Ivy

Dress: TK MaXX

Sandals: Topshop

Bag: Dad's garage

Look how sunny it is!

This is quite an old dress, I found it in TK MaXX in the winter and bought it without question as it a) is fundamentally a toddler's dress and b) is denim. It's so versatile and makes the seasonal transition easily with the removal of tights and cardies!

Ooh! I nearly forgot to mention that i found THE most amazing pair of 'mom' jeans in 'Save The Children' yesterday. They're Pepe Jeans, high-waisted, taper legged and stone washed blue. They're beyond perfect and my eyes nearly popped out of my skull when I realised they were a miniscule £1.50! I will photograph them soon, I'm sure...

Broderie Anglaise

Dress: Dorothy Perkins

Sandals: Topshop

I bought this dress from Dorothy Perkins where I can be found loitering behind the till several days a week. It was on sale reduced to £25 and I love the broderie anglais fabric and the empire line shape. I wore it during a couple of days with Jian Wei at his house in london and its floaty shape and light-deflecting white shade were perfect in the sweltering heat. We had a wonderful few days and went to Kew Gardens, the loveliest place to visit in London, and I marvelled over the vast Victorian glass houses whilst Jian Wei was sent into an ecstasy of joy by the million palm trees they enclosed.

(Please divert your eyes from my grizzly bear hair here.)

Cutler and Gross

I tried these beauties on in Liberty on Thursday and, naturally, fell in love. I'm pretty sure they're the ones that Ali Michael is wearing in the pictures for the Orla Kiely Spring/Summer 2010 collection. Unfortunately they're £250 which isn't astronomical but enough to cripple one's spending fun(d) for a good month or so. Plus, vintage imitation specs aren't really best designed for nine-day camping festivals in Southern Spain. Although they do come in four shades and isn't 'Humble Potato' just the most delightful name for a colour way?

Short shorts

Blazer: New Look

Top: Topshop

Denim cutoffs: Charity Shop

Sandals: Topshop

Belt: Dorothy Perkins

Bag: Dad's garage

Key necklace: Made myself

Tomorrow Jian Wei and I are getting the train to London where we will be spending a couple of nights at his house there. We've got big plans to visit the fine art degree show exhibitions for Central Saint Martins, Camberwell, Chelsea and Wimbledon. We're also planning on spending a whole day at Kew Gardens and, as the forecast is for glorious sunshine all week, it should be beyond lovely. I'm really looking forward to doing lots of photography and having an opportunity to prance about in some of the summer dresses I've been stockpiling for the last six months...

Another Spotty Dress

Dress: Topshop

Vintage Lee denim jacket: borrowed from Jian Wei

Espadrilles: Primark

Vintage camera bag: salvaged from Dad's garage

Key necklace: made meself

This is what I wore for my first day at work at Dorothy Perkins, my transfer from Topshop Manchester while I am home for the summer. I guess you can summarise the shop as an elder, frumpier sister of Topshop yet this hasn't prevented me finding over fifty quid's worth of dresses in the space of two shifts! Jian Wei walked me through the park and took these pictures, I'm wearing a dress I got for uniform at Topshop over a month ago simply because I saw Alexa Chung wearing it in the adverts for Frock Me and the espadrilles were £4 from primark and the soles are already peeling apart...

Details

Diamonte bow ring: Vintage
Shoes: New Look Limited Edition (£5 on sale!!)
Socks: Topshop
Nail Varnish: 17 at Boots

What I Wore The Other Day

Dress: H&M
Cardigan: Topshop
Espadrilles: Primark
Brooch: Vintage

This dress is a recent addition to my wardrobe and was a total steal at £7.99 from the lovely H&M. I was instantly drawn to the buttery shade of yellow, which manages to look both sunny and sophisticated, and to the simplicity of the design. It's guaranteed to get lots of use this summer as a result of its lack of fussiness. The brooch was a surprise from my mother and it arrived in the post the other day. I believe she found it at a weekly flea market held in the small coastal town of Fakenham. The espadrilles were also a steal at £4 and I've been wearing them with and without tights slightly more than I'd originally envisioned. Sorry for the severity of my expression, this picture was the pick of a rather meagre bunch. It's also the last picture ever to be taken at 245 Upper Brook Street: my former student address!

Little Oliver

Today I met my scrumptious little nephew Oliver for the first time. He is absolutely adorable and has such an expressive face and so much character. He also has hair that is both abundant and receding, a parodox I can't quite gather, and huge eyes and goblin ears. Just perfect. My brother and his wife live on the same road as my parents and as I'm now home for the summer, I am looking forward to seeing a LOT of him over the coming months.

My parents collected me from Manchester yesterday and I am now home in rural Norfolk with my life condensed into one hundred cardboard boxes and a ton of washing to occupy me. But I honestly couldn't be more content. I am so excited by the prospect of a summer full of car boot sales, charity shopping, Norfolk beaches, photography, painting, Etsy, learning to sew and knit, spending time with all my wonderful family and not having to travel three hundred miles to see my boyfriend. I love my parents' house so much with all its dishevelled grandeur and peeling wallpaper and potted plants and period features and have been rediscovering overgrown cobwebby corners of the garden and exploring the new greenhouse.

I am truly in my element in my natural habitat and I am blissfully happy!

The Turn of the Screw

I've been revising Henry James's ghost story The Turn of the Screw all day and, by complete chance, stumbled across this fascinating album of pictures in The Commons on Flickr. They're such remarkable cultural and historical artifacts and I've been looking at them over and over again; sometimes amused, sometimes bemused.

The collection of 'spirit photographs' was discovered in a Lancashire second-hand bookshop and the pictures are believed to have been taken by a controversial medium called William Hope (1863-1933). Despite being outed as a fraudster, he experienced prolongued success as a spirit photographer, especially after the First World War, and was famously supported by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.

Aren't they bizarre!

Come into the garden...

This picture, by Jian Wei, rather eloquently sums up my life right now - making the most of the sunshine and revising for my exams. I'm currently battling through Freud and Butler for my exam on gender, sexuality and culture on Tuesday. If you've ever fancied dabbling in psychoanalysis or gender theory, simply don't. You'll start noting Freudian symbols around your bedroom and realigning/reassesing your gender. What is gender anyway? And who invented the concept of 'woman'? Isn't it just a patriarchal construct...?

(This is my hundredth post by the way. Thanks for following!)