more like The Peripatetic Pensioner at the moment (or some of you may think of me as The Peripathetic Pensioner!)

I'm all over the place right now.  Mini cruise to Bruges, a week in the Scilly Isles and now three weeks in the UK, which will involve a series of mini trips between Sussex and London and maybe other places too.  My holidays are certainly like buses!

Because of all this peripatetic-ing (oh I love making up words that don't pass spellcheck!), I've had the usual challenge of devices that don't talk too each other.  And the challenge of packing, multiple times. For the past six weeks it seems like life had been pack, unpack, launder; repack, reunpack, relaunder ... maybe exposure to so much packing had got me rather good at it 😊, see here and here.

However, so much was I fine tuning my UK trip's packing to attempt record-breaking carry on weights that I made an executive decision with regard to photographic devices.  "Oh, the iphones will serve us well" was my decision, for I was that executive.  It was a rash decision.  Not my best. Because they haven't served us well.  My photographs are coming out decidedly bad, lacking in focus, blurring lights, that sort of thing.  I fear I may just weaken and let my finger stroll over to Amazon to get myself something better.  So my apologies for the quality right now.  Not good.  And shortly I will give you practical demos on how not-good they are.

So, enough of the waffle, Pout, tell your friends what you've been up to!

Well, just a day after arriving in  Sussex, I went on my first mini trip up to London.  No not to meet the Queen!

I started the journey with jeans and a top.

For dinner I wore the black modal jersey top and switched jeans for a black pencil skirt, both M&S, with Clarks chunky heeled courts (pumps).  Legs patterned by M&S; I felt all that black needed a bit of texture to lift the outfit.

Next day I wore a Dotty P jersey dress (packs a dream).  My "waist" is "cinched" by a deep black leather belt.  Tie Rack silk square.  These last two items are about 20 years old and still much loved (I say this in case I decide to put this post on Terri's 2nd Loved link-up - my old clothes are loved, but still by me!).

The legs were clad with matt opaques.

Over this I wore a v. old ex-suit textured jacket by Kaliko; this also packs a dream and hence I took it with me on many business trips, BITD.  My little black handbag finished off the outfit.

For dinner that evening back at the hotel, I switched the jacket for a spotted cardi, Primani.  And became obsessed by a light fitting.

So my little case carried 1 jacket, 1 dress, 1 skirt, 1 cardi, 1 vest (tank), just in case. 1 pr courts, tights (racy and sombre), silk square, handbag.  Mostly black.  I wanted black.

Either side of these outfits and for travel I wore the top with jeans, leoprint scarf and flatties; crossover bag.

Pretty light packing, huh?

I could have done without the skirt and vest but our trip may have been extended by another overnight, so I packed for that eventuality.

Now here I will demonstrate how bad my pictures are.  We stayed at Orsett Hall.

Website photo.

My photo.

My photos only (none found on website).  I loved this lounge, I loved the colour mix and the patterns.

And here I ate a surprisingly tasty tuna bagle.  I'm impressed that the simple tuna can be turned into something quite tangy and exciting.  Coffee was accessorised by cute milk churns.  I know one milk churn fan who will be wanting to get her hands on these cutiies.  You know who you are!

Back to the comparisons.

Website photos

My photos (a wedding reception was taking place the day we arrived).

My photos only.  Again, I found no dining room website shots to compare.

I liked the floral touches in this room.  The voiles were edged in fabric that matched the wallpaper.  "Snapshots" of the fabric pattern were used on the backs of the chairs.  I liked those touches.

 Now, some of these photos aren't the worst, but they can definitely be done better. 

The fact is, this is about finding more ways of doing less of what I currently do better.

And if you don't watch W1A, that last sentence will leave you scratching your head. 

Yes, exactly.  Yes.

Oh and did I say I was concerningly besotted by a light fitting?!

This huge chandelier-style fitting spanned the hotel's three floors!

I challenged myself to have photos taken with it on each floor.  I won't bore you with all of those.

I'm guessing you don't get obsessed by light fittings?  It's probably just me ... oh, and a family member of mine who always heads for the light fittings section in DIY and department stores.  You know who you are too!

A la perchoine.