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Friends, I am handing in my Vintage Card, turning my back on the Olden Days and embracing postmodernism. I am posting this from my new clever mobile telephone. I am even doing that slidey, sweepy, touch-screen typing thing. Please be suitably awed.



(Edit from old-school laptop method of blogging - pahahaha, sideways photo!  Better luck next time, Bette, you big show off!)

Viva la Friday

I know, it's Saturday, so my title is a day behind the times.  Never mind.  This didn't get posted yesterday as I was held up on set of the film I spent the afternoon shooting.  (True story! Watch out for me gracing your cinema screens in 2012/13 - ok, you might have to squint to spot me in the crowd behind Vanessa Redgrave and Gemma Arterton, but I was there!)

Anyway.  Boring Outfit Post ahoy.  End of term/housewarming/leaving party, and my new frock.

Dress: Miss Selfridge, shoes: vintage, bag: Primark

Also I bought a pretty something for Catherine to wear:

A lovely oilcloth pannier bag from Viva la Frida!

"For those of you who are interested in the internet..."

Five Things I Love, Right Now.

One

 1. Caro Emerald

I can't seem to stop listening to Caro Emerald's album, 'Deleted Scenes from the Cutting Room Floor'.  I never have tunes on while I'm faffing on with my laptop, but with this baby I'm obsessed to the extent that I've started manufacturing situations that require background music, so I can listen as I bake or tidy up.  I've been doing my listening on Caro's own website (thwarting Spotify's recent limited access shenanigans, mwahah!), but I'm going to actually BUY the album with real money, so I can have it on my 'pod while I whizz around the country on trains in the imminent school holidays.

'That Man' and 'A Night Like This' are the album besties, but my favourite is the cheeky, cheesy 'Dr Wanna Do'.  It reminds me of that beautiful example of '90s bubblegum pop, 'Doctor Jones' by Aqua.  Which I imagine is exactly what Miss Emerald was going for!

Two

2. Sleek Pout Polish
Jolly good stuff, this.  I can't bastard find my pout polish at the moment, but I assume it's in one of my handbags, as I've been using it and carrying it around with me on an almost daily basis.  I can't be doing with sticky lipglosses, plus I find that wet-look, blowjob lips look rather naff.  These polishes (Dunno why I'm talking about them in the plural, I've only got the one - 'Pink Cadillac') are a creamy consistency rather than a gloopy liquid, and they absorb into the lips, leaving the colour with none of that slimy, flyaway-hair-trap annoyingness.  The one I've got is very pigmented, which I approve of, because I like a bright, obvious look, none of this "a sheer wash of colour" silliness.  It also means that you get the boldness of wearing lipstick, but without the drawbacks - 'Pink Cadillac' is a similar colour to my favourite 'Cherries in the Snow' lipstick, but I find the Cherries can be rather drying.  The little Pout Polish pots are a very convenient size and shape, too.  Stocked in Superdrug for a very reasonable £4-ish, I may have found a new make-up addiction.  I'm intrigued by the purple one, which is glamorously called 'Monte Carlo'...

Three

't

3. My Legs!

Cycling and tap-dancing have worked miracles on the shapeliness of my pins!  Ok, I've still got tree trunk thighs, but I probably always will, and trust me, they were worse before!  Bette on Toast tip: cycling in platform wedges hurts the thighs a lot more, therefore (probably) burns three million extra calories per hill.

With legs love comes playsuit love.  I don't know if you remember my story about how I accidentally bought a playsuit that looked like a dress?  Well, that little garment has turned me from a playsuit-hater into a playsuit-champion.  I really wanted to wear it, styled as above, for my end-of-year staff night out on Friday, but Simon convinced me that me legs were too bruised, so I wore my green '50s-style dress, and regretted it all evening.  Serves me right for taking Simon's advice for once!  To make up for my short-sightedness, I wore my playsuit out for dinner with my LSA pals yesterday.  I WAS tempted to bare-leg it, but I'm glad I didn't, as I would have been laughably overdressed for Scalini's!

 

My attempt to dress the playsuit down turned the look from '40s pin-up to a bit more of a '70s aesthetic.  Also pictured (and also rather '70s, I now notice), my new dress.  £10 in the Miss Selfridge sale, and earmarked for yet another end-of-term party tomorrow night.  It's got the biggest sleeves you've ever seen.  Coming soon to a Boring Outfit Post near you!

My face couldn't stand it that my legs were centre of attention.

Four

4. My Job
I bleeding love it, you know.  All the good bits of being a teacher, but I finish at 4 o'clock every day and don't have to do planning.  And we have school plays and picnics and staff parties and the small people give me hugs and there are always plenty of biscuits.  It's the last day of the year tomorrow and much as I'm looking forward to a well-deserved (though I say so myself!) holiday, I'm (almost) feeling downright soppy...   I bleeding love my job.

Practically perfect people never permit sentiment to muddle their thinking.

I can't be mithered to think of a fifth thing I love.  Here's a peep-show into our hilarious life instead.

Simon, cowering in a corner as I cheerily donned my rubber gloves and got ready to empty the mouse trap: "I'm so glad you're a boy."

"If you don't wear lipstick, I can't talk to you." - Isabella Blow

Hello readers!  It is peeing it down outside, and I'm supposed to be working (No, not school on a Sunday - this is my other job.  I moonlight as an audio typist.  I take dictation, isn't that charmingly retro?)

This is obviously what I look like when I'm typing focus groups.

The end of term draws near, and I have been stretching the definition of 'workwear' to extreme lengths.  Denim skirt, with tights deemed by Simon to be "ridiculous", but what does he know, eh readers?

Top - charity shop, Skirt - Oasis, Tights - Primark, Shoes - Primark, Corsage - hair flower from Accessorize

That evening was our staff party, and I fancied curly hair, so I tried to do a Cheat One hot set, by setting-lotion-ing and then straightening each section of hair and then quickly rolling the warm hair up into a fat pincurl and leaving it to set for a couple of hours.  I put some curlers in to make myself a nice big fat rockabilly fringe, too.

I forgot that my hair is crap and will only take a curl from a full-on, dried-in-for-a-billion-years, don't-even-think-about-going-out-in-the-wind wet set, so what I actually ended up with was a sort of pageboy, which I actually really liked.  Well, I liked this view of it.  I'm not showing you the other side, where I had to resort to sculptural curls and a massive flower to hide the crap bits.

 

Face:  Posietint cheeks, Highbeam highlights, Cherries in the Snow lips and Eyelure lashes.

My frock is from Primark, and I promise my bra wasn't that visible all the time!  I didn't take a Boring Outfit snap because I had changed said outfit thirty times and then fannied on with my stupid fail fringe for a hundred years.  Nonetheless, I had a totally marvellous evening.  Here is a crappy phone photo.

As you can see, my fringe fell apart!

Recipe for an Ashabeth cocktail (devised by Ashleigh and Elizabeth at the Christmas staff party):

1. Decide upon ordering a pitcher of 'Jerry's Iced Tea' (gin, vodka, Sailor Jerry's, Cointreau, coke)

2. Think "Hmm, this looks a bit strong, maybe we'll ask to have it without the vodka."

3. When asked "Would you like extra gin to replace the vodka?", answer with a resounding yes.

4. Bottoms up!

Ashleigh and I suffered for our creativity the morning after we invented Ashabeths, and decided we weren't going to be so clever at this party, but obviously we did, AND we fell for the old "Do you want extra gin?" line again.  Strangely, this batch of Ashabeth didn't seem as potent, so we lived to tell the tale!

Anyway, back onto faces, after having peeled off the false eyelashes, wiped off several layers of foundation and roughly scrubbed off the Lipcote, on Saturday I didn't feel like wearing much make-up.  

As an experiment, because sometimes I forget what I look like beneath the paint, I decided to give myself a 'natural' look.  Concealer, Dandelion powder, Posietint lips, just a tidgy bit of eyeliner with no wings, mascara and (gasp) a very light hand with my eyebrow pencil, without exaggerating the arch or extending the line.

S'alright, I suppose.  I prefer my painted floozy face, though!

Monsoon season started on Saturday, so for my quick run to Morrisons to buy eggs and butter to make biscuits (no you can't have any, they're for teachers only), I wore this:

I look skinny!  Bosh!

Coat - Primark, Top - Oasis, Jeans - Peacocks, Wellies - Amazon, of all places, Beret - present from Matt and Ruth one time when they got fed up of me whingeing about losing my first white beret!

Back to typing, I suppose.  Can't beeeee bovvered!

Hairstory

This is a photograph of me looking cute on my fourth birthday.

Isn’t my hair nice?  It’s clean, shiny, silky, neat, classic and very cute.  This is because I was four and my mum was in charge of my hair.  Shortly after this I started refusing to have my fringe cut, because I liked peering sinisterly up at people from beneath it, and shortly after that I refused to have the length cut at all, and shortly after that I refused to brush my hair because it hurt hurt hurt, and Mummy Hamer and I would have lengthy, tearful arguments every morning, and Daddy Hamer would threaten to brush my hair with rusty nails hammered into a piece of wood, and still I would refuse.  I was eight then.  eight-year-olds aren’t very nice.  Soon I was a teenager and wore it in a ponytail, so as to blend as invisibly as possible into the crowd of ponytailed girls at my horrible school.

Then Facebook records began.  Throughout most of university I had long, thick, unlayered, side-partinged, natural-dark-brown, hair. Continuing the birthday theme, here I am at my 21^st.  

It was a bit dull, but sometimes I did awesome things with it.  Like this. 

Anyway, one day, *snip!*, I had my ponytail cut off and sent to a charity that makes wigs for children undergoing chemotherapy, and the remainder was a neat little brown bob again, like four-year-old me. 

The sad face was staged.  I can't remember the back story now!

After that the mop was in various stages of ‘bob in between hair trims’, and then I was a postgrad with no money for haircuts (or for food or fun, as I feel is evidenced by the desperation in my eyes) 

And then suddenly one day *ping!* it was ginger.  And by ‘ginger’, I mean ‘cheesy wotsit orange’. 

The ginger love prevailed for a few years.  One time I had a dodgy sideways fringe. 

 

One time I had a 23^rd birthday party, and had the best updo ever. 

One time I had maniacal 1940s curls. 

 

One time I had a coaster to match my head.

Then one day, *ping!* I had a choppy ginger bob. 

After that, (birthdays again, this is my 24^th) I had a round black flapper bob a la Brooksie 

Then it was brown and a different shape. 

Now, I’m bored.    

Drunk, but bored.

I would like hair like this lady next.

  

(That is the authoress of blog A Fine Day forSailing)

I’ve had hair like that once before. 

 

Actually, twice before.  

How beautifully blue the sky. The glass is rising very high...

Suppose we take off our shoes and stockings and paddle?

Do you ever have those times where you put on what you think is a perfectly reasonable outfit, do your face, add a jaunty hair bow, and then look in the mirror and realise you look like an Edwardian lady getting ready to go for a modest dip whilst holidaymaking by the seaside?

Bloomers on show and everything!

I think the bow was a trifle too much.  One of these days I'm going to set myself a challenge and actually dress like an actual grown up for a whole week!

Also, SHOCK HORROR, no second-hand cast-offs in this outfit.  All items were bought from actual high sreet shops!

Dress:  Dorothy Perkins

Leggings:  New Look (I hacked them - they were ankle length but I prefer to have the minimum possible amount of legging in any outfit.)

Sandals:  Monsoon

Hair bow:  Peacocks

I have worn my stripy dress three times during my short ownership of it; to work, to a party and to a school concert.  I won't usually buy something if I don't think it's versatile - can't afford to have separate wardrobes for separate occasions!  Also it used to have a belt but the pixies stole it and buried it somewhere.

Also, continuing the theme of dressing like a child (24!  I'm 20-flipping-4!), here's a boring outfit that I forgot in the last toast post:

School trip to the allotments in the rain.

(I don't know why it looks like I'm wearing white woolly tights...!)

Boring Outfit Bumper Bonus

A handful of daily outfits I haven't bothered to fashion into any toast posts yet.

To start with, yesterday's outfit:

Top:  Topshop via Oxfam
Shorts:  Primark, in 2006
Cardi:  Dorothy Perkins
Shoes:  Office
Headscarf:  vintage

Yesterday at school the teachers were on strike, the children were playing in the streets, and I spent the morning sorting out boxes and boxes and boxes of books in the school library and having a whale of a time.  The rockabilly hairdo was inspired mainly by the fact that I was getting a lift into work and walking home and therefore didn't have to worry about my bike helmet squishing my 'do!

Oh no, what happened to the side of my circle?!

My t-shirt has frilly shoulders!  That afternoon I went for a run walk with bits of jogging, and couldn't be bothered with changing my top half, so just swapped the shorts and plimsolls for joggers and trainers (and I must admit, I did also wear my totally unsexy sports bra) and went out looking far too adorable to be taking part in any form of exercise.

We're apparently moving backwards in time in this post.  This next outfit was from a couple of weeks ago:

Dress:  Miss Selfridge via charity shop
Cardi:  Warehouse via charity shop
Shoes:  Fat Face via ebay
Necklace:  made by me

Showing off my tights necklace!

Moving back in time yet again, this next one documents the only time I have ever worn shorts with tights.  I felt a trifle silly, but I don't get to wear my khaki culottes very often, as they're a bit too short for someone with thighs like mine!  (Not to mention the bicycle-inflicted unsightly bruises covering my shins!)

Shirt:  Henry Holland, from Debenhams

Shorts:  Oasis

Fishnets:  No idea.  I'm certain I didn't buy them.

Shoes:  Primark.

The occasion for this one was a hilarious and drink-sodden late-night showing of The Rocky Horror Picture Show at the beautiful Tyneside Cinema with some of my pals.

 

And look!  Zebra top and zebra earrings!  Those were brought back from Tanzania for me by my friend Hannah.  Also, pahahaha, look at the crappy photoshopping going on on my neck.  A strand of my hair was caught under my collar, and it made it look like I had an unfortunately hairy neck.  I don't have an unfortunately hairy neck.

Finally, and quite a while ago, judging by my hair, this is a dress I bought from Asos on one of their random 25% off days.  I sent it back in the end, because it was a smidge too short for work, and not garishly coloured enough for my going-out tastes!  

I liked it because it reminded me of a favouite dress that I wore constantly during my second year of uni.

I was decidedly not a bonny bairn!

It also frequently came in useful for 1940s fancy dress, for occasions that were likely to be too drink-sodden to risk ruining a vintage frock!

 

Natasha and I called it my 'Resistance Dress',  on the grounds that it looked like something Michelle of ze Resistance would wear.  Anyway, I loved it, but it got too big, and I was extremely impoverished and sold it on ebay, and I missed it terribly and was looking for a replacement.  But the asos dress wasn't it.

The End.  Here's a pretty picture of my gal Bette.