A Few Days of Summer

Hullo!

Bit quiet on Bette on Toast, innit?  So much so that people have actually been noticing, and enquiring why I haven't been uploading photographs of myself wearing clothes for their enjoyment.  One of the chief complainers, as always, has been my curly-haired, strange-accented Goldilocks, Alexa, so when she travelled up from the capital last weekend to visit, I roped her into service as a Boring Outfit Photographer.

 

Our first stop of the weekend was a picnic in the park, followed by a mini alfresco concert by my school choir.  Alexa took a lovely picture of me conducting the little mites, looking for all the world like somebody who knows about music, but it shan't be appearing on this blog, because I've done a child protection course, and one of the first things they teach you is don't put photos of the children in your care on The Internet. ;-)

 

This red dress is one of those amazingly versatile garments, that also always receives compliments from chums, colleagues and random passers-by.  Here is my younger, chubbier self, pictured with Alexa, wearing it at our Graduation Ball.

 

 

I seem to have started talking about dresses as usual, but I would really prefer for this blog to be more of a diary of my life than a shrine to Boring Outfit Posts.  So I will continue telling you about my splendid weekend.

 

After the park we built a wardrobe, and then got dressed up for the evening, and took some photos on my steps while waiting for the taxi.

 

 

You will note that the girls both look elegant and lovely, while I look like I'm dressed for pub golf.  This is because I was dressed for pub golf, being terribly busy and popular and having to be in two places at once that night.

 

 

 

So while Alice and Alexa sipped cocktails in Pleased To Meet You, my teacher friends and I drank alcopops and got thrown out of Wetherspoons for having too much fun with a plastic golf set.

 

 

On Sunday we went for our lunch at a hipster Ouseburn cafe.  I was a cowgirl that day, and cowgirls like yellow walls.

 

 

After a bit of shopping and some very rushed cake, Alice and I plonked Alexa on a train and went to our respective rehearsals.

 

I am curently having a similarly wonderful weekend this week, so maybe there will be another summery diary post coming up soon!

 

Cheerio x

 

 



Cross-process

Feeling a bit of a ridiculous hipster today, so I have donned my vintage dress and made my pictures all olde-fashionede in colouring.

 

"Not another new dress?", I hear you cry.  It's a doll, aint it?

It's a well-kept secret, but I don't actually like charity shops all that much. That is, not the clothes.  Well, no, I like the clothes, it's the rummaging that I don't get on with; I'm a lazy shopper and like to see the wares all conveniently laid out for me to browse. I'm sure this has led me to miss out on many a bargain.

Luckily, I am the daughter of the Charity Shop Queen of the North  (also the niece of the Charity Shop Queen of the South), so I am often able to quietly peruse the books and homewares while my relatives sift through the rails.  My mum wins the prize for finding this frock, which has POCKETS, a pointy collar and a fabric belt.

 

 

My garden-gate posing isn't as effective in this week's Boring Outfit Post as in last.  It's all to do with the strategic placement of wheelie bins.

 

 

Coming up soon on Bette on Toast: holiday snaps!

Two words. Sput. Nik.

Hullo!  Would you like to be introduced to my new dress?

Isn't it awful?  It's got a print like a hotel carpet, and it's ORANGE and BLUE.  I found it on the very last page of the Joy sale, and it was love at first sight.  Here it is on me:

I probably shouldn't wear it with blue tights, but I'm going to anyway, so there.

 

Despite the short hemline and overall polyesteriness of this dress, there is something very 1950s-child about it.  The russety colour and the shape of the piping on the chest make me feel I should run around playing cowboys and indians, whilst those sticky-outy Star Trek cap sleeves give it a bit of '50s Atomic style.  Cowboys and Spacemen in one.

 

So, essentially, I'm Toy Story 2 in a dress.

Brilliant!

 

 

I removed the hair-bow before I went out. It was too girly, and I'm not a girl, I'm a cowboy!

 

AND, my 1950s-childhood cup of joy is overflowing because Cath Kidston has finally made my cowboy handbag dreams come true!

 

 

Yee-ha!

 

 

(Also, P.S., many thanks to everyone who said nice things to me following my last blahg post.  I felt a bit twatty publishing it, but I'm glad I did.  You're all nice, and I'm a lucky Bette.)

 



Alnmouth

To stave off last week's post-show blues, I went to Alnwick with the mother.  We bought lots of fine things from charitable shops, and then went to the seaside at sunset.

 

Here I am all snuggly in my parka.

 

 

Dozy and reluctant to leave the comfort of my own pyjamas, I asked Mum what on earth I should wear.

 

"Start with sensible walking shoes, and work upwards from there", she replied.

 

 

Don't be ridiculous.

 

 

In the end I hoyed clothes at myself at random and was rather pleased with the result.

 

 

This photo's a bit unfortunate, but it shows what I liked about this look - the tiered skirt, thick tights and ankle boots made me feel like a naughty Victorian ruinning around in her bustle!

 

 

Also a bit like Peter Pan...

 

Mum proceeded to take some photographs withouit me in them, which I thought was a sorry waste, but other people seem to like Views, so here you go.

 

 

 

 



Flouncing around

 

Do you know that when I was a little girl I was a proud tomboy?

 

 

Between the ages of 9 and 13 I did not once wear a dress.

 

I climbed trees and refused to brush my hair and dreamed of being a Gladiator when I grew up.

 

To this day I can't bear to wear pink.

 

 

Today, this post is brought to you by my all-consuming love for the feminine frills of my flouncy petticoat.

 

Funny, innit?

 

(As a post-script, I present a toilet's-eye-view of my beautiful petticoat hanging up to dry over the bath.  SO MANY LAYERS!)

 

 

 

Tequila Sunrise

This afternoon at that time right after lunch when the North wind howls down the school corridors as the doors are opened to re-admit the red-cheeked, squabbling children, my colleague Tara swished past me as I perched on my plastic chair with my ginormous orangey-red llama-wool scarf tucked around my yellow frock and orange tights, and as she swished past, she remarked;

"Oh Elizabeth!  You look like a Tequila Sunrise!"

I thought this was amusing enough to make a Facebook status out of, and when I did so my little sister commented with a plea for a Boring Outfit Post, but I hadn't taken any snaps as it's too blooming dark both before and after work these days.

However, I did have a (dark and crappy, jazzed up with Picmonkey) photograph of a very similar outfit from one futile attempt to take Boring Outfit Pics last week.  So here it be, plus the same dress in its various other seasonal appearences!

 

Autumnal brights in gloomy November.

 

Very colourful last October, with my equally bright little sibling!

 

 

Posing with some superimposed butterflies in the Spring.

 

 

And finally - jingle those bells, it's Christmas time!

 

Hope you enjoyed my mustardy montage (and were not too irritated by my OCD-unfriendly lack of picture-size uniformality!)

 

Autumn Days

 

Brr.

 

Since I am very lazy and have not got round to swapping over my summer and winter wardrobes yet, my summer dresses are suddenly finding themselves reinvented as components of very layering-heavy ensembles.

 

Here's my picnic blanket dress, in both summer and autumn guises:

 

 

(L) With Office-via-Oxfam shoes and a vintage belt

(R) With a Primark jumper, New Look belt, black tights and supercool Fred Astaire shoes

 

Chilly corridors notwithstanding, here's a sneaky glimpse at what I intend to wear to work tomorrow, in celebration of Roald Dahl day:

 

 

 

I didn't bother to Google-Image research what the real Sophie-from-The-BFG looked like, but I think I got the general idea.  Any excuse to wear my vintage dressing gown!

 

Roald Dahl-related fact:  Mr Dahl died on my 4th birthday.  I always felt faintly responsible...



Lilac and Red

Sometimes I'm not sure if I'm a genius or an idiot.  I wanted a pastel-y, sixties look, but none of my pale pink or powder blue or even silver accessories were doing the trick.

 

 

So I went for red, and ended up looking like the bastard offspring of the Christmas Fairy and the Easter Bunny.

 

And look!  Fairy wings!

 

 

Dress: Primark
Shoes: Topshit, 2008

Belt: was a Christmas present, but I suspect H&M

Hair: Poundland version of Bumpits!*

 

 Photobooths.  Best idea EVER.

 

 

*'Bumpits' is a dreadful product name.  Bum.  Pits.  Why did they ever think it was a good move?



Another suitcase in another hall

I can't understand at all why laptops have relective screens.  While the sun is shining I can't see a blessed thing on mine. (Actually, maybe that's the point - to encourage internet-addicts out of the house and into the fresh air during daylight hours...)  I've had to retreat to the shadowiest corner of the living room (behind the door, for those of you who are familiar with the geography of my flat and want to picture it exactly!) in order to see and edit my Boring Outfit Pictures.  Bah.

Anyway.  On another sunny day last week, when I actually DID leave the house instead of squinting at my laptop all day (I seem to have spent the first three weeks of the summer holidays in an absolute whirl, and then the fourth week doing not much more than creating a bum-shaped dent in the sofa), I bought a pretty little vanity case from a vintage shop.

Too small for anything more than an overnight stay, too big to sit on my dressing table  dressing bookcase, too angular to fit into my bike basket, and having just missed an opportunity to use it as a backstage-essentials-and-small-bits-of-costume bag, what's a girl to do?

Well, taking a leaf out of Kerry's book, I pressed it into service as a handbag.  It proved heavy, unwieldy and dreadfully impractical, but it looked wonderful, so I don't care.

The case and I had a splendid day at Tynemouth market (although I came away empty-handed - I have imposed a severe ban on buying mouldy old Penguin paperback detective novels until I've read the ones I've already got!) followed by a trip to York to see Kayleigh's latest play.

Impractical, but it gives good hugs.

Right, now that that's done I'm going to sit outside in the sun with one of my dusty paperbacks, WHICH WON'T HAVE A REFLECTIVE GLARE, DELL!

Over and out.



Seventies Sulkyface

I got my fringe trimmed a couple of days ago, and since then there's been something not quite right about it.  It's gone a bit '70s pageboy.  I think there's too much upside-down-U-shape going on...  I've got a sadface fringe!

Today I went with it, but I think soon I might get the scissors out...  Try to become a little more Bettie and a little less Purdey.

For now though, a dress with a pointy seventies collar and some sulkyfaced Yestercolour-ified photos of Bette in the wrong decade.

 I think this face was 'Am I in shot here?' puzzlement!

Welcome to our hearts again...

Good morrow, viewers.  Here's a Boring Outfit Post regarding an outfit I'm not sure I actually like.

You cannot tell from this distance, but the trousers have teeny-tiny swans printed all over them!  They came my way on Sunday, when the mother and I, arriving in Buxton long before Buxton was awake, managed to visit each of the main street's 8 charity shops before the box office opened at 12. 

As a matter of fact, this entire outfit came courtesy of that fruitful morning. (Damn good charity shops in Buxton. Sorry Laura and Liffy, there'll be no point 'doing' them when we're there next weekend; I've already cleaned 'em out. :op )  White t-shirt excepted.  I have no idea where that came from - presumably the Mothership, since I certainly do not fritter away my hard-earned cash on sensible staple garments.

So yes, something about this isn't quite right...  Maybe it's the shoes.  Or the fact that the swan trousers are actually two sizes too big for me.  Anyway, I happen to know that these bargainous £3.50 trews were full-price in the loathsome Topshop as recently as May, and have been seen all over the legs of the UK's finest fashun bloggers.  Really, I ought to sell them for a small fortune on ebay, shouldn't I?  But I kind of like having swan trousers...

Here is the much-more-stylish-than-I Charlotte from girlnextdoorfashion wearing her swan trousers with aplomb.

Anyhoo, since we're talking of Buxton...

Buxton, as you may remember me telling you last year, is home to the International Gilbert and Sullivan festival, where amateur and professional performing companies from all over the UK (and sometimes beyond!) converge to bring their hard work to an international audience.  Last week I was there as an audience member (Merrie England jolly good, three cheers Matlock Gilbert & Sullivan Society) but next weekend I shall return, singing and dancing in Dauntless Theatre's Olympia-themed Iolanthe.

We start rehearsals tomorrow night (precisely one week before our first performance!) and it's all terribly thrilling.  (I wonder if I can cite extreme excitement as a valid excuse for not knowing the music?!?)  Last year's mental week of rehearsals was one of the most enjoyable and exhilerating experiences I've had on-the-stage, and while I'm not necessarily looking forward to the twelve-hour days we've got coming up (WHEN am I going to get a square meal??), I can't quite believe it's come round again!  YEAH MAN.

P.S.  Those of my readers who have the great good fortune to live in the North East - Friday 10th August, the Priestman Hall in Roker, Sunderland, five measly pounds.  Go on go on go on!