Panther

Poor Panther; Me and Tom found this forlorn looking cat at last Sunday's car boot, how could we leave him? On re-framing we found written on the back:

'Panther- Summer 1958 to 31st July 1965.'

It is enough to make you weep, at least he now has a home on our kitchen wall, it makes you wonder who's cat he was and how this memorial ended up being flogged for a pound at the car boot.

Botanical Gardens

We have never been to Kew (gardens), but somehow this evening the idea of it took us rather forcefully and we decided for better or for worse to pool each living thing in our possession together and wade on in.

Naturally a soldier and a Lady were the obvious 'parts' with which to compliment our flora and f. I am wearing an amalgamation of uniforms spanning the wardrobe every soldier that has trotted of over the channel since Victoria died, not quite what the 'Order of the sealed knot' would call kosher but enough to make any young man puff out his chest and start welling up over the geraniums. I can hardly remember where most if it came from, the jacket was from somewhere in Bath at the high end of Walcot street (if you know where I mean you won't be able to remember the name either). I think the tie was from Sabre Sales in Portsmouth (good for red and white jackets), and the hat came via Maria's mother.

Maria is wearing an ebay dress that alomst got away; I was outbid at the last second and in my post losing despair I emailed the winner and asked how much they would be willing to part with it for. It turns out she only needed it for one fancy dress night and would sell it to me for what she paid for it! The moral of the story is, if you don't ask, you don't get.

My parasol is a 1920's cotton number from a rambling three storey antiques shop somewhere near the train station in Cardiff.

The cat decided he would like to join us. His name is Chester.

Inheritance Dresses.

Back in January I inherited a little bit of money from my late Nanny; my brother being the sensible one of us put his away so he can do his Masters degree next year, me being the rather insensible one went on a spree and bought three 1920's dresses. They are all bargains in their own right, but I do come out in a cold sweat when I think how much I spent on them. Never mind, at least they won't depreciate, an investment some might say!

The first one is from Steptoes' Dog vintage and apparently is from 1925; it has a sequined collar, which is what sold it to me, and is quite an unusual shape for that period. It is pretty unforgiving, so I will need to buy some heavy duty shaping underwear before its first public outing.

The second is an eBay find that is my favourite of the three; it is black silk with gauzy overlay and Roses embroidered in pink silks and fastened with a diamante brooch. It is in such good condition I don't have that awful feeling that I am about to do it serious damage by wearing it, I have worn it out to our favourite pub even!

The third is another eBay find, a rather brief little silk slip; it is in good condition but the silk ribbon straps have seen better days and trying to get the thing off is extremely inelegant. I think I will be able to get away with wearing it out with a slip undernethe it and a little bolero or shawl.

London

As promised, these are a select few pictures from our trip to London; I would have liked a lot more to show, but I was so busy running round and doing things I really didn't have the time to take too many.

The first is the obligatory Thames at sunset photo, this was taken at about 10 o'clock whilst we were desperately trying to find Gordon's Wine Bar and some food, the wine bar was shutting when we finally got there so we ended up in a slightly dubious Italian place with bad wine, we did however, manage to go to the wine bar the next evening and ate way too much cheese.

On the second night after all the cheese we walked it off by detouring through Mayfair to get back to our hotel; we encountered this dapper lobster outside a rather special looking restaurant in Tom's favourite London haunt, Jermyn street.

By chance we found ourselves on an empty Lancaster Gate platform just as the train was arriving, I had to really rush and take a picture, it is not something that happens very often, especially at midday as it was!

Finally, I thought I would have a little rave about the hotel we stayed in, a certain London Elizabeth at the top of Hyde Park; I haven't stayed in many hotels at all, but this was by far the nicest (apart from a slightly scary barman). Thank you internet for finding this bargain deluxe room for us!

Shirts

I am getting pretty fond of shirts at the moment. They are just the sort of thing around which an endless and exciting search for the 'perfect collection' can be founded. A shirt is the base upon which all the rest of your clothes will have to sit, for example, have you ever seen somebody wearing a nice suit or trousers etc but somehow not felt it was quite 'right'? I'll bet five pounds it was the shirt rocking the boat. So many times you hear this sort of problem attributed to the tie which is a little unfair as quite often people choose ties to match their shirt. The shirt is the foundation, the canvas upon which everything else has to be arranged. And that is why they are so exiting.

Having read through the above I see it sounds a bit pretentious, sorry, I have been giving it quite a lot of thought the last few days and couldn't seem to phrase my conclusions in a less-formal way.

I always remember the the bit in Gatsby where he is showing Daisy around his house for the first time and he empties his wardrobe of shirts across the bed to impress his wealth upon her. She begins to cry and on asking her why she explains 'She had never seen so many beautiful shirts'. This is inspiring stuff, surely such a reaction is the goal of any shirt wearing man?

I will cut this entry short before I begin writing about favourite stripes and the cans of spray starch I've recently discovered in Sainsbury's.

Please enjoy my humble sample, I am wearing my current fav, it is a brown gingham check from Lugets in Exeter, Devon. The pale yellow check is a pretty close second though, and then of course there is the red stripe...

Tom

One Thousand Tiny Hummingbrids

Me and Tom went to London for a mini holiday and had a fantastic and extravagent time that I will touch upon in another post; I thought this one deserved it's own! Amongst other things, we managed to make a short trip to the Natural History Museum. Tom was anxious to relive his childhood and visit the dinosaurs section and the life-size blue whale suspended from the ceiling and then we both took in the taxidermy and fossils.

In the birds room was this incredible feature: a glass cabinet filled with hundreds of little hummingbirds. It is quite spectacular to behold, only the Victorians could have come up with something so beautiful and ethically questionable! I hope the fact that the poor things have been dead for a hundred years or more makes it ok for me to want it. If I could, I would have it in my flat, it would be quite a conversation piece.