I was abducted by a vast army of chocolate rabbits. Make no mistake: chocolate bunnies are the true threat to our society. Happily, they are not infallible.
After it occurred to me that I could simply eat them and make my escape, I started planning my winter wardrobe and wondering what I might post next.
It probably won't be birds, not even birds with skills in marketing.
I'm thinking skirts, blouses and maybe some boots. And lists! Everywhere I look, someone else is writing a list of the essential things you should have in your wardrobe. Mine, I promise, will be different.
Search as I might, I can't find one scrap of black in my outfit today.
The dress is Diane Von Furstenburg, a simple frock rendered from a genius blend of silk and wool. The cardigan is J Crew from Las Vegas, the boots are Charles David and snapped up on ebay for a ludicrously good price, while at my glace leather feet sits my faithful, over-burdened Mulberry Bayswater in which I have decided to be interred after I am cremated.
The jewellery is a mixed bag. The pendant was a couple of dollars at the Rozelle markets but the leather thong comes from the Jigsaw sale shop in Whatleys which is, by startling co-incidence, in Bayswater, London. It was once a grand department store and is now a grand shopping mall with lots of specialty shops including a stonking big Zara. The smaller more refined piece is a gold Tiffany Bean which my husband gave me for my 29th birthday back in the Restoration period.
And this is Phillip Larkin.
Time has transfigured them into
Untruth. The stone fidelity
They hardly meant has come to be
The final blazon, and to prove
Our almost-instinct almost true:
What will survive of us is love.
Sometimes I wish I could wear a poem to work.
Daylight savings has finished. The mornings are a little cooler each day. Winter's coming. I therefore have pyjamas with built-in legwarmers.
O, weekends. What's not to love.
There was the Rugby on Friday night.
I lamented my inability to take sharply focused shots and envied the press photographers their superior skills and giant lenses.
But it wasn't all envy. I had great reason to be grateful too. This, for example, this that I stalked and coveted on ebay for an eternity, this that was waiting for me in a USPS box when I got home.
This, my Balenciaga bag.
There was food too.
And coffee, a thick shot of expresso tempered with a spurt of steamed milk.
And the shopping, the ironing, the family lunch, the washing and the cleaning, and the supermarket, where I saw this.
The broken and bloody wine bottle and behind me, graciously allowing me a second to take my crime scene photograph, a sweet girl in an apron, armed with a dripping mop.
And that's it. Time to pack my lunch box, choose a black dress and welcome the next week.
My learned friend is finding my office more and more uninteresting as a location for the blog shots. The thing is, I spend most of my time there and certainly my wardrobe revolves around the office during the week. I think it is fitting.
Today was casual Friday. I wore back jeans from Old Navy in San Francisco, a silk top from Veronika Maine in Sydney, a white tshirt from Target in Las Vegas, the Max Mara jacket which could probably do a lot of my work for me given how frequently I wear it to work ....
...and my blue pendant.
I had to juggle my non-office life with my wardrobe because tonight my spouse and I went to the Rugby. Thus I had a smaller bag - from J Crew in New York - for tickets and my camera, and a much softer jacket for sitting around cheering the Waratahs and eating hot chips. .
While I argued with my learned friend about my dull office the phone rang. I think this photograph offers a very good representation of what I do all day, and indelible proof that I need to upgrade my moisturiser.
Most days I like to believe (or at least delude myself) that I have chosen wisely for my workwear. Granted. my choices often advertise a vast lack of colour, but I work in a conservative office and sometimes in my line of work it pays to be invisible.
Today I wore a vintage Roberto Cavalli skirt and it felt wrong from the moment I walked out the door. I used to wear it a lot a couple of winters ago; its light wool made it perfect for sunny winter days.
Today it just annoyed me.
And that's a pity, because it's a great skirt. I got it for four dollars at one of my favourite opshops and for a while it was my favourite building block for an outfit. The fabric is lovely, and the colour saturation of the print - red, green and black - meant it would work with so many things. Also, it has pockets. I love pockets. I used to wear my pretty, practical skirt with light coloured knits over sheer blouses and tall black boots. Today I feel I let it down, and I think I let it down because it just doesn't interest me any more.
Thank God for blue glass necklaces with interesting silver clasps that one buys from champion barn pillagers in France. Like this one.
I don't often actively call for comments but I am genuinely interested to learn if you are bored by this skirt too, or if it secretly delights you, or if you can think of another way I can wear it, or if you have a pot boiling over on the stove and the phone is ringing.
Let me know!
Last night night my poor spouse woke at 1am, convinced it was 6am, and was not able to right the mess until 3am. This confused clockage has had me at odds with the world since I woke (at 6.20am).
Thus today found me needing to dress simply and gently in clothes that I wouldn't be putting straight all day. None of this tugging at belts and smoothing down collars for me, not today. There is only one outfit that brings me such calm and it is a shift slipped over a light blouse.
Make no mistake - I am besotted with shift dresses.
Here is today's, the fine-value Target number which of course you have seen in a different, plainer carnation.
The blouse is a lovely orphaned silk number I thrifted a few months ago. It's been stripped of its tags so I cant' tell you its heritage, but I can say it is silk and partial to a gentle handwashing.
The crystals are both vintage from local vintage stores and the pendant is a was bought from Jigsaw in London, albeit hanging from a leather strong. I performed a chain transplant.
And last night this was watching me while I soaked in the tub.
I swear she is smiling at the camera.
