Fur Collar & Cuffs

This is a pretty typical outfit for me at the moment, at least the part of it you can see! My daily coat at the moment is this one from Miss Selfridge. Yes, in reality it is way over the top for every day wear and looks more like something you’d only wear for nice outings, but I don’t do things like that – I prefer to look overdressed every day! I grabbed it (literally, I’m not just using one of those fashion blogger terms for funsies – I grabbed it because I was worried it would disappear suddenly) when I was shopping in Scarborough with my sister. There was a coat from Miss Selfridge a few years ago which was similar, but I was at uni at the time and it was far too expensive for my poor student budget, but it’s been on my mind ever since. I’d been hoping this would finally be the year I’d find one similar, with a fur collar and cuffs and a nice skirted style on the bottom, so this was like the coat from my dreams, hence why I never take it off. Add on top of that that it has its own little belt too (which I occasionally accidentally throw across the office as I take it on and off…), it’s definitely worth the price, even though it was a bit painful to part with that money on a whim! Miss Selfridge is definitely my favourite for coats at the moment – there was this one in cream too, but it seems to have disappeared off the website, a  which is and a which is a similar shape but without the fur.
The boots are my latest part of my “winter uniform” – I had some vouchers from Clarks to put towards some boots, and discovered that they also had 20% off in store last weekend, so we made the trip down to York to make a decision. I’d spent a while before browsing the boots section on the website but hadn’t made any decisions because they were all gorgeous, but I knew I wanted some tan or brown ones that were knee or thigh high, possibly with a little bit of a heel. I narrowed it down to the and the , and finally decided on the Maymie ones (strange name!) because they were tighter on the calves and slightly more flattering. I’ve worn them for a couple of full days at work and they’ve been really comfortable, even when I wore them to walk the mile or so in and out of town. They’ve also got a bit of grip on the bottom which is very useful for me in autumn and winter! They are more expensive than I would usually go for, but I’d decided this year I wanted a really good pair of boots anyway, and they’re definitely worth the price too.


So, how’s life at the moment? Busy! As you know, I redid my blog design and layout recently which has really spurred me on to get creating some good posts rather than being so lazy! In addition to buying boots at the weekend, I also had a little cinema trip with my Brownies which was a lot of fun! I persuaded my sister to come along too since I was the only adult for my troop going. It was at a local cinema and we’d booked the whole place out for all the local Rainbow, Brownie and Guiding units, meaning it was packed full of little girls. And of course, we were watching Frozen, so there was plenty of singing going on! Only 4 girls went from my troop in the end, and they were all lovely ones that aren’t any hassle too, so we grabbed an ice cream, got our seats and actually got to enjoy the film!
I’ve also been working hard on my sewing recently – I made another shift dress with the same pattern as the tartan one but in an Eiffel Tower print fabric with bias binding around the neck and sleeves (which I’m really pleased with!), a full skirted red gingham dress with the same bodice but different skirt, and I’m also planning a few other sewing projects at the moment – excited to get started! I’ve been practising a bit for my solo for choir too which is only a week away now, eek! I had to write a soloist bio to go in the programme and it was probably one of the most difficult things I’ve done – I hate writing about myself in things like that!
Yesterday we went to look at another house which actually turned out to be really lovely. I don’t want to get too carried away because you never know how these things might go, but it’s definitely going into the careful consideration file in my head. It’s slightly more expensive than we’d like, but fortunately we’re in a fairly good position financially right now as Ben has recently inherited a small amount and it sounds like the vendors might be willing to accept a lower offer too, but we’ll see.
And final note, I haven’t talked about this yet, but I’ve recently been having more troubles with illness with a lot of stomach pain and problems. I’ll try not to go on, but you know how I get! I’ve never really suffered with stomach problems (gallbladder aside, but that’s not really stomach), so I just kind of ignored it for a while. When it started to get more frequent, as in several times weekly, nothing awful but an annoying amount of stomach cramps, I decided I should probably get it checked out. And according to the doctors, I have a very classic case of IBS – it’s something I’ve always been wary of as my mum suffers badly from it, and it runs in a lot of my family, but I hoped I’d steered clear of. Fortunately, I’ve got some tablets which seem to be helping, and even more fortunately, it’s not that bad at all for me for the time being, so I’m hoping it stays this way! I just remember that it can’t possibly be as bad as my gallbladder ever was!