On Tuesday Liz and I caught the X51 bus over to Birmingham, hopped on the X21 outside New Street Station and forty-five minutes after leaving Walsall we'd arrived at our destination, Winterbourne House & Gardens in the leafy suburb of Edgbaston and, for once, it wasn't raining! You may remember Nikki and I visiting Winterbourne last year. If not, here's a recap and be warned, this post is very image heavy.  A rare surviving example of a suburban villa and garden built in the Arts & Crafts style, Winterbourne was designed by architect Joseph Lancaster Ball in 1903 for John ..read more

Have I mentioned that I'm off on our travels again? Despite the hiccup of being dropped off at the wrong hotel in the middle of the night last year, we've decided to risk another package holiday. Although we'd much rather travel independently, the price for a flight, coach transfer to the hotel (a two hour drive from the airport) and a week's accomodation in a small Greek owned business was an amazing £238 and seemed far too good to miss.  Being a package holiday, the cost also includes a generous luggage allowance of a 20kg check-in bag, 10kg of carry-on baggage plus a small personal ..read more

Hola! What a busy (but fabulous) few days.  After I signed off on Tuesday, it was a quick change into my vintage Hindu Kush dress & Afghan coat and a sprint into Walsall to meet Brendan and Lynne for drinks and artisan pizza at the Light before being blown away by the National Theatre's live screening of Nye. Nye was the 100th production to be screened in this way and it gave us shivers down our spines to know that audiences in twenty-two countries across the world were watching the performance at the same time as us and more than likely as incredulous as we were over Mic ..read more

There was a distinctly musical flavour to the weekend as we watched two of the DVDs we'd bought from the Air Ambulance charity shop; Mamma Mia and the Spandau Ballet docudrama, Soul Boys of the Western World along with the brilliant Pet Shop Boys interview with Alan Yentob currently on the iPlayer.  Amazingly, we had a couple of dry days enabling Johnny the builder to finish repointing the brickwork and for us to finally to repot our houseplants, an outdoor task we'd had to postpone for a while. Only having three windows with sills and, due to the veritable forest in our garden, ou ..read more

Hello, lovely people. Here's what's been happening in my world since I last posted. On Wednesday, for a morning of charity shopping, I wore an All About Audrey block printed midi dress with my Rawhide coat, a vintage tooled leather belt (both charity shopped),  Clarks platform boots & my trusty plum fedora.  On Thursday, for swimming and a 'Spoons breakfast, it was a Dilli Grey cord maxi skirt, a Pink Lemons Indian block print cotton blouse and some second-hand Toast cowboy boots. At the baths I learnt that one of the regulars had died last week, within hours of us ..read more

Hailstorms, Baltic temperatures and galeforce wind aside, at least we're enjoying a little sporadic sunshine this week. With the weekend mostly being spent paperhanging (I can't really call it wallpapering as its the ceiling we're tackling) I've been dressed in dungarees for most of the time. It was quite exciting to slip on my Naked Generation dress (eBay, 2020) and a vintage suede jacket to pop to B&Q for more DIY supplies on Monday morning. I did wear the vintage tan leather boots I'd bought from the charity shop on Friday but they pinch my big toes so off to the Kinky Shed they go.&n ..read more

When I signed off on Tuesday we were off to celebrate Liz & Adrian's joint birthday and we did, with a trip to The Avion, Wetherspoon's Aldridge branch followed by a curry in Laboni. The boss surprised us with a huge chocolate and ice cream gateau...chin chin! The following day Liz and I caught the bus to Birmingham. Although I usually catch the train to Brum, the bus stop is a five minute walk from our front door and the X51 (the express service) takes just 25 minutes. We wandered through the very grand Great Western Arcade and had a drink in Coffee 200 Degrees on Colmore Row.  ..read more

  My blog title is ironic, it's absolutely rancid out there today but being the little ray of sunshine that I am I was singing The Levellers classic (HERE) at the top of my voice as we ascended the Hill of Doom in the torrential rain earlier. What a beautiful day (hey hey!), What a beautiful day, And nothing is impossible in my own powerful mind. Anyway, onto more positive stuff - clothes! On Sunday me and my evil twin wore a Pink City Prints dress (via Vinted) over a Dilli Grey maxi skirt along with a vintage tooled leather bag, a bag strap I bought in Rhodes and my trusty orange fedor ..read more

It's been a weird old week, having not only a Bank Holiday to contend with but the clocks going forward, too. I'm not only a day behind but I'm still befuddled by that lost hour - although I always set my alarm clock, it's very rare I'm in bed when it goes off, I've usually got up long before the bell rings. The weather's continued to be all over the place and today it's been so warm that I've walked round to the postbox in just a dress and sunnies. I bumped into a lovely blog reader on the way there. Hello, Amrit! In-between deluges I've managed to pop outside and photograph lots of sto ..read more

Whilst the temperatures haven't been up to much, it's all starting to look rather Spring-like in the garden. Even Jacob's come out of hibernation and is currently chomping his way through a lettuce mountain!  On Sunday morning, with a pile of recently finished paperbacks cluttering up the hall, Jon suggested a trip down to the clearance chazza to drop them off. I'd fallen for this woven linen maxi skirt when I spotted it in Zara's sale last year but they didn't have my size (although my friend Anne was lucky enough to snaffle one in hers!) so I was thrilled to spot it on Vinted.  ..read more