Friday's Finery

Hello again! So, here's Friday's outfit - a fabulous jumpsuit from The Finery. It was on the mannequin in the window of the British Heart Foundation shop in Penzance when I was there in the spring. The colours are so eye-catching that it stopped me in my tracks. I was heading to catch my flight home and was carrying my holdall, whilst wearing a jacket that unfortunately had a stain on the front. I mention all of this because it's perhaps why I was spoken to the way I was...

I made my way to the back of the shop and found an assistant steaming clothes in the back room. I asked her what size the jumpsuit in the window was and she said it was a 12. Great, I responded, Can I buy it? At which, she looked me up and down, clocked what she thought was a bag lady and snapped, "It's £20!". "Great" I repeated and she stomped off to retrieve it. Never judge a book by it's cover, eh? To my utter delight, the jumpsuit turned out to be brand new with the labels still attached. I don't buy from The Finery myself, but checked out the website and can see another jumpsuit in the sale in baby blue...

My lace top is old, from New Look a couple of summer's ago, but works well under this neckline. The jumpsuit came with a long sash in the same block colour as the hemline, but I changed that up for a stretch belt in purple. 

None of my accessories are new. Why does that make me feel so virtuous? Probably because last week's outfit was almost totally new I suppose. Anyway, apart from the £20 jumpsuit the rest comes from my closet and jewellery collection. Even the sunglasses are old, by Radley London.

My silver and white sandals (Topshop) are very old indeed and were even passed on from my daughter a few years ago.

Fiona did me proud again with our after work photo session. Some of you may recognise that I didn't venture far from my workplace to get these in the bag. 

                                                                         Anna x

Smock it to me baby!

Hello lovelies! How are you doing? Are you wilting in the summer heat or have things cooled down with you? The weather here is fine, not too hot and pretty much a mixed bag where no two days are the same. My outfit of the day is new - jeans, smock and sandals are all new. The smock has the look of an artist's smock which was probably why it appealed to me. I found it in Number 36, the little boutique on Causeway Head in Penzance which I've been frequenting of late. 

The linen smock is by Goose Island and is perfect for cool summer dressing. The wide boat neck, generous one size cut and cute single pocket all go to make a stylish wear. I added a white tee underneath and white stetch fit jeans that I found on Amazon to complete the summer look. 

I bought the blue Lazy Dogz sandals online recently - they go really well with the smock. I've got a couple of pairs of these now and love them! They're cool and comfortable footwear, perfect for summer days when you're on your feet all day long. 

Both of the blue rings are old, charity shop buys from years ago and yet work well with the colour of today's ensemble.

You'll probably recognise my old favourite Quay Australia sunglasses worn here with my gold chain necklace from Zara. I had my hair cut last week and am really pleased with it. 

A final twirl to finish off!

Anna x

Summer Sizzlers, our Style Not Age challenge for July

Hello and welcome again to our monthly style challenge! It's my turn this time to choose the theme and what could be more appropriate than Summer Sizzlers? Our recent heatwave had many of us cooling off in sea or heading for shade at home. My offering is an oldie but goodie, a lace jumpsuit from TK Maxx many moons ago. So let's take a look at my style sisters to see how they tackled this one...

Jacqui's jaw-dropper outfit looks like she's stepped straight off a film set! Hat from Dune, swimsuit from Debenhams and lace trousers (old) certainly live up to the remit. See more on her blog here. 

Gail from Is This Mutton has paired up lime green and fizzy pink for her Summer Sizzler look. Cute, fresh and very summery Gail snapped this on her Greek holiday which was indeed a sizzler with temperatures pushing 40 degrees! Catch her back story here.

Emma from the Style Splash is another to send us one of her holiday snaps, this time from Funchal. Orange is her Summer Sizzler colour and oh, how stylish she looks! Find all the details on her blog as above. 

Hilda has opted for orange too, wearing a shirt and jeans bought locally along with orange shoes by Clark's. She's making a fab style statement as she takes herself off for her 40th Wedding anniversary - huge congratulations to you!

I've shopped my closet for this whole outfit which always feels good. The orange strappy sandals were from H&M, gilt belt was from Primark and sunglasses are from Zara - all old.

Rings are both old as well as being pre-loved. 

My orange, turquoise and gold disk necklace was a purchase from Charlie Dodge jewellery. 

My photo-shoot was located at my second home, my husband's shed in the centre of Tresco, well off the beaten track. This is where he is working on our boat in the evenings and weekends and where I seem to be spending most of my free time too. His tiny office served as a changing room and his wing mirror worked fine for hair and make-up. His truck was a great contrast for my glam jumpsuit don't you think?

Thanks for swinging by to join our Style challenge - I do hope you've enjoyed it!

                                                                             Anna x

Another week, another heatwave outfit!

Yes it's another heatwave hello from me! I'm gradually learning what works in these high temperatures with Friday's work outfit looking like this. It's not new and has been featured on the blog previously, but the loose fit and total cover up seemed to keep me cool all day long. The paisley maxi skirt was a charity shop buy and the silky paisley top was a hand me down/up from Sasha quite a few years ago.

The agapanthus are in full bloom now so Fiona and I walked out to the Heliport down on the south end of the island to capture these colourful shots. The photo shoot was meant to be followed by a cooling swim in the sea at (nearby) Appletree Bay, but yours truly managed to forget her swimming costume. Barefooted Fiona and I walked across the heather (sprinkled with prickly gorse) to Pentle Bay, but by the time we arrived there to the choppy sea and windy side of the island it was 8pm and my offer of skinny dipping had lost its appeal.

This multicoloured beaded necklace is new to me, a recent charity shop find for the princely sum of £3. I've been holding back to find the right outfit to showcase this and am really happy with the overall look.

Rings are preloved and the pink stretch belt was an eBay buy from years ago. I love the mish mash of colours here though - so very summery!

This must be the year of summer flatties for me! These floral sandals are heaven to wear as the back strap is stretchy and the soles are soft and spongy to assist all day comfort. Apologies if the comfort work keeps cropping up on my blog of late, but heck I'm on my feet all day and really need a kind and wearable shoe for my weary feet. I found these ones on Amazon. 

It's such a feminine outfit and one that had me wafting about with a smile on my face all day long. 

So this was us, Fiona, me and Jilly, partners in crime on Thursday as we staged a picnic on the beach at the end of our working day. After much promising and planning we finally co-ordinated our diaries and managed to spend a few hours lounging about on the sand, eating and drinking and even having a dip to cool off. We laughed and chatted and shared stories of work and home. Our next date will be a movie night at mine as I've got a great film saved on my planner. But anyway, Jilly was in fits of laughter at my tales of woe when the world seemed to conspire on the previous day leaving me frauded and flat.

My day had started badly with a message on my home phone to say that my credit card was showing suspicious activity and for me to press any button to run through a security check. Well, I don't know about you, but I've watched so many of those scammers programmes that I don't trust any automated message. I dismissed it and went off to work. Some time later I found a text message from Tesco's to say that they couldn't fulfill my grocery order as my card had been declined. Typical! On Wednesday's I only have cover at work after lunchtime. I was also due to have an afternoon meeting with a local jeweller bringing some (long-awaited) pieces for our display. It's been two years in the planning so this was going to be a lovely catch up with Sophie especially as she's created an exclusive range for Gallery Tresco.

Finally I manged to leave work just after 1pm and went home to check my credit card account online. Well blow me! I'd indeed been frauded - I had a payment showing for an Uber!!!! (I live on a tiny island, only one mile by two, with not an Uber in sight.) Anxious and more than a tad worried, I rang the number on the back of my credit card and after much waiting, followed by the necessary security questions, I finally got through. "I'm sorry Mrs Parkes" said the assistant on the fraud line, "but our alarm has just gone off and we're evacuating the building. You'll have to ring back later." Grrrrr...

My morning had been punctuated with phone calls from Tesco's regarding the failed payment but I had no time to resolve this as I was manning the desk alone. My next lunchtime call was to them and ironically coincided with the same lunchtime for the only operative who could unravel the non payment and rescheduling of my order. Off I go the to the Post Office, accounts office and then back home for lunch. On returning to work, well would you believe it, but my meeting with the jeweller had taken place with my stand-in in my absence! More seething and gnashing of teeth at the missed opportunity for this face to face as she was already on the boat back to St Mary's.

Various small challenges threw themselves at me within the workplace throughout the afternoon and I also managed to miss speaking to the Tesco's operative when I was tied up selling a painting to a client. Eventually I broke free and dashed home to call him back. We were connected, but surprise, surprise my home phone died at the moment we were about to speak! I put it on charge, returned to work and received several text messages from the bank asking me to call. Finally at 4.30pm I got through to the bank and they succeeded in putting a stop on my card. By this time I was so stressed out about Ubers and missed Tesco's orders that the fraud line assistant actually asked me to stop and take a deep breath. She then went on to say how difficult it is to send any messages by phone or text which are understood to be authentic. She continued, saying that I'd acted responsibly and was 100% correct in using my credit card as the true source of the contact phone number rather than risk responding to what may have been a scam call. Ten minutes later and I had finally managed to reschedule my grocery order too.

By 6pm the working day was over and the dust had settled on my financial debacles. I gathered together my swimming things, safe in the knowledge that a long swim on Appletree Bay was just the tonic I needed. I made a flask, grabbed a snack and a book ready for a couple of hours winding down in the evening sunshine. I jumped onto my bike and headed off. But wait, my bad luck hadn't finished - I had a flat front tyre!!!!  Defeated, I retreated to home and bed. Sometimes bed is the only answer!

                                                                      Anna x