I think-no, I'm sure-it's a first!!

Helga wears flats!!!

EEEEK!

This is exceedingly uncommon for me, especially as I have a problem with my right heel which makes flats painful for me-ah,beauty and style is pain,darlings!!

But these are some very old, opshopped Doc's, which have some decent support, and aren't flat as flat-which I really cannot wear.

Today was our first day back at work, so I figured I would be best to dress a little sensibly-jaysus, a word that does not enter my vocabulary very often-as I work in a factory warehouse, so might be lifting and humping a bit. Turns out, there as not very much mess at work; after the last big quake, we secured racks and pallets a lot better, and what needed to be sorted, I couldn't help with, as I don't have a forklift licence. So, I just pottered about and tidied the office ('cos I'm the office bint! hahaha) a bit, and tried my best to look important! In these situations, I usually bake, cook, or just do the womanly thing. But, the kitchen was closed, and it just wasn't a happening thing. :(

So, I am doing my best to be practical and casual in my attire.

I don't do casual well.

In fact, I just don't do it!!!

I'm simply not comfortable being casual, and always feel, and probably look, very uncomfortable.

Curiously, I do love camping, and being in the country!!

On a different note, we came home from work early, as we aren't required to start work proper until tomorrow, and the Academy Awards Red Carpet was on!!!!

I adore a bit of frivolity, and have always enjoyed the useless glamour of the Awards season. Besides, my darling Colin Firth (hyperventilate, dribble, drool) is up for Best Actor!!!! EEEK!

O, Mr Darcy!!

Besides that

I thought Camilla Alves looked totally HOT.

I do like a Latina!!!

( as La Dama well knows!)

Ms Cruz looked hot to trot!!!
Ahuh!!


Cate Blanchett always looks interesting and quirky, and of course, she is a babe!!!

And I loved Reese Witherspoons 60's hair, and the frock is rather cute!! Simple, and gorgeously shaped.

I always long for glamour and frivolity when things have been a bit rough, so it's been a splendidly indulgent afternoon!!

X

Postscript!

Colin won Best Actor!!!

EEEEEEEEEEEK!

I think I've wet my panties.

Le Sigh.

O, Colin, when will you be mine???

G is quite happy to watch discreetly from the top of the wardrobe.

Well, hello there!

You are all really such a bunch of lovelies!!

I want to welcome new readers (hello darlings!), and thank you all for being so jolly bloody super!

Yes.

I do!!

THANK YOU!

This was my Sunday outfit.

I wanted to be particlarly bright, even though I wasn't going anywhere.

Not going anywhere meant I could wear some fab shoes, my "new" red and white I Love Billy's.

(Brand name).

How do you like my yellow sequin bow?!

I freakin' love it!

I picked it op when opshopping the other week; it was supposedly a bow tie. Bugger that, thought I, that's going on my head.

Frock-Trade Me

Tights-Sydney markets a couple of years ago

Shoes-Trade Me

Necklace-G bought it for me in Wellington

Earrings-gift from my sweetheart Justine.

Hahahaha, we're watching Top Gear, and Sienna Miller was in the glove box.

Those boys.

What will they think of next?!

Note: I actually quite like Sienna Miller. Loved her in that Edie Sedgewick movie, the name totally escapes me right now.Haven't seen much of her for a while; she must have learnt how to stay out of the press a bit.

On the subject of "actually's", I also am actually rather excited about the impending royal wedding......

Who would have thought?!

I'm quite keen to see what Queenie will wear.

And her hat!

Actually.

X

PS: wouldn't it be fun if they had the corgi's as the ring bearers??!!

PPS: Breakfast yesterday was a mash of potato, eggs (the last 2),and veges. And a few herbs, marjoram and chives. I had a dash of chilli sauce on mine.

It was fecking delish!

Excerpts from a Saturday

Breakfast!

Getting creative with whatever I could find, which was quite a bit.

As Major General Helga, I reported for digging duty around at Miriam and Jon's.

They have a lot of "liquifaction"; silty sand stuff, about a foot deep, in their yard.

This is where their garage stood!

Daz, right, is being his usual disgraceful self!!

Our lovely Dave came over in the afternoon.

G is showing him a cheesy pic of he and I from the cruise, that the in laws bought and had framed for us.

G was telling a story, I can't remember what it was about, sorry.

Don't blame it on the sunshine, don't blame it on the moonlight, don't blame it on the good times, blame it on the.....
Vodka.

CD mess.

The "An Education" soundtrack is my fave at the moment.

Mungo!!!

Mikel came around too, and here he is inspecting the awesome dunny.

He was impressed enough to unload in it this morning!!!

LOL!

Dinner.

We had a great jam.

We were totally plastered!

I even had a bash at the drums!

It was great night!!!

I actually feel rather cleansed today!!!

Skyping with Vix and Sarah with a few glasses of bubbly certainly helps!!!

HURRAH!

X

Awesome Dunny, aka Latrine Love

We ended up having a bit of a bender/sleepover with a few friends last night.

It was quite cathartic.

Nothing like a good bashing around in the music room, fueled by a lot of tequila and beer.

I did get dressed up, and made a start on tidying my room!

I'm wearing:

Frock-made by moi years ago

Cardi-opshopped long ago and dyed by moi

Bow-made by moi from opshopped ribbon

Necklace-gift from G's Mama, bought in Singapore

Earrings-on sale at some jewellery & accessories chain store, I forget which one.

Note safety pants.

Anyway, below is the main point of this post; to show off G's handiwork!

As we have no water (we do have drinking water, don't worry), he's had to create us an outdoor loo, aka The Awesome Dunny.

Sorry, darlings, but you'll have to turn your computer screen sideways!

G forgot that our camera only films one way!!!

We've been at G's brother's this afternoon, for lunch with the family. They've got water, so we've had showers and feel most refreshed!

Hurrah!

X

Tiny disasters

My dressing/sewing room is a bit messy,gonna tackle that this afternoon.....the kitchen wasn't too bad to clean up.....

not sure how you'd tackle this,though...

This is the road by the river on the way to Justine's. Just a little sample of it.

G and I walked over to the other side of Hagley park to get our car this morning. We had to leave it and walk home, as the traffic was really intense. Took us 2 1/2 hours anyway, normally would be 20 mins by car, or 40 mins by bicycle.

There's police and military on every corner leading to the centre of the city; we saw 2 armoured tanks! There's water being handed out, work already going on. just had another quake as I type. Thats the 3rd in the last hour.

Such is life!

I have the urge to dress up this afternoon.

I simply must succumb!

Vix reckon's I'll be "shopping my closet" as I tidy up, as who knows what's buried in there that I've forgotten about!!!

You all totally rock; I want to take you all to a big field and make love to you all!!!

X

Shakey fecking ground.

Hi all.

If you haven't heard the news, Christchurch has just had another quake.

Smaller on the Richter Scale (6.3), but shallower and closer.

The city is fucked, there are fatalities.

G and I are fine, we were having lunch together at work when it happened.

Family and friends (that we've been able to contact) are fine.

My shoes are all over the bloody place, and there are handbags for miles.

We've only got power on about 10 minutes ago, no water. Luckily we were well prepared since the last one, have plenty of bottled water and, as I am a food hoarder, plenty of food!

I have clean panties!!!

XXX

OMG, have just checked out Vix's recent post, and G and I are blown away by the wonderful love and support you're all showing us.

Thank you SO much.

You'll be pleased to know we are quaffing some lovely red wine right now.....

Bless!

Normal services will resume as soon as possible.....

Burgundy Brew

Burgundy brew is actually the name of the ancient Avon lipstick I'm wearing!

And on Saturday night I wore my new burgundy platform lace ups!!!

Aren't they fabulous!?

They make me ever so tall and powerful.

We had a jolly good band practice, only the second we've managed to squeeze in this year.

We have 2 new songs on the go, "Country Bozo"(!) and "Mosquito". I guess we'll have to get ourselves a gig soon.......

Frock-opshopped and altered by moi

Cardi-opshopped

Tights-Farmers, I think.

The necklace is an old fave; bought on my first trip to London in 1989.

I've attached a vintage brooch (opshopped fairly recently) to it.

Virgin of Gualalupe from San Cristobal de las Casas.

We had Justine, Mikel and Baby Rose over for a long lunch on Sunday.

G and I were in the mood for a feast, so we had 4 courses.

Brown Onion Soup

Chicken Ravioli with Avocado Sauce

Lamb Shanks, cooked with plum sauce and I have no idea what else, with roast potatoes and steamed beans

Lemon Cheesecake (a friends Mum's recipe).

I'm making the ravioli, above, and I also made the cheesecake.

G, the delicious legend, did the rest.

Lots of hair!!

My frock is a new favourite that my beloved Vix sent me.

Delightfully Summery, and I love it!!!

Necklace-pendant from Oaxaca, with beading by moi

Earrings-Pagani sale.

My other sweetheart and I.

X

I like to co-ordinate with my enviroment.

Ha, I started this post last night, and I was totally pissed.

I have no idea how I managed to load these few photos, but I remember struggling to type with any co-herence.

Then G put me to bed.

So I've cleared what I started typing, cos it was pretty obvious I was off my head!!!

Let's start again!

Above is what I wore to pop into town with Justine.

Frock-my beloved Vix

Long waistcoat-60's or 70's? I reckon it would have had matching pants originally. Opshopped

Fishnets-can't remember

Shoes-Trade Me

Handbag-vintage, opshopped

We had a rummage at Toffs, a splendid secondhand establishment in the city.

Big selection, moderate to pricey; I almost always find something.

I got Justine to try a couple of fab numbers, one of which was a divine 50's lurex frock and matching bolero in a scrummy shade of pink. Damn thing didn't fit her booboids. Then we got her into a gorgeous maxi, black with gold braid. I loved it, but she's not really a retro girl, and wasn't quite comfy with it. She did score a pair of shoes, and a handbag for Pixie, so she was happy.

O, I managed my first reverse parallel park in the new car!!!

I had a good bit of help from Justine, and we nailed it!

I was very proud, and texted G immediately!!!

I found this divine scarf ring at Toffs.

The purple ring I'm wearing is one of the selection Kitty sent me a while back.

I don't look after my fingernails at all...which you've probably noticed!

I bought this tutu for Baby Rose.

It's supposed to be for a 6 year old, but I reckon she'll be in it in a couple of years!

My other rings are courtesy of,

left-Sarah , and

right-Vix .

Hurrah!

We had a lovely coffee, went and checked out the Red Cross shop, where Justine got Mikel a splendid suit jacket, and also looked at The Emporium, a newish shop specialising in retro & vintage imported from the States. It's not particularly exciting, and is over-priced, as you can imagine. Still, it sort of brings vintage to the masses, so good on them. Then we went and did some groceries. Justine said that she loves how I get lots of smiles wherever we go. I hadn't noticed! Apparently I was getting admiring and amused looks!

How very satisfying!!

I never take any notice of people when I'm out!!

It was a jolly good afternoon.

Tomorrow I will post what I wore Saturday night.....which of my new shoes do you think I wore?

Shoe Porn

Those bloody trollops, Sarah and La Dama have been torturing me with delicious shoe porn lately, and I really felt rather peeved about it, so I've posed my latest shoe aquistions seductively in our front yard for you.
Take that!

I'm having a bit of a shoe frenzy; these were all bought off Trade Me in the last 2 weeks....

G may be slightly concerned, but he's really too sweet to say so.

He just gives a hollow laugh when I get yet another package....

I'm just getting my Winter footwear in order, that's all.

It's really quite important.

I'm off out with Justine later this morning; she wants to find something fabulous to wear to Amanda Palmer on Tuesday night, and we'll have coffee.

Tonight we've got band practice.

I'm going to have to give one...or 2 ...of these pairs of shoes an airing, I think!

Hurrah!

O, and regards the boot mismatch yesterday. The heels were different in height enough for me to notice, but not enough to cause me any trouble, thankfully.

What a wally!

I had a wonderful nap when I got home, too.

Bless!

Friday state of mind.

I had quite a lot of bubbly before we went out last night.

And then a reasonable bit of red wine whilst we were there.

I wouldn't say I was trolleyed, but I definetly feel a little worse for wear this morning.

Behold the evidence below:

Notice anything interesting?

Took me a while to notice.

Ahuh.

I am not amused.

I am a trifle embarrassed.

I'm planning on a nap this afternoon, after I pick up tickets for Tuesdays Amanda Fucking Palmer gig at Al's Bar.

I clearly need it.

X

Sheep Shagging Country

We went for a little ride out last night to collect an adorable little bbq that G had won off Trade Me. We had to go to the Rangiora-Woodend Rd, running (surprise surprise) between Rangiora and Woodend. It's a nice blat down the motorway and hey presto, you're in sheep shagger's-ville.

Those are udders on the sheep, by the way. Not ball sacs.

They're lady sheep.

G was right into death defying acts for the sake of the blog.


Anyhow, at lunchtime I needed an opshop fix, so I zoomed over to my favourite opshop, which is luckily quite close to work, and picked up a few goodies.
I was in the mood for some sewing supplies, so was pleased to get some ribbon, thread, and some dear wee old packets of bias-binding.
Plus a scarf, some pretty, but odd, gloves, and a woolly thingy. It's kinda like a small cape. And a tiny wee butterfly that seems to be broken off something, like a ring, maybe.

Just look at the darling packaging on the bias binding.
Tui brand is soooo Kiwi. They're a gorgeous bird, too, with a beautiful call.
Local binding for local people.

Ahem.

Frock-made by me out of retro, opshopped material
Cardi-opshopped
Fishnets-opshopped
Shoes-Trade Me

We're popping out to the Dux tonight for a few drinkies for Nancy's birthday.
I could really do with getting a bit wankered.
I'm in the moooooooood.
Yeah.

X

PS
I really, really want to come to the UK!!!
It's just not within my means right now!
From the other side of the world, where we are, it is ridiculously expensive!