What To Wear For A Special Birthday

What do you do in preparation for a special occasion?

I was invited to a special birthday lunch for a very special friend.  My friend of 50 years.  You met her here, remember?

Before I could even think about what to wear, I needed to get a bit of grooming sorted out.  Fringe was trimmed and nails were gelled a couple of days before the big event.

Then I was busy thinking about the old proverbial, the what-to-wear dilemma.



Here's what I came up with.

The starting point just has to be a flowery dress when invited to a special birthday lunch in August.

Here my East silk number, which has become a default special meal dress in recent years.

Add a glass bead necklace.

Bracelet (Wink) and earrings (Claudia Bradby).

Grey Adesso shoes and pink Tula bag - see not matchy matchy today!

And then The Pout was good-to-go.

But she needed a cardi for British Summer 2017.

I usually pick out the pink flowers when choosing a cardi for this dress, so I've been wearing a little sludgy pink number for years.  This time I tried it with my recently purchased cropped cardi.  I liked its shape with the dress but, truth be told, as I look at these pics I think I over-egged the grey a bit.  

Agreed?  Do you sometimes tilt too far in the direction of colour safety?

 However, as I'd worn the very same dress for my friend's hubby's special birthday four years ago but with the sludgy pink, I think I may just have got away with a repeat wearing with my cunning cardi switch ... 😏!

Now let's take this little outfit La Fregate Restaurant

And I have to apologise as from hereonin the sun sort of takes over in these pics.

I love a good encaustic-tiled hallway.

And a comfy chair.

And I love my dear friend who was celebrating a special birthday.  In a very sunny conservatory restaurant but you can still see her looking as gorgeous as she has always has done since the very first day I met her.

And you may have spotted her shoes in the pic.

 

Well, I did too.  I just loved them.  A bargain in a recent posh shoe shop sale.  Aren't they gorgeous?!

My friend had paid great attention to nail colour, choosing a light grey/silver to go perfectly with those beautiful shoes.  I love that attention to detail.

The Birthday Girl.

And a birthday girl just has to have a lacy birthday cake.  mmnnn.

This lovely lady was the reason I recently posted some retro pics here, which I found when I was hunting down a photo to make up her special Moonpig card.  I used this photo of my friend who was looking gorgeous all those years ago too.

Cheers, special friend!

A la perchoine.

Linking up with

A Sunday Birthday Lunch

 

 

 A family birthday lunch.  What to wear?  I went for smart comfort.  Always do, don't I?
 

Well, the "good" news is that I broke my cycle of several weeks, getting out of Peacock jeans and into a skirt for a change.  I'm loving those jeans so much that I'm finding it difficult to think of a different bottom half.  They've become like a second skin!

The "bad" news is that I drifted towards Woolovers.  Again.  When will this end? Spring, maybe.

I wore the side-button cashmere merino jumper in a light grey to deliver my pressies.  For accessories I chose a grey taupe glass bead necklace from N St J Paint. earrings from Claudia Bradbury (which you have no chance of seeing with all that hair!) and a grey Wink leather bracelet.

The Zara leoprint scarf and black Gabor boots finished off the OOTD.

As overwear, my Zara ecru jacardi.

But then I peeped out the window and saw it was raining.  So I switched to my M&S raincoat.  And then I went out the front door and the heavens opened.  Back into the house to grab my MS rainhat.

And yes, there is a bit of "a sack tied up in the middle" effect with the belting on the raincoat, but did I care?  No I did not, I wanted to stay dry and warm.

We met up at Hotel Jerbourg.

It's set on a cliff top, facing south to the sea.  I took some shots on arrival, but although the rain had cleared by the time we arrived, it was a bit hazy so the views weren't that clear.



A lovely cliff path runs along past the hotel.  It's a beautiful area for walking. But I was wearing heeled boots, so no walking for this Pout!

Step away from the Petanque too, Pout - heeled boots, remember?

Dining with a cliff-top sea view; the carvery.

 

The lovely little birthday person excitedly opened his pressies, which he was so pleased with.

 

And now, food shots warning, peeps.

Yummy crab and prawn thermidor, the flavour was pretty perfect; The Photographer's scallops.

My Big Fat Carvery. Kinda embarrassing, eh?  A bit of an unnecessary waste of food resources, I admit, but half went back as it was it was just a little too much for this Pensioner's tummy.

 

And the naughty stuff!!! Oh, the pastries, cakes, pies, tarts and cheesecakes on display which are offered for pudd were just off the Richter scale.  No photos, that would be too painful for us all! 

Obviously I would have been silly to even attempt a nibble at one.  But I have made a mental note to self to return for a coffee and cake ... very soon!

So my dears, that was my lovely lunch with lovely family celebrating a lovely little boy's birthday.

 

 Hotel Jerbourg for Sunday lunch - highly recommended; please visit if you're in the area.

And I leave you with this photo I found on the hotel's website.  Some Guernsey cows.  Pretty, huh?

They are quite simply the best dairy cow in the entire world!  The milk is so creamy, so yellow ...

A la perchoine.



It's All Grey Today - and breaking news!

Breaking news:  Just realised, I wrote my very first post a year today - here!

My thanks to all of you lovely people for popping in to my humble blog.

Jeans and jacket, jewellery, hair ... jewellery, hair - it's all grey today, folks!

Hello my lovelies.  Hope you are well and keeping warm.  We're having gloriously crisp sunny days with just a slight breeze and still checking in at around 3-5 degrees, down to -1 sometimes at night.  Could be worse so let's call it pretty bloomin' good!

My recent Challenges post has whet my appetite for doing some more 'jacket and jeans' work.  So I grabbed the jacket I posted and gave it a whirl.

Old M&S grey tweedy jacket  worn with grey Peacock jeans (new this winter) and a silk-edged modal l/sl top from Artigiano.  Looking at the pics I think I should have added some pattern or some colour.  Better luck next time.

My gorgeously light-as-a-feather silk scarf from sweet Janice of theviviennefiles.  I should cut off its tag but it gives its provenance as being handprinted in New York which to an island girl sounds pretty exotic.  So I don't.

I was going out for lunch and didn't fancy lugging a coat around just for to and from the car so I snuggled into this leoprint shawl from Next.  So warm.  I snuggle into it a fair bit in this weather.

.

Peacocks 3btn-high-waist-rita-jeans

I bought these before Christmas but have only started wearing them recently now that I'm in Real Clothes again.   Great jeans.  Said it before. I'll say it again, Peacocks do good jeans.

I wore my recent birthday present received here - Double grey pearl earrings made by Claudia Bradby.  Aren't they super?  I've worn them loads.  So me. 

So grateful to Son and Daughter in Law for my lovely pressie.

Here's my "arty bloggy" shot of them with my Christmas pressie Wink bracelet I told you about - see how they work together so well.  (I was originally going to wear the scarf in this pic but The Photographer With Fashion Views told me to go with the silky one instead.  So I did.

I've enjoyed resurrecting this skirt suit.  It's drawing me back to my fave grey.  It's drawing me to mixing grey with my fave complimentary colours.   So I will.

And here's some more archive magic.  A week ago I spotted this jacket on the Next site.

I liked it and saved a photo on my tablet, so I was already at that stage consciously stalking it with intention to buy. Then when I was putting together the aforementioned Challenges post, I thought hey, that jacket's similar to something I've got in the holding pattern wardrobe. 

Tadaah!  No need to click the Next button, I can put my pensioner pennies back in my purse.

Do you have moments like this?

You've seen something you like, then it dawns on you already own something similar?

It's been happening to me a fair bit lately.  It pays to hoard!  Let's call it The Hoarding Dividend.

A la perchoine.