Born to Speak All Mirth and No Matter

My first week of the hols has involved...


Pub
Ditching pub for pub quiz game at home
A million washing
Starbucks
More pub
Thelma's Gypsy Girls
Shakespeare in the park
Tidying cupboards!
TCM marathons
Sunny bicycle rides
Primark
Unsucessful wig-dressing
Togas
Being photographed for the newspaper
More pub
Being painted white
Gardening (!)
Slack-jawed yokels
Spiderman
Trains
Appearing in the newspaper
Sisters and mothers and aunts
Late-night shopping
The dentist
Day trips to Liverpool
Late-night Olympic opening ceremonies!
Craft-making and art galleries
(Super simultaneous art-gallery-visiting/book-reading-at-the-same-time skillz)
Tomorrow's plans involve taking in a matinee at the International Gilbert and Sullivan Festival!

Pratting around with the little sister, as standard.

 This is how I enjoy art galleries.

TTFN,
Bette x

I'm Too Lazy To Think Of A Title.

My infant and junior schools didn't make us wear a uniform, so I never had the opportunity to dress in those cute little red, yellow, blue or green gingham summer dresses that you will have seen modelled by small girls all over the UK during the past term.  Actually, I would rather have died than be seen dead in a gingham dress in those days.  I was a tomboy through and through!

How things change.  Since I may have to actually dress like a grown-up for the next six weeks, yesterday I took advantage of the last day of the school year and paid homage to my six-year-old colleagues in my very own picnic-blanket dress.  I hope you enjoy this pair of annoyingly over-processed pictures of it.

Bette with a fringe on top

Good morning viewers! 

The summer holidays are nearly upon us (HOW did that happen?!) and the end-of-the-year celebration events have already begun.  I type this nursing a slightly fuzzy head after last night's staff party, but these photographs were taken on Thursday, after my fellow LSA chums and I stole out of work early to gossip over coffee and cake.

(For variation, a slightly different view of my slug-infested wilderness of a garden!)

For the first time in a fortnight, it WASN'T raining, so I celebrated with a slice of chocolate and amaretto torte almost as big as my head.  The girls said I wouldn't be able to finish it, but I bloody well did!  (It cost me three quid, there was no way I was leaving any for Miss Manners!)

Then I bicycled into town and got myself a fringe.  Do you like?  It keeps tickling me!

(Practising reposing for the hols)

There is nothing very interesting about this combination of clothes, but for some reason I really like the look.  Dress-related fact:  Princess Eugenie has the same one.

What the hell, let's make this a Boring Outfit Post BOGOF.  Here's a quick snap of me ready to go out last night.

Pay no attention to the mess.  That's my tights box overflowing as usual!

"Du disturbest mein Life!"

At the end of her blog post today, the lovely Harriet instructed us all, "If you are seeing your best friends this week make sure you tell them how awesome they are!"  Well, I must confess, I have been missing my own pain in the backside best pal of late, so I thought I would give it a go.

But being nice to Simon doesn't come easily to me (don't scoff, readers, if you met him you'd understand.), and I simply can't condone feeding his gigantic ego any further, so instead I'm going to say:

Du bist ein Tvat. 

I miss you disturbing my life. 

"Oh, July!" day on the 21st?

Späters!

Frau

x

Queen for a Day

"Why Hamlet, dear, you've written us a play..."

"Nothing lasts forever in the theatre.  Whatever it is, it's here, it flares up, burns hot - and then it's gone."


Another production has been and gone.  Or rather, has chugged along unassumingly for months, has sputtered and fizzled a bit, has exploded into glory, and has suddenly, unbelievably, ceased to exist.

I've said it before, I know, but putting on a show is an emotional bloody rollercoaster.  Nowhere else do you experience such completely consuming glee and glumness within such a short space of time.  No flippin' wonder we're all tired, cast-mates!

Truthfully, the Post-Show Bereavement isn't too strong right now.  (There's a lot to be said for a full-time job - I get the after-show blues far less devastatingly now than I did in my student days!)  Everyone is a little sad it's over, and Facebook is comfortingly flooded with photos and reminiscences.  I think the saddest thing is actually the knowledge that the glumness will quickly fade, because with it goes the excitement, too.  I'll always have my memories of this brilliant week, but how much will they mean to me, three weeks, three months, or a year from now? 

In February, you remember, I was in two big-scale shows within two weeks.  I had two scores, two librettos, two costumes, two casts, two opening nights and two final ever nights, and two consecutive Sunday mornings brought fresh show-hangovers.  It was a double whammy, a rollover, of everything I love and hate about performing, and how many times a week does that crazy, exhilerating, exhausting fortnight cross my mind now, four months later?  Hardly ever.  Two months from now I shall be home from Buxton and bitterly mourning Iolanthe, while A Tale of Two Hamlets will be a dusty old has-been of a memory.  Every show is the best one there ever was; every, every time.  Each new one pushes the previous ones further back and knocks off a bit more of their ancient sparkle.  Show-business, my friends, is fickle and heartless! 

In the grand scheme of all the shows in my past, and all the shows I hope will be in my future, it was small fry.  But while it was here it was a cracker, and worth celebrating.  Commemorating, if you like, since we're on a royal theme.  The best one there ever was, for now at least.  Queen for a Day.

Hmm.  Introspective eloquence an unexpected side-effect of post-show blues?  This lengthy blog post has been maudlin and self-indulgent, but I quite like it!  Makes a change from the wittering you get when I talk about dresses and lipstick, at any rate!

Dress rehearsal photographs of A Tale of Two Hamlets taken by my candy-floss-haired chum Liffy Wood.

Cool Brittania

Hello viewers, here is the one thousandth Jubilee-themed blog post you will have seen this week.

We kicked off the jubilations on Friday with a red, white and blue non-uniform day at school.  I'm usually wearing some patriotic combination of those colours on any given day, so I tried to think of something to give my outfit a little extra something to bring it from everyday clothes to dressing-up-at-work funtimes.  My accessory of choice turned out to be...

...white tights!

I swear, each time I have to grudgingly pay good money for a show-costume accessory, adamant that I will never wear said item again, it always ends up coming in useful at the most surprising of moments!

All day I was compared to either Snow White or Alice in Wonderland, which was rather flattering!

Red shoes: Charity frock swap

Red belt: Christmas present a hundred million years ago

Red lipstick:  Jemma Kidd

White tights: Can't 'member.

White blousey thing: Jumble sale

White pearls: Market stall in Bulgaria

White hair flower: No idea.

Blue dress:  Dorothy Perkins.

Blue eyes: model's own!

I think I looked swell, but all day I had dress jealousy.  Imagine being surrounded by hundreds of small girls, all in full-skirted, polka-dotted, striped or Union-Jack-ed red, white and blue dresses, cardis, socks and shoes!  We have some very well-turned-out children at our place!  I must say though, it made me very sad that almost all the little boys' contribution to the theme was an England football kit.  Words can not describe how much I hate, loathe and despise football.

Anyway, after one of those brilliant work days where by morning playtime you're already able to say that the amount of cake eaten has far surpassed the amount of work done, I turned my back on school for a whole week. (Which is almost over already!)

On Saturday I journeyed down to the capital to see Alexa's new house, celebrate her birthday and, of course, to see the Queen!

There she is!

It was chilly and drizzly down at the Thames river pageant, but we had a jolly good time.  We saw all of the action on a big screen, and when the flotilla finally reached our bit of the river the crowd got really excited.  It was all very infectious.  When her Majesty's barge went by, everybody got the giggles!  Here are a couple more snaps:

And then I came home and dressed up like the Queen.

(disclaimer: there was an actual good reason behind this!)

My Glamorous Showbiz Life

Viewers, I don't underbloodystand Instagram.

So, most of these photographs are uplopaded from my new telephone the old-fashioned way, with a USB cable.  I lose at the future.

1. Self, in coral.  I like coral these days.  If I were a proper fashion blogger I might do a Polyvore-heavy post about coral, but in reality I'm useless and lazy so I won't.
2. An E-NOR-MOUS apple cake.  The heaviest thing I've ever baked!
3.  Bicycle sporting this season's on-trend florals.
4.  Simon beat me at Scrabble, and I wasn't pleased.

5. The view from my chair in the staff room. First photo on new telephone.
6. A little plastic swallow swooping in my hair.
7. Actual arty-farty hipster Instagram picture!!
8. Gin and tonic inna can.

 
Maybe by my next boring, information-less blog post I will have learned how to use instagram, and then my snapshots will be prettier.  Here are some more scenic photos, showing my fun weekend in York.  I went down on the Friday night train with Matt, Laura and Phil, to catch the opening night of The Merry Wives of Windsor, performed al fresco in the park, and starring our very own Kayleigh. 

Ok, I've just checked, and I didn't actually take any nice photos.  Instead, here are a pair of snaps of us in the audience (bonus Pimms-in-shoes, if you look hard enough), followed by an arty-farty blogger picture of some spices in a spices shop the following day.

Here are three questions that have been plaguing me lately.  All to do with high-street brands, as it happens - perhaps I should post them on Twitter instead and get sent e-vouchers and freebies in return...?

1.  Why are my two different shades of @MaxFactor Colour Adapt foundation such completely different textures?  One is thick liquid, the other a mousse...

2.  My pretty @Clarksshoes Henderson Sky brogues are beginning to fade.  Where can one obtain hyacinth blue shoe polish??

3.  Are @Aussie_Hair_UK shampoos notorious for stripping colour?  I noticed the bubbles coming off my head were grey (shamp is yellowy out of the bottle), and it's a good few weeks since I last dyed my hair...

Get in touch if you know any of the answers!

Style Stalker: Kerry of Yours Truly, x

Evening all!  This is a Toast Post in celebration of a blog that I have been following quite obsessively for several months.   The blog is Yours Truly, x, and this is its astonishingly well-dressed owner, Kerry:

I like Kerry's chatty, snapshots-of-my-life posts and her colourful photography.  I admire her eclectic mix of post topics, and I love the way she looks like she's having a whale of a time in all of her outfit posts.  But of course, the outfit posts themselves are my favourite thing!  I am in awe of Kerry's ability to magic up unique yet wearable, vintage-inspired without being a slave to period-correctness, cute and cheerful outfits.  I am particularly impressed by her fondness for teeny vintage suitcases as handbags!

The outfit posts on Yours Truly are the bestest because they're so diverse.  Kerry never looks the same two posts in a row!

Sometimes Kerry's clothes remind me of things the Bright Young Twins wear, but, to be honest, although undoubtedly style geniuses, the BYT sometimes strike me as a bit far-fetched, a bit too ethereal and other-worldly.  Yours Truly is a happier, cheekier, more accessible version!

Mildly funny story:  I also follow Yours Truly's Facebook page (I'm good at stalking, me!), and today Kerry uploaded an album of outfit pics from the past couple of years, which made finding these photographs to illustrate this post very easy.  That is, it would have, had I not trawled through YT's archive last night to find them manually!  Ah well!

That's probably enough stalking for one day.  It was very hard to keep the photos down to an acceptable number! 

Three cheers Kerry for having brilliant clothes.  Definite style inspiration!