Outfit: Teal Dress, Red Shoes

Happy Leap Day! How are we all on this fine Wednesday? It’s my penultimate work day this week as I have Friday off. Hoorah for short weeks!

Last night I went to step class at the gym. It was a great workout and I think I have one of the more complicated moves figured out now (until next week, when I’ve forgotten it again!). I came home and showered, then did the ironing, put on a load of washing and we watched Horizon (a documentary series) on BBC2 which this week was about new research into exercise and how you may only need to do three 20 second bursts of intense exercise (the chap shown pedalled hell-for-leather on an exercise bike) three times a week to reap the same benefits as doing hours of less intense activity in the gym. It sounds too good to be true, so chances are it is. I’ll stick to my gym classes and lunchtime walks for now I think. After that I watched Gypsy Weddings – my must-see TV of the week at the moment.

I was going to wear my Vivienne Westwood Lady Dragons (the fuchsia ones with the red hearts) with this today. They looked fab with it but the dress is quite short so I went for flat shoes instead. But the idea of red as an accent colour had already been imprinted in my mind by the hearts so I went for red flats and my favourite red beads.

This afternoon I have a package to collect from the Post Office, then I have a quiet night in I think, with no concrete plans. I can totally see myself making some more scones though, as the young man finished off the last of Monday’s batch last night.

Teal dress – Next Tall (eBay)
Turquoise and black stripe top – Primark (charity shop)
Black tights – ASDA?
Red leather flats – Matalan
Silver hoops – gifted
Red beads – eBay
Turquoise scarf – H&M

Total Est. Cost £49

Outfit: Red and Black on Tuesday

I’m very excited that I finally deemed it warm enough to wear my new shoes! Albeit with tights, but I quite like peep toe shoes with tights – it means you don’t have to worry about your pedicure. Although a pedicure is something I’ll have to think about as it won’t be long before it’s warm enough for peep toe shoes without tights (but with jeans – it will be a while before it’s warm enough for me to go bare legged!).

So last night the young man’s mate called round just as I was about to go to the gym. I went to my class – and boy it was quite a tough one, then went back home and – yes, you guessed it! I made scones! With all the practice I’ve had lately I have it down to a fine art and 40 minutes after my class ended we were sitting down to warm scones and tea. Which was actually quite a nice treat for a Monday night. The friend left and we sat down and watched a programme about the London Underground.

Tonight I am booked in for Basic Step class at the gym and I have some ironing to do.

The shoes were a complete bargain on eBay – they had been worn once and were in practically pristine condition. They are from LK Bennett (which you know I love) and are so far proving comfy, even on their first wearing.

Black and red dress – Next Tall
Black shrug – Long Tall Sally
Black tights – M&Co
Leopard print shoes – LK Bennett (eBay)
Whitby Jet cross – gifted
Silver hoops – gifted
Red and turquoise bead necklace – gifted
Turquoise pashmina - eBay

Total Est. Cost £81

Outfit: Suddenly Monday Appears Again

It’s all very well to wish for spring to hurry up and arrive (and I think we’re all getting a little sick of the cold and dark of winter now), but I am very aware that boots such as these, with their lovely faux fur trim, have a limited wear-period and probably won’t be appropriate come the end of February. That was part of my reason for wearing my faux sheepskin lined wedge boots yesterday too. Yes, it’s March at the end of the week and time to retire the faux fur and sheepskin until the beginning of October (unless, of course, it snows again. Though I find that unlikely).

I’ve not worn this dress in ages! It’s one of my favourites given that it has long sleeves but is jersey and so can be worn year round. I paired it with a polo neck today because, again, it’s getting to the time of year when those are retired in favour of lower necklines (and a scarf if it’s still chilly).

The forecast is for another mild-ish week and so I thought I’d wear my faux leather jacket rather than a heavy winter coat today. And I took pictures of it too, in the spirit of showing more coats on the blog.

Last night, once we realised what a ridiculous film The Mummy Returns is, we switched over to Top Gear, then watched a documentary about Whitney Houston when we went to bed.

Tonight I have Boot Camp class at the gym, then I plan a quiet evening. We’ll see how that pans out though – last Monday I ended up making scones.

Teal dress (shortened) – F+F at Tesco (charity shop)
Black polo neck sweater – New Look Tall
Black tights – H&M?
Black booties – c/o Deichmann Shoes
Teal beads – Claire’s
Silver hoops – gifted
Faux leather jacket – Topshop Tall

Total Est. Cost £81

Outfit: Pretending It’s Spring

Yesterday morning was so lovely and sunny that I couldn’t bring myself to wear a heavy coat. I opted instead for a cord jacket. It wasn’t really warm enough for just the thin jacket, but I layered up with a big scarf and for a trip to Tesco it was OK. I did a bunch of the usual chores first thing – cleaned the bathroom, vacced, emptied the bins.

After lunch we had a quiet afternoon. I baked some scones and made a chicken and leek pie for tea. We watched The Mummy in the evening and had an early-ish night.

I didn’t take outfit pictures today. I wore a similar ensemble to yesterday – brown cord jacket, a much warmer sweater and skinny jeans, tucked into these boots:

I met my sister in town for lunch and we had a wander around the shops. When I got home I sorted out my recipes into this folder I bought:

Many of my recipes are printed off the internet, or pages torn out of magazines, and I keep them in plastic wallets so that if they get splashed whilst I’m cooking they will wipe clean. But that meant a big pile of plastic wallets that slid about everywhere in the cupboard. They are much tidier now in their cupcake file.

I drank tea.

I also made some rice pudding in the slow cooker and we ate it for dessert after tea.

We’re now watching The Mummy Returns on TV.

So, the question everyone was so interested in after Friday’s post: what is chocolate Philadelphia like? Well, in my opinion, it’s delicious! It tastes like chocolate cheesecake and so far I’ve had it spread on digestive biscuits, and neat out of the pot. It’s made with Light Philadephia so one of the tiny 30g pots is 2 WW ProPoints. So yes, I would definitely recommend it and there are recipes on the Philly website if you want more ideas what to do with it.

Teal cord jacket – Long Tall Sally (eBay)
Cream sweater – Topshop Tall
Jeans – New Look
Silver flats – c/o Sarenza
Whitby Jet cross – gifted
Silver hoops – gifted

Total Est. Cost £65

Outfit: A Sunday Re-run

This is what I wore on Sunday, but didn’t photograph, and so I’m wearing it again today. Not that I worry about repeating outfits, but it’s nice to mix things up and wear it slightly differently to how you did last time.

Last night I made pancakes – I went for the fluffy American kind – and ate one with low fat spread, then the rest with chocolate spread. Delish! I filled my courtesy car with petrol as it is going back today. Which means I get my own car back! I am so excited about that! I popped into Tesco (I went there for petrol as I had a voucher for 10p off per litre – worth having when petrol is as expensive as it is) as we need bread and I picked up some chocolate Philadelphia to try. All the girls on the WW website have been raving about it so I’ve decided to see what all the fuss is about. I’m not sure what to expect, but I’ve bought a pack of four 30g individual servings so I can always pass it on if I don’t like it.

I dried my hair using my Remington Spin Curl hair dryer last night. I’ve not used it in ages – partly because it is so noisy! But it didn’t take as long as I remembered to dry my hair with it, and I really like the waves, so it may be coming out more regularly in future.

Navy and cream jacket – Next Tall
Black sweater – New Look Tall
Jeans – Next Tall (eBay)
Black boots – Arturo Chiang (Century 21)
Black leather belt – Pieces (c/o Spartoo)
Blue/black ring – charity shop
Silver hoops – gifted
Silver and cream bead cluster – New Look

Total Est. Cost £147

Thursday Latelies (in Text Form)

My weekly (well that’s the intention anyway) list of things I’ve been enjoying this week.

• Pancakes – OK, this first one is a bit of a cheat as I am yet to enjoy my pancakes. I love pancakes and make either the fluffy American kind which I eat with butter (well, low fat spread), or the thin crèpe-y kind which I eat with chocolate spread. I can’t decide which I want to make tonight!

• Crumpets – by far the best thing on the WW Filling and Healthy list and I have been eating loads of them recently. They’re just so more-ish and delicious.

• My car getting fixed – I was so worried they were going to write my car off as uneconomical to repair, and I would be forced to buy a new one in the next couple of weeks. I am thinking of getting a new car in the next few months, but not, you know, next week.

• LK Bennett shoes – My new favourite shoe brand and a currently eBay-stalking obsession. Kate Middleton favours the brand and I can see why – the shoes are well made, comfortable (for the height of the heels) and very chic. They’re just so expensive to buy new – hence the eBay stalking.

• eBay – See above, and also the awesome market for Tall items. Plus you can sell your unwanted items and make a bit of cash to buy new things!

• Lunchtime coffee dates with my friend – this particular friend and I used to work together, so would spend all day every day in each other’s company. I miss her and we now meet for a lunchtime coffee on an ish-weekly basis which is fab.

Outfit: Blue and Leopard

I said last week I would try leopard with bright blue, and I love the combination! If I’m pairing leopard with a colour I usually go for red because it works so well, but this works well too. I’ll have to put this skirt with some of my other brightly coloured tops too.

So, I was trying to write a ‘Stuff I’m... Loving/Not Loving’ post last night and I was really struggling with the Not Loving list. I really like the idea of Thursday Latelies (that link takes you to Bex’s very first video but basically people make a short vid talking about things they’ve been enjoying during the past week – food, a new item of clothing, gadget, item, whatever) but I’m not sure I’m ready to make a video. Perhaps I should turn this column into a list of positives, Thursday Latelies in text form. In fact yes, I think that’s just what I’m going to do. Who knows, one day perhaps I’ll be brave enough to make a video!

Last night I had a quiet evening. I did some washing and tested out a pair of boots for an upcoming review. We finished up the last of the scones and I think the young man is hankering after me making some more, but I’m out of self raising flour so need to buy some more before any more scones can be baked.

Tonight the young man is out so I am going to make myself some pancakes as I missed out on Tuesday.

Blue sweater – F+F at Tesco
Leopard print skirt – River Island
Brown tights – c/o Tightsplease
Blue patent shoes – New Look
Silver hoops – gifted
Silver and diamante necklace – gifted
Silver bangle – M&S (free on 3 for 2 offer)
Wooden heart necklace – Scope

Total Est. Cost £34