Another big round up

Happy New Year to you! I do hope you've had a great time over the festive period. I certainly have! We had lots of family time together, time to relax and chill out and eat some of our favourite Christmas meals. I dodged in to work for a couple of days during the Christmas and New Year weeks which was very civilised and allowed me plently opportunity to veg out.

This was my Hogmanay outfit, a great mix of old and new pieces. The jacket is by Michael Kors and is quite old now, but still rather fabulous, don't you think? My kilt (£4.50) was a recent charity shop find in Penzance when I was there in December - it's a vintage M&S buy when they were know as the St Michael brand. 

The tartan boots are also from M&S but not quite vintage. I love how they work so well together. 

I'm wearing my green orb pendant by Vivienne Westwood along with two preloved rings. 

I worked on New Year's Eve so went halfway with my dressing up. The green faux fur coat is old, seen many times on the blog before. 

My grey woollen sweater with pearls was a Vinted find recently and perfect for his semi-party look. The sequin trousers are the same ones that I wore when I went to the ABBA Voyage event in London over a year ago - see the post on that trip here. 

The diamante Scottie dog brooch is a charity shop piece as are both of my rings. 

For the evening out at our local pub I wore my mermaid coat. I had two options and this was the first...

The Iris tulle skirt is by Eleven Loves - it's not new but they still sell this style but not in this colourway - see here for the olive green version. The sequinned bodysuit has languished in my wardrobe for ages now and at last had an airing. The pearl heart necklace was a present from my sister Dianne.

And this was option two, the one I actually wore. It was sequin overload, I know, but I did love it! The coat was from Topshop, the top is from Zara (through Vinted) and the trousers from Shein. My silver boots are by Buffalo.

I went out with my son that evening as both Steve and my daughter were full of the cold. I think it's inevitable at this time of year, but still rather annoying to be ill over the festive season. I met up with my sister-in-law and her family where we danced and drank until midnight. It was a lovely evening. So here we are in 2025 now and I do hope that we can all look forward to a good year with peaceful times, happy times too with family and friends.

                                                                        Anna x

Two birthday bashes

Hello again, and how's tricks with you? Recently my sister-in-law, Gill, celebrated her 70th birthday and we had a lovely family gathering to mark the occasion. Do you remember Polly who was my gallery assistant a few years ago? Well she and my nephew David had a baby six months ago - this is Mose in the photo. We had a very long and lazy lunch party for Gill, with delicious food and an endless supply of champagne.

Gill's children had clubbed together to pay for a week of luxury in the newly converted Blockhouse Cottage which was the childhood home of Steve and Gill so you can imagine how the memories came flooding back for them. They had such fun reminiscing about the good ol' days while they told us stories about their time growing up on Tresco.  

This was what I wore that day. The jacket was a purchase from Vinted, trousers are old (from ASOS) and the River Island top was also from Vinted. 

I love the combination of peach and lilac together. My jewellery is all old too - necklace was from Debenhams many moons ago and the perspex rings are pre-loved. 

The white patent leather boots finish off this retro look perfectly. What a great excuse the party was for me to dress up! Luckily for me, the next evening we were invited to join with the family again to celebrate my birthday. Gill's birthday is the day before mine, but I was happy to turn up to sweep up the crumbs from her party table. We had drinks that evening outside by the fire pit which was a great start to the celebrations. From there we had a running buffet followed by a beautiful birthday cake made by my neice Zoe of Bryher Bake Box fame.

Zoe had been very clever in managing to decorate my cake in the same colours as my birthday evening outfit.

The rose gold ensemble matched my cake beautifully. My rose gold shoes were from, yes, you guessed it, Vinted as was the sweater. The Iris skirt is from Eleven Loves, but is all sold in out this blush colour. You can find a berry version on their sale page here. 

Evening indoor photography isn't my forte, but I wanted to showcase this fab tulle skirt regardless. I recently showcased a cream skirt so very similar to this one, but this really is a different one.

Note the cute tiny shoes beside me. These belong to Raffy, one of my great neices. The week was a great opportunity to catch up with all of Steve's family who had travelled to Tresco for the houseparty. They raved about the on site spa facilites and yoga room which they used every day, in fact they raved about the whole experience!

And this was another shot from my 66th birthday. After the picnic lunch with Steve, I had a bit of downtime that afternoon and then swam on the high tide as the sun was setting at about 5pm. All in all, I'd had a pretty perfect day. 

                                                                    Anna x