h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

If other people at work wear them, ask them to show you how they put them on? I don't actually have one of those!

Monday 4 November.
First frost outside so had to choose warm clothes for a day in the office. I have a purple shift dress from Tesco, which I wear with a mad cardi (M&S outlet store, £10 I think). The cardigan is purple but with red godet inserts at the sleeves and hemline, giving a fluted almost art-deco look. I do love its appearance, but it's an unusual colour combination, and I find it dashed hard to get it to "go" with any of my other outfits - except this one dress.

Wearing with brown opaque tights and my brown Duo boots. This is a company which sells footwear online in a range of calf sizes. I've always found it hard to get boots to fit over my euphemistically polite "dancers calves", so again these were something that I paid full price for a few years ago. Sadly and happily, I've lost weight since then, so the boots are currently baggier than I'd like. But they can have jeans tucked into them now.

purple and, yet another* fabulus sounding pair of boots.... my meter is registering about 11

I also have a problem getting good fit with boots.... I've very tiny ankles, and only a size UK 9 (male shoe size), but my calfs, certainly by the time one gets near my knees, arn't exactly matched in tinyness to my ankles

I've got to be very careful if I buy shoes, well, boots, online as getting the fit right is a real pain yet, when I look in the shops, I can never find any boots I really* like (Not a fan of the current trend, with all these black leather boots, coated in some BoB-aweful plastic shiney coating... no thanks, if I wanted plastic boots, I'd buy plastic boots ) Actually, I don't know why I said 'shoes' there, I've not bought anything, or worn anything cept boots, for err, a good decade or so (well, cept for job interviews, etc., for which I have a very old, but hardly worn pair of M&S smart shoes, which are still shop-shiny, as they've been worn so little)

**also likes and wants the gypsy skirt mentioned earlier**

You'd look well in the gypsy skirt, I'll see if I can find a link.

Lunch-time clothes-related activities:

1. Go to Post Office - a parcel I sent to my daughter 2 weeks ago still hasn't arrived. The contents were old items of sentimental value only - a black leotard with a gauzy dress over it, and the silky robe she wore as Miss Adelaide in Guys'n'Dolls. Plus some sweeties for Hallowe'en and a message on a postacrd of Portstewart. I don't think I can claim any compensation as I wouldn't have kept the receipts from years ago. This makes me sad - not that I can't claim compensation, just that a care package meant to make her smile didn't reach its destination.

2. Charity shop perusal netted a silk Next top in cafe-au-lait brown, £5.

3. Dress alterations place where I picked up my grey Jaegar trousers (£20 at the outlet store), having paid £8 to have them taken up properly. I'm a rubbish seamstress so I don't mind taking my clothes along to get them shortened by people who are much better at that sort of thing.

http://www.wrapmagicskirts.com/medium_wrap_skirts.html

Link to the wrap-magic skirts, including a description.

Pity about the package.
It's never happened to me yet, thank Bob.

Dress alterations :
That reminds me, I need to shorten the two pairs of jeans I bought a month or so back.
Unless I wait a little longer and get my Mum to do it...
Mmmhhh...
Mumxploitation. Yes. Sounds like a plan.

I could see 2legs in one of those!

Excellent.... a journal all about clothes, and I get to work out, in it, what I'll be wearing to the next hootoo meet (so very tempted too, anyhow )

Running training next. It's pretty chilly out there, so I'm wearing my full length running bottoms, a long sleeved running vest with"monkey paws" - loops that go over your thumbs. Also high-viz lightweight waterproof jacket, buff for neck/ ears, and fine gloves.

[ Amy P]

Tuesday 5 November.

It's my day off today! I will be doing a Scottish dance demo this afternoon, so the most important thing to wear today is the right underwear. Flesh coloured or white knickers, and a strapless bra. I used to have problems with wayward bra straps while dancing, and there's nothing worse than hoiking at a strap making a bid for freedom during the Reel of the 51st Division. So I've got round this issue by wearing a strapless one.

This morning's attire is jeans (grey M&S ones, charity shop undoubtedly, a few quid) and a T shirt bought during our trip to Disneyland Paris this year. It's got Belle and the Beast on it, and says "Relationship status - it's complicated!"

After lunch I'll change into my white dancing dress, which has been passed on to me from one of the older dancers, and in fact used to belong to Jean, our redoubtable 80 year old teacher. Jean is very fussy about attire for dems - no watches, small pearl earrings, and I'll have to try to hide my brightly painted nails from her! Over my dress I have a tartan sash pinned. Mine is in a new Titanic tartan, in shades of blue and white. It was the sash my best man wore at our wedding in Gretna Green, and my husband has the matching kilt. Plus, it provides a good talking point for our dems, which are often held at old people's homes. This afternoon it is to celebrate Mabel's 100th birthday

This evening will be my regular Lisburn dance class. I have a button through checked dress in brown/ black with a full skirt, bought at a charity shop last week for £4, so I'll be taking it for a trial run tonight. And there'll be more birthday cake tonight as Geraldine celebrates her 90th. She can't dance any longer, but she helps out with the music.

Titanic tartan? That was just a matter of time, wasn't it?

many happy returns to Mabel! I tried dancing up on Orkney this summer, amazed at how little my feet obeyed my brain!

have a great day!

The tartan was created especially by Clifford Smyth, a local writer/ historian/ Ulster-Scots researcher, and he wrote a book about the stoties he uncovered when designing it. He gave us a signed copy as a wedding present. The base is blue, for the sea, with white, for the ice, yellow threads for the funnels, and stripes in the White Star line colours of red and black. Some of the early designs featured lurex and metallic thread to represent the shipyard!

Titanic tartan? I assume it's waterproof!

According to Steven Fry ( that's Wikipedia with good humour and more accuracy) despite my very distant connection to Scotland via a many times great grandfather called Alexander Bean from Aberdeen ( who might just be a limerick faintly remembered and not an ancestor at all), I am entitled to wear the tartan of the Royal Stuarts. Apparently all members of the clan are entitled to wear the tartan of the clan chief and as Her Maj is clan chieftain and I am a subject, there you go.

those magic skirts are lovely but with my figure totally out of the question, I'd look like a pile of laundry!

Liking the blog, btw

I like the metallic idea! Rivets would work - it could have been the first steampunk tartan!

Happy Birthday Mabel!

I'm not sure if I'd be wise in one of those magic skirts either.... for much the same reason Plus I'd probably never figure out how to 'diploy it' about myself mmmm strapless bras

All this dancing.... blimey... I couldn't dance even when I was a teenager mmmm the steampunk tarten with rivetts sounds good.... maybe some brass chains too?

Dancing in a strapless bra? Does that work? I would have tied the straps together across the back, but couldn't possibly do without straps. Mind you, under a white dress...