Love this dotty jumpsuit!



Happy Wednesday and welcome to my midweek offering. This dotty jumpsuit cost me £6.50 from the Cancer Research charity shop in Truro in April and this is its first airing. In fact, apart from trying it on in the shop (in haste) I hadn't tried it on before wearing it. A quick wash cycle was all the attention it has had since all those months ago, until yesterday morning when I ironed it, laid it out on the bed and accessorised it ready to go. 


After my shower and in a hurry as always I put it on to discover that it was miles too long in the leg, even with my towering (tallest) sandals. Already late for work, (although I was actually on a day off) I decided that some creative styling was needed. The stretch belt helped - blousing the excess material over the top of the belt allowed me to tweak the leg length to just the right height so that I wouldn't trip over them.


The blousing effect kinda works although it's not quite what I had planned. 


I bet I'm not the only one who goes into work on their day off... Last week's jaunt to the mainland for that little modelling opportunity has left me a bit guilt stricken at how much, be it real or imagined, needs to be done in the office. Polly has done an amazing job at steering the gallery in my absence, but I still felt the need to make an appearance. I did actually only stay for half a day and then took some time off.


This summer seems to be all about orange and pinks for me (well maybe also yellow, blue and green too) so I decided that I could inject some colours into the black and white canvas that is the jumpsuit. The orange skyscraper heels (preloved, by Office) proved to be a tad easier to walk around in on their second wearing. 


The orange bangle and black ring are also preloved, the pink ring and bangle were presents from girlfriends and my ever faithful gold chain necklace was a gift from my daughter. Sunnies are from Quay Australia.



The back view shows off the cutaway shoulders and neat three button fastening at the neck. The brand is Wallis.


Check out those biceps!



That's just about it for today folks - thanks for dropping by! I hope you're having a great week and enjoying some lovely weather too. I'll be back on Sunday with a round-up of our summer exhibition opening night on Saturday and my new outfit for that.

Anna x

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My new Marks and Spencer blouse


Good morning my dear readers and how are you on this fine sunny day? If you live in the UK you'll be getting used to this weather being more of a constant than the fleeting promise that summer used to be, and oh how grand it is to be able to rely on the sun showing its face day after beautiful day! The Isles of Scilly are looking mighty fine at the moment and are teaming with happy holiday makers who can't believe their luck.


I want to share this fabulous floral blouse which is NOT preloved and that I bought a couple of weeks ago from M&S for £19.50. I've just done a search to find that it's on sale now at £12, but sizes are going fast! Get yours here. Anyway folks, it's a lovely shirt, cool and easy to wear and has been an asset over the past week when I seem to have worn it at least three times when travelling and generally out and about. 


The fabric is modal which I had to look up as I wasn't sure what that means - 
Modal is a type of rayon fabric that is made from the fibres of the beech tree. Oftentimes modal fabric is blended with cotton, spandex, and other fibres because it is very soft, resists creases, has a very smooth finish, and drapes well.


The fabric does indeed drape well and the fit was loose and cool for this current spell. I chose a size 10 which fits as expected; one point that I must mention is the magic button - that perfect placement of the button at bust level which stops the blouse gaping and revealing the bra. I've washed and worn it a couple of times and the colour is holding fast too.The compliments came thick and fast when I wore this outfit. The jeans (charity shopped) are by Fat Face and this is the first time I've worn them, also they have a bit of stretch making them perfect for everyday wear. 


These cute little slingbacks were from Topshop a few summers ago and are still going strong. The colour is a great match for these cotton jeans and they are super comfy leather too which has moulded to the shape of my (broad) feet. 


This sunny outfit was completed by the addition of my Candy Bag by Furla. A search for this has taken me to a rather fabulous pink version of this bag which has me in a quandary as it's on sale too! The best thing (for me) about this spacious bag is the fact that the semi opaque finish means that it's flooded with light when you peek inside meaning no more scrabbling about in the dark trying to find wallet and sunglasses in a hurry. I took it with me on my recent trip to the mainland and it was like a miniature filing cabinet just by the very nature of its shape - everything sat static inside allowing me to have a place for everything and everything in its place. I like to feel organised when I'm off the island and this bag really helped me with my control freak tendencies.


And here I am, on my travels last week. I hooked up with this gorgeous group of ladies (now friends) on a wonderfully exciting project, a modelling job in fact. I'm contracted to say nothing more until it goes live in the autumn, but suffice to say it was great fun, a fabulous opportunity and something which was a huge learning curve for me. I'll have lots more to tell you in due course and hopefully my photos won't end up on the cutting room floor!

In the meantime I'll leave you with a couple of shots of the islands as they shimmer in the summer heat. 




My dear friend Kate was here recently giving us a couple of days overlap before I scooted off to the mainland. We had two early morning swims down on Appletree Bay and put the world to rights at the same time - such are the joys of friendship!


Wishing you a lovely weekend!

Anna x

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Picnic time!


The recent heatwave was all the prompt we needed to scoot off in our boat with some friends for a day on one of the uninhabited islands. We moored up at Tean for the afternoon with Charlie and Anna to enjoy a picnic with a view.




As a picnic spot you couldn't get much better than this. Our friends went off to look at the view from up on the top of the island while Steve and I did a photo shoot of my new swimsuit.



The demure swimsuit came from TK Maxx earlier on this year. I'm afraid I committed the biggest bloggers sin by not keeping the labels attached and therefore can't share the brand name with you. I love the ruched body and this tiny frilled skirt afforded just enough coverage to wear whilst sitting eating together. Our friends love the fact that we picnic in style by bringing our table and chairs to the beach.



We had the island pretty much all to ourselves for the afternoon which is surely the whole point of going off-island. The silence, the view and the company made for a perfect day. As the tide came in across the warm sand the sea offered up lovely warm spots for the swimmers. Well I ought to say swimmer, as it was only Anna who swam (for a whole 30 minutes) as I opted out of getting my sweet new swimsuit wet. A day off included a day off swimming for me, and guess what? The world just kept on spinning!





As I enter my busiest time of the year with our summer exhibitions coming thick and fast I'm aware that I can't be all things to all people and so must make my apologies if the blog gets a bit image heavy and text light over the next couple of months. I love to keep you abreast of my life on the island and therefore can give you this link to the 2018 version of the Tresco Times which just so happens to feature me and my island story on page 80. Click through to the online copy here. And apologies too, to all my dear blogging friends for not visiting your blogs of late. In due course I'll have news of what I've been up to behind the scenes, but for the moment all I can say is that I have an exciting new project in the offing!

Anna x

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Summer is here!


Yes, I know I may be tempting fate, but for the moment, summer is here and I'm embracing the heatwave that has us under its spell. Time for a summer dress then and this linen one (preloved) is from M&S. The candy colour stripes caused Steve to remark that I looked like an ice lolly! He said more than that but as we're U rated on the blog, I'll gloss over that.


I fancy that the dress hasn't been worn much as the linen is very crisp and the colours are strong too, hinting that it's not gone through the wash many times. It's a size too big for me, but the side zip gives it a good slim fit which helps and even though the top is a bit roomy, it's not gaping around the armholes or showing too much cleavage. My standard trick of adding a belt works a treat to pull the slight bit of excess material together which I then distributed evenly around the back.


My statement piece of jewellery today has to be this fabulous pendant which is made from sea glass that I found only 50 metres from where I'm standing. About once a year I spend an afternoon gathering sea glass from the beaches and send it off to one of my jewellers, Fiona Petheram, who then tumbles it and turns it into jewellery for me to sell in the gallery. This particular piece of glass is an unusual lilac colour and when I found it, it was a big disc that may have been the bottom of a bottle before it got smashed. I requested that Fiona turn it into a necklace for me and the resulting piece is beautifully smooth to the touch and is still quite weighty. Check out Fiona's website Drift here.


I've picked out the red, black and pink hues of the dress to match my rings to (preloved) and the bangle was a birthday gift a few years ago. My old favourite Quay Australia sunglasses are gradually becoming apparent again after a period when they were replaced with my all new and improved ones. Favourites are favourites - what can you say?



I bought these sandals from Deichmann last summer (all sold out now, I'm afraid). Anyway, I thought the colours worked well with the dress. What I had forgotten however, is that by lunchtime my poor feet would be swollen in this extreme heat and I'd have to change them for something more comfortable. Enter stage left these pretty and comfy sandals -


These sparkly leather beaded sandals were from New Look maybe last summer, perhaps the summer before. What I'm really saying is for you not to go looking for them as they're old stock. I suppose they might be found on eBay though ... Whatever, they are super comfortable, nice and broad fitting too, so I had a really lovely afternoon of beetling about with no pinching toes or even having to think about my feet at all.




Have a great weekend!

Anna x

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