White magic

After a couple of delightful, soothing-for-the-soul Spring days, by end of last week we were back to the same old can't-decide-what-season-it-is weather.

It's not exactly been cold, but it was grey and overcast with little or no sunny spells, as well as never-ending rain, especially on Saturday.

Nevertheless, our garden is starting to look quite green again, with many shrubs coming into bud. There is one plant which has especially been relishing the rainfall which came after last week's Spring weather.

Our Clematis armandii, planted many years ago to grow through our large Lilac bush, is positively groaning under the weight of hundreds of starry, creamy white flowers.

The plant has obviously benefited from the drastic haircut Jos gave it last summer.













All we need now is lots of sunshine to release its delicate almond scent, which will make sitting on the bench in the Lilac's shade a true delight.

Saturday we called in at some of the charity shops we didn't have time for on the day of the retro event, to see if they had any goodies left.

I wore this made in Sweden "Aspens" dress, made from a polyester material called "asplene-jersey".

It has alternating bands of light and dark burgundy sprinkled with a squiggly print, which is denser on the darker bands.












There's a touch of lilac in the squiggles, which prompted me to add a lilac belt and lilac/blue cardigan. I chose opaques with a pattern of burgundy rose buds.

Looking for the perfect necklace, I came across this long forgotten silver tone pendant.

The brooch, one of my favourites, is a silver tone knot fringed with little chains ending in tiny pearls.

The first shop we went to still had tables full of stuff, which they had sorted by colour: quite a lot of orange and avocado! However, nothing really caught our eye. I did find some more frocks though, one of which you'll get to see later in this post, as well as a fabulous full-length dressing gown.

There was hardly anything left at the other shop we visited, but their bookshelves are always worth a browse, and I came away with these two, for € 0,70 each.

Obviously, I couldn't leave behind Vita's biography.

The other book, a "noir" set in 1930s Bayswater, made me think of Mim. By pure coincidence, just two days later Mim posted a review of a non-fiction book by the same author, D.J. Taylor, called Bright Young Things!

The flower print background, by the way, is my new-found dressing gown!

Before returning to Dove Cottage, we had coffee and cake at the shop's recently opened café.

On Sunday, we had my niece's 15th birthday party to go to in the afternoon, and I spent the morning pottering around the house, finally getting to grips with some long overdue filing of paperwork. I had been procrastinating and kept shoving the pile of paper to the back of the cupboard, always finding something more interesting to do instead.

Call me rash, but I've already made a start on my Spring/Summer wardrobe switch by putting away the very warmest of my dresses, assessing what I wore and what I didn't, and why.

The dress on the left is a wardrobe staple which has seen me through many a winter. With its multi colour Paisley pattern, it can be combined with lots of my cardigans. I wore it here.

I almost got rid the one on the right, which I wore here, and I'm so glad I didn't. It's not going anywhere now.

These two plain dresses didn't see the light of day this winter. They are 100% new wool and lined, making them quite thick and heavy.

In fact, I didn't wear the brown one last winter either, so maybe it's time to say goodbye.

I'm going to hang on to the purple vintage C&A one as I love its colour, shape and detail.









This leaves Monday, for which I booked a day off.  Mr. S. urgently needed some new stuff, and since the chazzas here haven't been coming up trumps on menswear which isn't miles too big for him, there was nothing for it but to do some retail shopping.

The day was as dull and uninspiring as the - shock horror! - shopping centre we went to.

I wore one of the dresses I bought on Saturday's charity shopping trip.













Nothing dull and uninspiring about that one!

The absence of a label makes me think that it was handmade and the Crimplene-like fabric's print is bright enough to cheer up the greyest of days, not to mention the blandest of shopping centres!

I love the narrow V-shaped slit running down from the collar, ventilation which makes all the difference for a menopausal girl like me!

The plastic ring was a flea market find, and echoes the dress's print.

Thankfully, the shopping centre was rather quiet on Monday morning. Quite a difference with a Saturday afternoon, when wild horses couldn't drag me there!













Mr. S, who easily gets bored with clothes shopping for himself, bought two pairs of well needed jeans, three shirts and a jacket.

Oh, alright, here's a sneak preview of the jacket and two of the shirts.

The rest of the week whizzed by uneventfully, so that by the time you are reading this another weekend has rolled by.

The weather forecasters have predicted a continuation of this week's Spring weather, so let's hope they are right for once!

Have a great one!