It's my birthday!

Yes, today is my birthday. January is not the best of months to have a birthday, but hey, what can you do? I'm at work today, but as a nod to my birthday I decided on Sunday to have a walk to one of the local beaches, taking some time to enjoy the sunshine while I reflected on being a year older.

But before we go any further, I want to apologise to my regular readers for my sporadic posts of late. The irony of my position has been lack of inspiration - this from the woman who professes to having a desire to inspire others - very funny, I know! Yes, I may have lots of clothes to choose from, but good daylight for photo opportunities during the winter does really become a challenge for me over time. I was given a very useful bit of advice when I first started blogging, and that was to be consistent with my content. I've had to make a choice between regular posts of a mediocre standard or decent posts as and when they occur. I hope you understand and that this decision will keep you coming back.

Unbeknownst to me, I had lost the stone from my ring somewhere between leaving home and getting to the beach. It was only when I came to edit the photos that I noticed. It's only a costume piece, so of no monetary value, but it was a lovely sparkly blue stone that matched my jeans perfectly. Ho hum!

This is Toby who belongs to some friends of mine. He had been enjoying the sea, but was well behaved enough to sit nicely for his photo shoot.

And talking of the sea, this was how I started my day on Sunday (and every other day of the year).

The swim had been one of the coldest of the year so far. My skin was ruddy in response to the temperature, matching the pink and lilac hues of the clouds behind, which were bathed in the rosy glow of the rising sun. This truly is the best time of the day for me. The swim gives me with a wonderful rush of endorphins which set me up for the day ahead. 

Turning 59 feels like a dress rehearsal for 60, and that's not really as big a deal as I thought it might be. I know I'm not there yet, but I was delighted to hear on radio 4 that Barack Obama, at 55, is a young and vital man with so much to give. Heck, this moving of the goalposts has come in the nick of time for me! Instead of having to write a woe is me piece I can rejoice that I too, am still young. Have you noticed that there's a lot of this going on for my generation? 50 is the new 40, and now 55 is young! I'm feeling a bit like Benjamin Button.

But seriously, I have to admit that I'm very happy with my lot and know I have a great deal to be grateful for. I'm lucky to be in a strong marriage where we are equal partners and have different interests to bring into the mix. Lucky too, that my son lives here on the island and that my daughter visits often - my family means everything to me. I'm so lucky to work in a job that I enjoy which leads me to meet and work with so many interesting and talented people. I'm incredibly fortunate to live here on this tiny island where life is lived at a slow pace in the most beautiful of surroundings.

I'm grateful too, for good health, but that hasn't always been the case. Click here to read about the battle to find my own pathway to healthy eating and consequently a healthy body. And click here to read about sea swimming because without it I don't think I'd have the healthy immune system I benefit from now. 

And finally, the icing on the cake has to be my blog. Much as it's been a bit wobbly of late, I do love having an opportunity to share my outfits of the day with you. It's opened up an avenue for making new friendships and consolidating old ones. Blogging brings to mind one of my favourite quotes from Oscar Wilde. He said,  "Be yourself, everyone else is taken." That little prompt allows me the freedom to be me, without fear of judgement. That's not to say that some may, and probably do, judge me, but I have no time to waste worrying about that. And that brings me nicely onto the subject of time. I'm aware that you may like to have a routine of days to tune in for the next feature, and I understand that. I'm sure once Polly is back on board I'll become more reliable, but in the meantime, may I ask that you hang on in there. I can only promise to give you my best, and if it's not forthcoming, then you may have to wait a little longer. Likewise if you're one of my fellow bloggers, then do take this as an apology to you too. I've struggled to visit all of my favourite blogs in the dark months, but do hope to catch up with you all as I emerge from the winter blues.

And as it's my birthday, I have a request. One of my favourite features on the blog is "As suggested by..."  (last seen here) and I ask that you would consider sending me your ideas. Take a look through my posts over the months and let me know if there's something you'd like to see again. Pop them in an email if you don't want to publish a comment, but please do let me have some feedback - otherwise it's a bit like a one handed applause. 

Outfit details - gold sweater: H&M (purloined from my daughter), jeans: charity shopped, boots: ASOS, shirt: H&M, bag: charity shopped, sunglasses: Quay Australia, rings: charity shopped.

Linking with -

Patti of Not Dead Yet Style

Jess of Elegantly Dressed And Stylish

Catherine of Not Dressed As Lamb

Cherie of Style Nudge

I'll finish with some of the views that give me daily pleasure in my life on the Isles of Scilly.

Thanks for joining me!

Anna x

Ping-Pong post no 11

Welcome again to our monthly global style challenge. I can't believe a month has gone past since our pre-Christmas offering where we three dazzled and sparkled as a starter to the festivities (see it here). But January is rushing past us, and I for one am not sorry to see it depart. This month my blogging partners in crime, Samantha and Ann, have accepted my challenge to style this black and gold top which as been forgotten in the back of my wardrobe for the past couple of years. Click here to find out how this whole shenanigans started.

Ann confessed that New Year's Eve party was what came to mind when she was styling this black and gold top. Hong Kong no doubt offers all sorts of celebrations on the biggest night of the year and Ann wouldn't have lacked a choice of venues in this hot mama look! Maybe I could've joined her in my mini skirt and glitter tights outfit too (here) to dance the night away.

Follow Ann on Instagram here and on her blog Kremb de la Kremb here.

Details -

Sunnies--Tom Ford

Hoops--from Bombay

Necklace--Kowloon

Top--Anna's

Waistbag --ASOS

Skirt & Tights--Zara

OTK Boots--Ash

Samantha is playing it cool here. Put a hat on this lady and you can't fail to be bowled over by her cute features atop immaculate styling. The longer I know her, the more I adore her fun, quirky twists - the cap, the statement necklace, those boots. This girl can do no wrong.

Follow Samantha on Instagram here and on her blog Fake Fabulous here.

Details -

Boots: Clarks

Trousers: I can’t remember!

Leatherette Top: DIY from a dress.

Top: Anna’s

Cap: Gents section at TKmax

Necklace: Oliver Bonas

My styling starts with a coat on and unfolds from there. Oh, and it was windy!

These shots were taken on a blustery evening at the start of October just before I sent the top on its trip across the globe. It was cold enough to warrant a coat and this fake fur was a good shape to showcase the sleeves of the top as well as the elegant shape of the skirt. My tapestry boots had literally arrived that very day and Polly was the first to see them out of the box. Without the boots the outfit may well have been very monotone, so it was a case of perfect timing as far as I was concerned. This whole look is very me - not in the least understated - with every bell and whistle you could conjure up. 

Details -

Top:Wallis

Skirt: charity shop

Boots: Asos

Waistcoat: H&M

Bag: Giorgio Armani (find of the month, brand new, in a Truro charity shop!)

Necklace: old

Belt: charity shop

Rings: old

Anna x

Winter woollies

I know there are parts of the UK which are being hammered by sleet and snow currently, but thank goodness we in the far southwest are not. Still, we do have a bitter north wind blowing across the islands and I'm taking cover with my favourite woollen coat. 

The coat was a holiday purchase when Steve and I were on our cruise last February see here. The colours pack a punch and it's a real lift on the dark days of winter. Like lots of people I suffer from the winter blues and tend to drift into wearing gloomy shades of grey and black in the winter, so this coat is a brilliant antidote to the blahs. My handbag is a brand new addition, a great find in a charity shop in Penzance. It's ostrich hide, but best of all, it's a perfect match for the bright pink tone in my coat. I've been on the lookout for a stylish bag to take away when I go to the mainland in this fine coat and I found this bag in the very first charity shop on arriving in Cornwall in December. The bonus feature is that the bag is dual purpose acting as both a conventional handbag and a neat backpack. It's great to have a classy bag that I can pop on my back for hands-free shopping.

My other new purchase worth mentioning has to be these glitter boots. I can take no claim in finding these, as I stole the idea from my utterly sleek, style icon of a niece, Kate. We all spent some time together over Christmas and the first time she turned up wearing these wonderful boots I knew I had to have a pair too. By the time I came to buy them, they were in the sale at Topshop see here which was double the joy for me. I don't plan to pack them away until next Christmas. No, I'll be wearing them as and when I think the outfit warrants. You can wear a sprinkling of glitter any time of year in my book!

The rest of my outfit comprises - cashmere polo neck: M&S (charity shopped), trousers: HM, rings: gifts.

Linking with -

Catherine of Not Dressed As Lamb 

Patti of Not Dead Yet Style

Cherie of Style Nudge

Jess of Elegantly Dressed And Stylish

I'll leave you with this shot taken from my office window looking across the bay to Bryher. There was a momentary break in the cloud to give a glimpse of the sun setting and a tantalising peek at the blue sky before the next dark clouds obscured the view. The resulting heavy rain over us may well have fallen as snow on mainland Cornwall.

Anna x

Fur - fake or real?

It's mid-winter and here in the Northern hemisphere fur coats are big business. It's too sweeping a statement to say most women own something fur, but the magazines would lead us to believe that's the case. Personally, I own a few fur pieces, both real and fake, but when you add fur trims on jackets, gloves, fur lined boots, scarves and pom-poms, then it amounts to a fair bit. 

Outfit details - trousers: H&M, boots: Office, fur coat: vintage, rings: charity shopped.

A few years ago my husband and I were fortunate enough to go on holiday to Venice. It was early February and the temperature had dropped to minus 9 degrees making headline news as it was cold enough for the Grand Canal to start to freeze over which hadn't happened in almost 100 years. I'd packed a duvet coat and fleecy hat to keep me warm, but they didn't. European women wear real fur when it's cold. They have no qualms about that. Given the severity of the weather, I soon came to understand why. Nothing man-made can keep you warm in these kinds of temperatures, or at least not without making you look like the Michelin man from head to toe. The bitter, icy wind blew across the canals causing chills in every nook and cranny. One of our walks took us along a tiny canal where I came across a vintage boutique. In the window was this beautiful red fox fur coat. The jacket is second hand, an important point for me, and it wasn't long before I had succumbed to its charms. I wore it for the rest of the holiday, warm, toasty warm in fact, and feeling as glamorous as I ever have.

Fast forward to last autumn when I bought this fake fur jacket. Its ombre tones called to me when I was rooting about one of the charity shops in Truro.

As consumers I'm sure we all like to understand the impact our purchases have on the environment and it's for that reason that I'm a huge advocate of thrift/charity shopping wherever and whenever I can. Previously I might have admitted to feeling a bit uncomfortable about owning a real fox fur jacket, but strangely not in the least bit awkward about wearing suede boots or pony skin shoes or carrying an ostrich hide handbag, and I fancy I'm not the only one who suffers from this odd kind of logic. Fake fur obviously carried none of the guilt that real fur might. My viewpoint has recently been changed thanks to new information. 

At the end of October I read an article in the Daily Mail by Zoe Brennan titled "The faux fur timebomb". She cites various facts, such as the ten barrels of oil it takes to make a fake fur coat, and that non-renewable plastics are used to make fake fur, and that when washed they in turn release an average of 1900 tiny particles of plastic that end up in our seas. This comes in the wake of the microbead scandal that hit the news in 2016 alerting us to the fact that our face washes and scrubs contained these ocean polluting beads of plastic. These microbeads are now being found in some sea creatures, one step away from entering the food chain. Ms Brennan's most revealing fact is that when you and I throw out our fake fur coats, they will end up alongside all other plastic waste in a landfill side and that it will take our coats 1000 years to biodegrade. Shocking isn't it? I had no idea, did you? Real fur on the other hand biodegrades naturally within 6 months. (I realise we're mixing ethics with environmental issues here and that's complex.)

The anti-fur lobby have omitted to tell us these facts. We may not want to buy mink as a result of what we've learnt about mink farms, but equally we surely don't want to have a massive carbon footprint thanks to this throw-away fashion. Another worrying fact is that the production of fake fur uses enormous amounts of energy and produces greenhouse gasses, ionising radiation and noxious chemical by-products, many of which cause cancer. Buy fur responsibly maybe ought to be the message here.

I write this for the same reason I write everything in my blog: to share my story. This is not a call to arms, a request to boycott or indeed an article intended to make us all feel bad. Remember, I'm in no position to judge. I'm sorry that this doesn't make for comfortable reading. But turning a blind eye to anything that challenges our comfort zone isn't protecting the future of our planet. Fun fur will not be much fun for our descendants to deal with. I now wear both my real and fake fur with a genuine awareness of their implications. I said my viewpoint has changed, and here's how - I now prefer the honesty of wearing my real fox fur coat. If someone wants to knock me for that, then fine. And much as I will continue to wear my fake fur, I'm no longer deluded that it's the better thing to do.

I'll finish with a quote from Orsola de Castro, of Fashion Revolution, a campaign for ethics in the fashion industry. She states "The use of real fur (in fashion) is, of course, deplorable, but faux fur is not the answer. It comes with an incredibly heavy carbon footprint, it doesn't biodegrade and the cheap examples are often produced in unregulated factories, with all the concerns that brings over sweatshop conditions, poor pay and child labour." She urges us to "Look for alternative textures, such as luxurious knits. Most people simply don't realise how bad faux fur is. They think of it as a "good" moral alternative to real fur, without realising the damage it is doing."

Linking with 

Catherine of Not Dressed As Lamb

Jess of Elegantly Dressed And Stylish

Patti of Not Dead Yet Style

Cherie of Style Nudge

Anna x