Bath, Bag Bounty and a Frock or Two.

Late to the party as ever, over a week in fact.
Indeed I'm so out of practice with this blogging lark I even forgot to take my camera when I went to Bath to meet with Mim!!
This being after I nipped into town to collect a parcel from the post office and realised then I'd forgotten it and thought I MUST grab it when I got back to the house, but nope I just dropped off the parcel, scooted upstairs to the loo and rushed out. I was already at the station when I realised I'd forgotten it again *sigh*

The train was packed to the rafters as always so I got to spend a lovely 40 minutes wedged against the luggage rack, I genuinely cannot remember the last time I actually got a seat when travelling to Bath, but hey, Bath was lovely as always and Mim was lovely too.
 It was kind of mad that this was the first time we had met in person, I feel like I have known her for years!

I always feel a bit bad going to these fairs because Vix is working and all I do is distract her from said work. To be honest what I really want to do is kidnap her when it's pub time rather than bid her farewell. One day.......

The fair at Bath is quite small as fairs go but I've never yet left empty handed. This time I snapped up this 80's frock from the £10 bargain rail of 'Whistlestop Vintage - Bristol' which will do nicely for work.

As well as a black and gold lurex number from Shade Retro that I dithered over, put back, dithered over again, put back and then went back for one final look before thinking sod it and buying it!

The siren call of a pie and a pint became too much so we headed off to the pub. Mim then took me to an Antiques centre for a browse. I had genuinely never even noticed it before despite having walked that way on many a visit to Bath!
I did a fair bit of if money were no object wishful thinking purchasing among to jewellery cabinets before we headed out for tea and cake. I'm already looking forward to the next time!

So what else have I been up too? I had to show my face at a drinks reception at one of the big hotels in Oxford for work. I really did not want to go but it was clearly indicated that it was expected.....so being the cunning magpie that I am instead of sulking in a corner I circled the room and made sure I was seen by the people who needed to see me, Emphasised the fact I had attended by having my photo taken with some of the students when the official photographer came round then discretely buggered off as the room began to really fill up. In and out in just over an hour, job done.

Much more fun was a trip with some work colleagues to the U.K's first ever board game cafe, it is in Oxford and is called  'Hungry Meeples'. You pay £4.50 per head for 3 hours and get to play whichever of their over 2000 games takes your fancy. When asked what sort of thing we were after we chose party games and ended up playing something along the lines of Pictionary and having a whale of time. Indeed we were having such a whale of time we did earn ourselves some very withering/furious glares from the proper gamers. Clearly playing games is a serious business and laughing is NOT the done thing. Oopps.

I shall close with some recent purchases. The parcel I had to collect contained a new with tags Collectif frock that I found for £19 quid on Ebay. I'm not huge fan of Collectif, I find their sizing a bit mental and their prices a bit high for my tightwad pockets, but for £19 I'll give it a go.

 I also got seduced by an elephant t-shirt on Etsy...

Yes, yes I know, it's pink.

 Talking of pink I got sent a gorgeous bunch of flowers by one of the incoming students at work. A colleague said Himself would be worrying about the competition but he said he'd taken one look at the colour and known he was safe as this was clearly someone who didn't know me that well lol.

So saving the best until last just look at this. I still can't quite believe I scored this glorious, glorious bargain for just £20.

Nothing special right?, just a rather battered old box

with original tissue paper inside

but oh, what's this label on the side of the box?

open the tissue paper and be still my beating heart.

A Failure in Purple

It's been a few weeks, so much for this getting back into blogging lark!

Having said that I haven't been up to much, work, a bit of gardening before the weather changed, that's about it.
Now we are a bit more settled and I am a bit less stressed I have felt the urge to buy clothes creep upon me, I knew it wouldn't be long. I'm yearning for Autumnal shades, checks and tartans and in particular last week it was a purple dress.  

I thought I'd found two perfect ones. The first in H&M where I had gone to buy a new jumper. It was this delicious deep jewel like shade with long sleeves that ended in a wide cuff with little buttons, it looked perfect. I didn't have time to try it on but who cares it was perfect right? I bought it and tried it on at home the next morning. All I can say is it never ceases to amaze me how things can look so very, very different on a person to the way they do on a hanger. I returned it that same day. *sigh*

Then I found a Hell Bunny one on Ebay, floral print on a dark lilac background and only £20. I'd just sold some stuff so used that money to buy it.

Turns out the colour on the picture was not true and the dress is actually battle ship grey. Bah. Grey is a colour I absolutely cannot wear, it drains every vestige of colour from my face and makes me look sallow. *double sigh*

I did better with this 99p bargain. It is check print though to be fair more summery shades than the autumnal I'm craving. For 99p though what's not to like?

It arrived on Friday and is actually quite a heavyweight fabric so at least I get to wear one new frock!

Soo came over yesterday for a catch up, so we hit the charity shops as you do. We both did pretty well bearing in mind neither of us was actually looking to buy anything!
We both bought a little glass jug for a pound.

Mine very Art Deco with little feet!

We both bought a cord jacket, even though neither of us needs any more jackets (I literally have a cupboard full!)

Brand New Per Una Jacket for  £8 = Bargain.

Himself and I need to take a picture of ourselves in our very Howard and Hilda matchy matchy brown corduroy jackets now heh heh.

My first purchase of the day was a little carpet bag in just the seasonal type of colour I've been craving. I dithered because I really don't need any new bags either but when I asked the price and was told it was a pound well....

The deed was done.

My only other recent purchase was a necklace from Cherryloco's Halloween range

Who could resist Octo-puss??

Certainly not me that is for sure.

Himself and I have taken a couple of trips to the cinema. As I may have mentioned I was super excited to go and see The Magnificent Seven

It did not disappoint. I bloody loved it! I was aware I was grinning like a loon a couple of times, thank goodness cinemas are dark.

We also went to see Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children

which I also enjoyed though I have to say the rating surprised me. There were some very jumpy bits and I would have been having serious nightmares at some of the monsters if I would have seen it as a little kid!

Right I'm off to feed the birds, I'm currently being eaten out of house and home by a flock of goldfinches

This is the equivalent of a birdy protest.The feeders are empty so they have been forced to land on the ground and forage for scraps, oh the indignity.