Simple summer dress

I'm sneaking in an extra post today as the 5Over50 group will be featuring our next challenge on Monday and I thought you might enjoy a little something in the meantime. June surely means summer and this is the perfect simple day dress with no need to fuss and overdo it. 

Yes, I may have shown you this dress last summer, but not with this cardi which effectively means I'm sharing a new outfit. It's also time to share the fact that I've managed to drop 2lbs meaning I can (just) fit into this slimline dress again. Hurrah! There's no big secret as to how I've done it - eat less, exercise more. The sea is gradually warming up so I'm managing to extend my swims which does make a difference to my metabolism. At this time of year I can sometimes fit in two swims a day and again that helps too. And there's certainly no bigger motivator to lose weight than knowing that I might meet someone on the beach with only my Speedo to give me cover!

In February I featured my efforts to teach myself a better, sleeker freestyle stroke (see here). The main reason for that was to be able to swim longer distances, ie from one side of the island to the other which is a two or three mile swim. One thing that I'd only recently tuned in to about swimming is that freestyle is the most efficient (and obviously quickest) stroke of all and breast stroke is the least efficient (and slowest). All these years of swimming breast stroke meant I was burning up the most calories possible. Speed isn't the focus for me, burning calories is what it's all about and by swimming the least efficient stroke as fast as I possibly could gave the optimum results. But by swapping from one to the other I'm using fewer calories which is a bit of a drag. So now I'm mixing it up by swimming breast stoke in one direction and then swimming crawl on the way back. Wake up you at the back - I'll be asking questions later! Hahaha it's okay, I've finished now x

Outfit details -
Cardigan: Star by Julien Macdonald, dress: TK Maxx, sandals: Refresh, belt, bangle and rings: all charity shopped, sunglasses: Quay Australia.

And here's a few shots of my very large swimming pool.

No post from me on Sunday, but please join me with the ladies from 5Over50 group on Monday to see how we've styled up Marvellous Metallics.

Anna x

Hurrah for 2 years of blogging!

No-one can be more surprised than me to discover that it's two years since I posted my first feature on the blog (see here). When I started out on this adventure I really had no idea how long I could keep up a good head of steam, as it were. Would I get bored? Would you get bored? Would I run out of outfits that were worthy of a photo shoot? Would I run out of ideas to keep you interested? Today these very same questions still loom over me and all I can promise is that when the joy of running this online diary starts to wane, I'll bow out gracefully before the ratings become too embarrassing to read.

In the meantime I will take a moment to gush and say thanks to my readership without whom this whole thing would be pointless. Thank you for coming back time after time to follow my antics and for the occasional email you send me out of the blue to talk to me about your life and what the blog adds to it. Hello to my lovely reader who returned from abroad to settle in Truro and was excited to visit all the same charity shops as I do - maybe we'll bump into each other one day. Hello to my far flung readers in Australia and New Zealand who are always out of sync with our season and yet still join me to see the outfit of the day. Thank you to my readership in the far East who surprise me with a massive hit of 3000 or so every six months - I wonder if I'm the subject of some college course or a network who follows me? Hello to Angela, Joan and Jude with whom I have become friends through their support by email. And a huge thank you to the blogging community for welcoming me into the body of the kirk. Your comments keep me on the right track, and encourage me when I'm not sure about my clothes or even my choices in general. The blogging world is huge and I realise that my blogging community is tiny in relation to that, but that somehow makes it all the more special. We all search out our niche, our crowd, those that we identify with most and I'm so happy to be part of a blogging family, who like many families may be too busy to catch up from time to time, but always, always regroup and are there to support each other.

Last of all, let's not forget that a blog is only as good as its photographs and mine are always better when Polly is around to do the honours.

Thanks to her for her ideas, advice and technical skills and most of all for her ability to make me laugh! Poor Polly is a captive audience, forced into the position by default, but takes on the role with enthusiasm and good humour every time. In these last few shots she captured the fun when the wind decided to play havoc with my skirt and despite my warnings she just carried on snapping anyway. Thank you Polly x

Outfit details - top: H&M, skirt: vintage, Jaeger, net petticoat: eBay, shoes: TK Maxx, belt: Dorothy Perkins, clutch and rings: charity shopped, bangle: gift, necklace: Noel, sunglasses: Quay Australia.

Anna x