Are You Ready Boots?

On Thursday I wore my favourite pair of boots for the first time since last winter 

These photos are grainy and rubbish as they were taken when Mr N and I had just returned home at about 11pm, you know being all rock n roll  an' all

Oh but I  do love me some victorian boots, and I've seen some fantastic ones on my fellow bloggers lately.

I'm Batmaaaan!

Speaking of bloggers, I dug this bag out of hiding when I saw the lovely Vix had found a similar one at a jumble sale, and was totally rocking it, as always

Trying too hard?

When I was looking back at these photos, I was reminded of this one

One of my first outfit posts from back in February, when I first started blogging.  Sporting the same skirt and boots.  Also taken late at night, under the garish, halogen glare of my kitchen lights, just before changing into my jammies and diving into bed.

Something I won't be able to do tonight.

I have an engagement party to go to.  I feel so robbed when my weekends get booked up.  Is that weird?

Top and skirt - charity shop
Cardigan - Supermarket
Boots - ASOS via Ebay
Bag & brooch - vintage, Ebay
Coat and tights - high street

Enjoy your weekend party people

Lucy x

House In Nightmare Park

OK, it's October.  The very best month of the year, officially!  Very soon, in this part of the world, we will start to have very short, chilly days but very long and cosy evenings.  Perfect for a spot of camp gothic horror!

At about the age of 15, I stumbled, quite by chance, across House In Nightmare Park (thank you graveyard slot, Channel 4).  I saw Frankie Howerd ("get your titters out") and a creepy gothic mansion and I was hooked

There are sweeping staircases and dusty candleabras everywhere.  The sets and camera work create a creeping sense of claustrophobia - but with Frankie Howerd about, of course you just have to watch with your tongue ever so slightly in your cheek.

 

The story commences with deluded ham actor Foster Twelvetrees (Howerd) delivering a reading of The Old Curiosity Shop to a spectacularly disinterested Victorian audience (look out for the encore scene, it's priceless).

He is invited to a large country mansion by it's owner Stewart Hendison (Ray Milland) with a view to perfoming one of his "inimitible renditions" for the household.  

Stewart lives with his ever silent and never smiling sister Jessica, played by the brilliant Rosalie Crutchley;   both of whom are converts to the Hindu faith and ardent Kali worshippers.

We are in time introduced to various other 'eccentric' family members and it soon becomes clear that all is not as it seems

 

What follows is a beautiful mix of piercing screams, dark corridors, encircling mist and a growing corpse count.  Throw in the classic mad relative locked away in the attic and, well, you get the picture.

  

You're my wife now Daaave

So if you like creepy Victorian mansions, creaking staircases and semi-aristocratic head-cases, this should be right up your street

Baffingly panned by the critics on release, it has since quite rightly become something of a cult classic.  Unfortunately it has never been released on DVD so its a pain to get hold of.  My brother in law recently did me a VHS transfer which I have been watching with renewed enthusiasm.  Unfortunately the quality is not great.

The house used for location is the beautiful Oakley Court in Windsor.

This glorious building is now a luxury hotel.  Check out this blog post which gives a history of the house and the different films in which it has featured.  You'll no doubt recognise some of them.

Go on, give this film a watch if you dare

Mwah ha ha ha

Bloody Poetry*

* the name of a play I am listening to as I write this.  Yup.  No other reason than that really. 

Since you ask, it is an imagining of the notorious summer of 1816 spent in Switzerland which inspired the writing of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein (thank you Radio 4 and BBC iPlayer!!)

 Wow, Byron and Shelley were tools!

And yes I am a kulcha vulcha!

But I also eat cheese strings so that's okay

I have a bit of a serious face on today.  Not sure why.  

This is the first blogworthy outfit I've worn all week.  Which, considering my week consisted of 2 consecutive and delicious duvet days, I suppose isn't too bad.

Oh hang on, I'm smiling in this one.

 

Do you like my new necklace?  I won it in lovely Emma's giveaway, and I'm rather taken with it

I wish you could see it better in this pic though. 

I wore:-

Dress - Dotty P's sale

Cardi - supermarket (I think)

Tights - Primarni

Shoes - French Connection

What?  Not a single vintage item?  Dammit I'm like a walking advertisement for the high street.

Will do better.

I do apologise but I find myself totally lacking in anything interesting to say.  I do hope you'll forgive me and that the dress shots will suffice for now

Happy sunny Autumn Sunday

Lucy x

Thursday, I don't care about you

I hate Thursdays.  I'm not sure why.  My working week is over.  I have some time to myself.  But somehow the messy house, the many pressing tasks, the even more numerous less pressing tasks, and the empty, grey hours seem to sit on my chest like a seemingly cute, but very heavy, sadistic kitten.  I end up just wanting to get out.  

Usually, I end up going charity shopping.  

I have precisely 10 charity shops all within a 5 minute walk from my house.  I know, temptation, much?

Today I can't go out.  I can't even curl up in a cocoon of sleep.  I'm waiting for 2 parcel collections and a delivery

This is me exactly one week ago.  Last Thursday. Lazing around a tidy (for once) house in a comfy vintage dress and charity shop cardigan.  The sun was shining but there was a nip in the air and life seemed quite come-day-go-day in a reassuring kind of way.  Not a typical Thursday.

Still, customarily, I went charity shopping.

I bought these

1. Catherine Holm (I think) stock pot - £4  2.  More children's books - free   3.  Pink pyrex - 50p   4.  Chintzy tea plate - 99p

 I was ostensibly out looking for chintzy china plates for a forthcoming family wedding with a vintage cream tea theme.  The manager of the local hospice shop, who obviously knows my face well, let me have a rummage in the boxes of unsorted bric-a-brac donations in the back to see if I could find what I was looking for.  And oh my, I did!  Nothing wedding related, just a few me-treasures!

She let me have the books for free and the other stuff for 50p each.  Apart from the stock pot for which I was more than happy to hand over the £4 she would have charged for it.

I bought this book in another shop for 50p

A 1967 Purnell edition of Hansel & Gretel with illustrations that look sweet at first glance but become creepier everytime you look at them

I want a house made of sweets

Today if I went out, I would need wellies and a waterproof.  So, instead I sit here typing this, listening to the CD kawaii queen Clare made for me

It has brought several smiles to my face on this grey day.  To say I love it would be an understatement.  Clare, you get me!

Go on, ask her to send you a copy, you need it in your life.

Maybe this homemade white chocolate cheesecake will help too

Maybe?

Hope you are all enjoying your Thursdays

Lucy x