We're Rigged Out In Magnificent Array

A few days ago I asked you lot to decide whether my green turban or my red feather headband was the more eccentric, and you all voted for the turban.  Well I had a special reason for asking, and this is it:

"But darlink, vot do you expect for eighteen pence a day?"

Fear not, I'm not going to wear this to school or to pop to the supermarket - I am taking to the stage this week, and this number is one of my costumes. 

 (You might recognise my favourite shoes and my bonkers leopard jacket from previous Boring Outfit Posts - all the other bits came from my own wardrobe too!)

"Are you in a play, Bette?", I hear you cry, "Please tell us all about it!"

I'm in The Grand Duke by Gilbert and Sullivan, and if you're in the North East this weekend (or anywhere in the UK for that matter, this is what trains and motorways were invented for, people) you simply must come and watch us. You haven’t a hope of following the ludicrous plot, OR of understanding my rubbish Russian (ish) accent, but the music’s very catchy and the bar will be open at the interval in case you need to fortify yourself with gin before the second act. It will be BUCKETS of fun, do come along!

Speking of gin, I don't know what it is about hangovers that makes me come over all rockabilly, but whenever I'm getting dressed the morning after a good party, I seem to be inevitably drawn towards some combination of red, denim and leopard.  Here I am yesterday morning before rehearsal. 

We left the house at 10.30, rehearsed our socks off, went for a bite to eat, went for "a quick drink", and suddenly it's one in the morning and I'm staggering through the front door AGAIN, wearing my "drunk face", according to Simon, certain that I was going to be facing ANOTHER 'gin head' this morning.  How do these situations keep happening to me?!  Come bumpers, aye ever so many, indeed!

[Pardon the slippers.  And the face.  Yeesh.]

Cardi:  H&M
Wrap top:  charity shop
Jeans:  charity shop
Bette necklace:  Sunday Girl Accessories
Pin-up girl brooch:  Dolls and Molls
Headache:  Gordon's


(I actually feel fine this morning, so no grumpy-faced leopard-print Boring Outfit Post from me today!)

Three Things Right Now

Posing in the bathroom with giant head bow and shiny purple camera Casimira while waiting to go out:

Loving how theatrical my little vaudeville-dressing-room bedroom looks with the lights off and the lamp on:

Super stripy, fudgy, chocolatey cake I made:

SIMON: [tutting] Somebody has left this cake in a non-uniform shape! [Cuts off a sliver to make it symmetrical]

BETTE:  I can't believe we've eaten exactly half a cake today.  

SIMON:  Can't you?

BETTE:  No, you're right, I can very well believe it!

SIMON:  Tch, it's only a little one.  It's a two-person cake.

Happy Birthday Simon!

We are Dainty Little Fairies

Last week I went to see an excellent production of Iolanthe, starring some of my very talented friends.  The opening chorus featured ladies dressed as fairies in frills and wings, stamping around in Doc Martens:  “We are dain- THUD lit- THUD fair- THUDS”  Hilarious.  Anyway, that scene wasn’t a conscious influence when I got dressed this morning, but once I realised that I had no shoes that matched this outfit (I seldom wear pink, so I’m not accustomed to not being able to use red as my default accessory colour!), clunky boots were my only option.

This dress was another sister-reject.  (My sister, being more sensible than me, didn’t think “Hmm, a pink ribbon and black tulle-embellished polkadot prom dress, suitable for a 12-year-old girl going to a school disco…  Brilliant, I can totally wear this for work!”)

Anyway, I’ve got a very important question for you, readers, so please comment below.  Which looks the more eccentric, green turban (forwards or sidewards with huge flower clips), or red feather headband?

I will reveal all in due course.

A Wandering Minstrel I, A Thing Of Shreds and Patches

As you may have noticed, I love to have lots of clothes, but I’m a cheapskate and very rarely buy full-price clothes in 'real shops'.  I dig around for treasures in charity shops occasionally, but mostly I just rely on the charity of others and tend to collect various bargains and cast-offs that my friends and relations generously donate to me.

Today’s Boring Outfit Post is the result of an act of charity on the behalf of my sister, who kindly loaned me this pretty cream lace dress to wear on Christmas Day:

I was a little bit sad when a few weeks ago she blogged about how she was in the process of dying the lace dress purple.

Sadly for Stephanie, the dye only took around the edges of the lace flowers, and turned the dress a wussy lilac instead of the strong purple she was hoping for.  In addition, the outer layer shrunk slightly, making the lining (which had resisted turning purple but had gone a dingy beige) stick out of the bottom.  She didn’t care for the end result and decided to fling the dress my way.  Wahey!  Thanks, Teff!

Dress:  Primark, via ebay, via sister

Purple tights:  Christmas present

Boots:  Second-hand shop

I like the way that the cute little buttons turned pink in the dying process.

And if my badly-dyed, lining-exposing, third-hand dress weren’t shoddy enough by itself, I wore it with the most dilapidated, leaky, liable-to-disintegrate-at-any-moment boots in the world.  Aren’t they a state?

I love them and refuse to get rid until they literally decompose beneath my feet.  AND it’s been bleedin’ cold at school today, so I’ve been shuffling around the corridors with a very student-scumbaggy, non-work-attire hoodie over the top.  Hooray!

Previously on Bette on Toast…

 Just in case anyone was wondering how my catastrophic cake turned out the other day, here is a picture of the finished article:

Shame the birthday girl was too hungover to fully appreciate it, mwahaha!

Nice Things That I Can't Afford

Good Evening, Blogland!

Thought I'd lure you in with a picture of cake

I've had a busy week, following last week's busy week, and preceeding (how many Es are there in preceding?) next week's busy week.  I'm tiiiiired and whingey and I could really do without it.  Yesterday I was feeling extremely grumpy and sorry for myself.  (Example tweets: "Today has been a headche from start to finish. Except it hasn't finished yet, I've got three hours of rehearsal ahead. :o/"  and  "The worst thing about afternoon naps is being wrenched out of slumber by the shrill wail of your alarm clock TWICE in one day.") but today I'm much chirpier. 


That's my chirpy face

This morning I made pancakes in assembly, and since getting home this afternoon I have been very domestic.  I have done a load of laundry, including a pair of shoes that were all grubbified with hair dye and the finest mud from Kielder Forest, neither of which seem to have washed out, grrr.  They're currently on the radiator stuffed with newspaper, so maybe some intellectualism from the Times Educational Supplement* will rub off and make them look smart and impressive once they've dried.

*Sorry, Simon, I didn't ask, but I only nicked pages from the back of the jobs section, since I didn't think you were planning on becoming Headmaster of an exclusive boys' boarding school in Tanzania any time soon.

Anyway, I've done my weekly pick-up of my floordrobe (shameful!) and put it all on my bed in piles according to destination (pile for the trouser drawer, pile for the t-shirts box, considerably larger pile for the dresses wardrobe) so I can't go to bed until it's all put away, and I've finally caught up with My Big Fat Gypsy Wedding and I've done some washing-up and I've baked totally, utterly and completely the crappest birthday cake ever made.  I'm going to risk a certain lovely doctor reading this before I surprise her with it tomorrow (and WON'T she be surprised, ye gods, it's so rubbish...) and tell you the story so you can laugh at my ineptitude.

So.  You know those giant cookies you can get with Smarties baked in, and they're all colourful and lovely?  Well, when I couldn't find chocolate chips in the Co-op I decided to get Smarties instead, chuck them in a basic sponge cake recipe and get amazing, beautiful rainbow cake.  Well.  Smarties may thrive in cookies, but let me tell you, in a cake they sink to bottom, adhere to the cake tin, completely lose their rainbow colours (WTF? How?!) and taste a bit burnt-chocolate-y.  And both cake layers crumbled into shreds when I tried to get them out of the tins, so I'm going to have to do some serious glueing with icing.  PAH!!



OH DEAR!



And as if to add insult to injury, I've just stumbled across this picture of a cake I made for Simon's birthday two years ago.  Where have my skills gone?!



Anyway, the real point of this post, as the title suggests, was meant to be a Wishlist.  My friend Buttercup Liffy and I, being both blogging-novices, were getting very excitable on Tuesday about followers and stats and so on, and she mentioned planning a Wednesday Wishlist post, and I thought I would plagiarise her idea, but I haven't got around to it until now.  (Doesn't look like Liffy has either though, so there!)  So yes, Nice Things That I Would Like But Can't Afford:



Top of the list, Vivienne Westwood Anglomania Lady Dragon shoes with cherries.  RRP £120, except they sold out months ago.  How am I supposed to go on living without these in my life??

The  Pixie Pin-Ups Palette by Too Faced.  It's make-up with pop-up pixie pin-ups on it!!  Definitely an essential and not frivolous at all, even for 25 squid for six small eyeshadows.

A vintage Daimler, complete with uniformed chauffeur.  Failing that, a small, modern car and driving lessons.  Failing THAT, a really beautiful bike.

Kitchen mixing device.  Preferably a pretty one.  As I found to my cost today, making cakes the old-fashioned way with a bowl and a wooden spoon is a complete ball ache!

A ticket to Anton and Erin's Puttin' on the Ritz.  Sunday night, at the Sage.  Thirty-nine stinking pounds, if there are indeed any left.  But booooo I want to go!

A cleaning lady.  See earlier comment about floordrobe!

And, like, loads and loads of dresses.  And a bigger wardrobe.

(Oh, bloody hell, I've just remembered I covered my bed in piles of clothes.  What a bloody stupid idea.)