Will you recognise me? Call my name or walk on by?

What do you do when you meet up with old friends you haven't seen in far too many years?

Well, you talk and laugh and drink all day, obviously.

You arrange to meet in a bar...

 ...where the laughing and teasing starts within minutes.

(We're blurry, and the day's only just begun...)

 You do a bit of sight-seeing too, because after all, you're in London, one of the most fantastic cities in the world.

You might try something you've never done before; in my case, that would be eating oysters. 

Plenty of tabasco and lemon juice, and they're good. Just don't chew.

You admire the views afforded by being 800ft above the city at the top of The Shard, Western Europe's tallest building.

 

You admire your lovely friends too. Not bad for a bunch of 50-somethings!

You stroll by the Thames.

Then you do some more drinking in the sunshine on the South Bank...

...while you try to fill in 25 year gaps in personal and work histories. You talk about university days, hair (facial, lack of, past errors of judgement), kids and families, theatre, the books we have and haven't written or read, music, football, and stalkers. And try to identify the best and worst moments from our time as students.

There are two ex-couples in this mix, but there weren't any oh you just had to bring that up, didn't you? moments. (I could run a competition and ask you to guess which of us were together, but that would be unseemly. And too easy.)

 Ahh, first loves and last laughs... It's all so intense when you're young.

Did I mention we're all ex-drama students?

Drama Queens in our very own Greek tragedy in 1984.

Now, we're more mellow. We wear ourselves a little more lightly, I think. 

 Inevitably, we talked about our friend S who is no longer with us (that's her in the striped dress, at her 21st birthday party.)

She's the reason we got together, and we missed her.

Clare and Martin, 1985 and 2014. Still gorgeous.

Alex and Andrew, 1985 and now. As moody and magnificent as ever.

Martin and Alex - 1984, 1989 and now. My darling boys.

Martin and me, 1984, 1989 and now.

 

Alex and me, 1985, 1987, 1988 and now.

 We had a magnificent meal and a magnum of champagne (courtesy of Andrew, who always was incredibly charming and generous, and still is); we reminisced, confessed, laughed, and then laughed some more. 

It was over too soon.

I loved seeing everyone; slow change may have pulled us apart, but we are recognisable to each other. Our younger selves are still here, but we have accrued experience, some scar tissue, great humour, more compassion, and maybe a little wisdom.

I liked us then. But I like us more now.

Sometimes, opening a door to the past simultaneously opens one to the future; here's to Sheffield 2015!

xxxx

The ghost in you

I am off on an adventure this week, and I am feeling a combination of excitement and anxiety, as befits a journey into the unfamiliar.

University of Sheffield graduation, Summer 1985.


I wrote in a previous post about the death of an old friend from my university days.

Some of us who had kept in touch made efforts to contact others, plans were hatched, and five of us are meeting up in London on Friday.

The five in the photo above.

It's been 25 years since I saw three of them. 

 There have been flurries of emails, proposals and arrangements made, and the teasing has started already.

I might be partly responsible for that...

It appears I am the only one with any photos of our university days, and I don't actually have that many. Film was expensive, so was getting it developed, and more often than not, the photos were blurry and dark.

But what I have, I will share with the gang, and I might even leave them unaltered; some of the pics are funny enough without any photoshopping tomfoolery.

1960s maxi dress - Ebay
Denim waistcoat and sunglasses - charity shopped
Sandals - retail (sale)
Indian leather bag - vintage fair
Necklace - gift from Leisa

Here I am in 1984, aged 20.

 I was wearing a fabulous 1950s brocade dress and jacket. I wish I still had them.

No one called old clothes vintage back then, they were just secondhand.

And this was at my mum's house in the summer of 1984, when Martin and Alex came to stay.

Look how they are studiously avoiding the camera; it wasn't always so!

I'm really looking forward to seeing my old friends, and of course we will fondly remember S, who is sadly no longer with us.

I wonder what we will make of each other after all this time?

 We won't be the same people, of course. But are the ghosts of those bright and shiny 21 year olds in the graduation photo still in all of us?

I'll let you know.

Have a great weekend.

xxx


  

White Light/White Heat

It's been a glorious weekend here, sunny and warm with a real buzz of summer about it.

 And I've been wearing white.

This is relatively unusual for me; I am very fair-skinned and tend to feel overly pale in white.

In addition, I am messy and prone to spillages.

But all of these new-to-me beauties were too good to leave behind, and it's good to challenge those preconceptions once in a while.

1970s St Michael cotton maxi skirt, denim jacket, 1960s silk scarf, sunglasses and leather belt - charity shopped

Hobbs t-shirt - jumble sale

Indian leather bag - vintage fair

Sandals - retail (sale)

This fabulous skirt was in the Vintage Corner of one of my local charity shops, but still only cost £4, and the Hobbs t-shirt was 50p at last Saturday's jumble. 

My kind of outfit!

1970s California Cottons dress (but made in the UK) - flea market (£8)

Cardigan and belt - charity shopped

1980s sunglasses - vintage shop

I am slightly concerned that this makes me look like Sandy from Grease before her makeover...

...but not worried enough to prevent me from wearing the dress today and feeling perfectly happy.

Nina has declared she would like it when I've finished with it - you know, when you're 90, Mum.

She and I had a mooch around our local secondhand/vintage shops this afternoon.

The Vault used to be a bank, and still has the old safe in the basement; Nina posed in front of it on the proviso I wouldn't lock her in it.

That reel-to-reel was fabulous, but had a hefty price tag; my friend Sue bought one from last week's jumble for a quid. 

 

There's darling Vix, posing nude again. She'll do anything for votes.

 

 

I only bought this 1960s bracelet. It's not marked, but it's satisfyingly chunky and well-made.

 

From early 1970s maxi chic...

 

... to a late '70s recreation of 1950s style.

The two outfits seem to bookend the 1970s in a way I find ridiculously satisfying.

 

I'm easily pleased.

 

 

 

 

I'll be taking my 1970s looks to Patti's Visible Monday as always; see you there!

xxxxx

Fancy

It seems that if you wear anything other than jeans, t-shirt and fleece (or equivalent), you will run into the adjective fancy.

I have received all sorts of comments about what I wear, though I don't much mind what anyone else says.

 In my book, looking fancy is fine. I think it's intended to imply overdressed, but that's fine too.

 

  Yes, I suppose this is a fancy mid-week frock.

But so what?

 I don't know what to do about the hem of this dress.

It's been hacked off and poorly hemmed, but there isn't enough fabric left to let down.

Should I try and find some braid to hide the wobbly hem, or cut the dress to midi length? Or shorter?

Any thoughts?

 I do love the floaty cape sleeves.
Now they are fancy.

But the thing is - I'm not.

I'm a woman of very low standards really.

I am definitely not fussy; I'm not a clean freak, a label whore, or a snob. I'm as happy in a greasy spoon as I am in a swanky restaurant (I'd rather go to a pub and a curry house really), and as long as people aren't rude or bigoted, I don't much mind what they do or say. I prefer a modicum of intelligence, it's true. I like an apostrophe in its rightful place and a well-articulated opinion, but I swear like a navvy, and am perfectly happy with secondhand clothes, low-brow pursuits and cheap laughs.

I'm just not fancy pants at all.
 

1970s cape-sleeve maxi dress and most of the bangles - charity shopped
1960s pendant - flea market
Sandals and hair flowers - retail (sale)


I think some people find the discrepancy between how I dress and how I am a little confusing.

Oh well; they'll live.

What about you?

What do your clothes say about you, and do they ever give a misleading message?

The word fancy always makes me think of this song. I love Bobby Gentry, and even if 1960s country music isn't your thing, you have to admire the way she's poured herself into that catsuit.

Now that's fancy!

PS. Thanks for all the pledges of additional votes for our Vix. She's still in the lead, but Tweedy Man is chap-hopping at her high heels, so please keep asking people to vote!

Here's your one chance, Fancy, don't let me down...

xxxx

                                                  

Vote for Vix!

You all know by now I am a fairly lazy person. 

I can waste time effortlessly, and as long as the wheels stay more or less on the track, then I am satisfied. I have few in the way of perfectionist traits, and can be slap-dash, to put it kindly. 

Swanning about taking photos in the garden when the house is a bombsite and the washing needs sorting?

Yep, that'll do me.

But there are some things I take seriously.

My allotted role as Vix's campaign manager is one of them!

Most of you will know Vix and her brilliant blog Vintage Vixen.

You are also probably aware that she is a nominee for Vintage Personality 2014 in this year's Vintage Awards.

You might not know that I nominated her; even Vix didn't, because I forgot to tell her.

See? Slapdash.

 I could go to any of Vix's blog posts and pick a photo of an amazing outfit made up of vintage pieces, mostly bought for tuppence ha'penny at a jumble sale, made from an old curtain, or received as a gift from one of her many friends.

But I thought I'd use my pics from our blogger days out; we've met up a few times now over the past 2 years and always have a wonderful time.

Here we are in Wetherspoons in Walsall, the first time we met, in July 2012.

 

 This 1970s Tricoville dress is just one of the many gifts Vix has given me, and it remains one of my absolute favourites. It's one of those old faithfuls which always makes me feel good when I wear it.
 

So it's Vix in dress form really, since I think she too has the ability to make other people feel good.

She is a reliable, thoughtful and supportive commenter on blogs, and I think many of her followers consider her to be both a friend and an inspiration.

And what you see on her blog is what you get in real life, from her fabulous style, to her wit and intelligence, her generosity, her forthright views, and her sense of humour.

Strangers really do approach her to chat and pay her compliments...

...or take her photo!

It's the Vix Effect; she's just got something special.

Which is why she should win the Vintage Personality award!

 So here's an idea;

 I'm sure many of you have voted for Vix already, but have you asked friends and family?

I sent out a quick email to my non-blogging, non-Facebooking friends, with a link to the Vintage Awards website, and asked if they would mind voting for my friend. They were happy to oblige.

If we all did the same, I reckon that's a lot of extra votes.

1970s Tricoville chiffon dress - gift from Vix

Denim jacket and bangles - charity shopped

Indian leather bag - vintage fair

Boots - retail (sale)

Voting continues throughout May; our Vix is in the lead at the moment, but Tweedy Moustache Man is sneaking up behind her, and he Must Not Win.

I simply won't allow it, OK?

And if I find out you didn't vote, you'll have me to reckon with. I might look like a lady, but when I'm riled, I make Malcolm Tucker look mild-mannered.

(Please don't watch this if you are remotely offended by swearing. It's ALL swearing, and it is both big and clever.)

Now get fucking voting!

xxxx