Queen, July 1968. Dress by Susan Small.
Sincerest apologies for the lack of posting, I’ve been on a little trip down to the West Country and (as yet) don’t have much in the way of mobile internet access. I’m lining up some [hopefully] fabulous blog posts to make amends, and some new website listings, but until then I thought I would share my new charity shop game. Since there’s a distinct lack of interesting gear in charity shops these days (especially the Portassed ones), even in the middle of nowhere, I have to make do with geeking out over LP covers.
So.
Look!! It’s Foale and Tuffin on the cover of a naff Gilbert O’Sullivan covers album (the back cover credits the photo to Pimm’s so it must be from the aforementioned Pimm’s and Tuffin shoot).
Look!! It’s Janice Wainwright for Simon Massey!!! On a Hammond Party Album!!
More to come when I find them…It’s been a bizarre and lovely few days since I returned from Florence. After a quick return home to sift through emails and post out items, and after a delicious Latte Macchiato (my new ‘thing’) at the highly recommended Belmondo cafe in Orpington, I shuttled myself across South London to Bromley’s very dinky (as the name might suggest) Little Theatre to attend a performance of Cleo, Camping, Emmanuelle and Dick (originally a National Theatre production about, unsurprisingly, the Carry On films). I haven’t been to an am-dram production of anything for a seriously long time, and I was pleasantly surprised.
Despite the heat and the patchy performance (I’m being kind there) from one cast member who-shall-remain-nameless, it was a rather good, clean, fun evening out. The actress playing Barbara Windsor deserves special mention for perfecting Babs’s delightful giggle and for successfully recreating the bikini-popping scene from Carry on Camping.
I was attempting not to recreate such an event on Saturday when Five Bloggers Went Pimm’sing in London.
Wendy, Kate and Margaret have blogged about the event already, and I was brilliantly useless as ever with my lack of camera facilities, so please do take a look at their blogs if you want to see how frazzled I was looking – even with my cut-out Lee Bender sundress. I don’t do heat very well. Pimm’s does a mighty fine job of cooling you down though, as does the great gloomy British pub. Al Fresco? No thank you. I should like a dark, damp corner please…
It was ever so lovely to meet Margaret, Winnie and Disneyrollergirl for the first time, and as delightful (if not more so because there were no irritating children or waiters around this time) as last time to see the lovely Wendy and Kate.
For both these sweaty post-Florence events I managed to completely forget to take my fan. I purchased on my birthday in dizzy desperation, and it was definitely the best €4 I’ve ever spent. The best €2 you could ever spend would be on Florence’s very own black and white photobooth, which is positioned near the Santa Maria Novella train station. It’s nicer if you just ‘happen’ upon it, but you can look these things up online as well. Click the photo to become a ‘fan’ on facebook. A-ha-ha. I am funny.
It was so delightful to spend the afternoon with the gorgeous bloggers (all four of them) WendyB, Sharon Rose, Samantha and Kate at Harvey Nichols today. Grumpy waiters aside. Five hours and two pitchers of Pimm’s definitely wasn’t enough, especially when I returned home to find Wendy had forgotten to tell me she likes Foale and Tuffin. Well, I could have bored for England on that subject….next time, next time.
Thank you ladies, especially to Wendy for coming over in the first place and organising it – and to Sharon Rose for the gorgeous Bus Stop blouse (which fits perfectly) and Mary Quant scarf. The former may get a debut while I’m on my Duran Duran odyssey next week. More of that in due course…
I seem to be strangely captivated by vintage adverts at the moment, so my apologies if my posts are becoming a little ad-orientated. But they are very entertaining, and certainly a far cry from the type of ads Vogue run nowadays…for shame. They’re so generic and boring now!
Another Pimm’s one…
Yes, indeed, there is nothing like a Pimm’s at a time like this. When you’ve got dolled up in your sparkly flapper dress and your stupid husband has turned up in a cricket vest. There’s nothing like a Pimm’s for tipping over his head and making him go and change into a decent suit.
p.s I don’t hate cricket vests, in case any cricketers are offended by my comments. The Fifth Doctor Who was one of my first crushes. Just not as eveningwear. A-thank you.
Awww…..now I want it to be summer and to be sat blowing bubbles, wearing fab early Seventies frilly clown-like Foale and Tuffin clothes and drinking Pimm’s.
I’m blowing a big loud raspberry to winter and to my severe lack of F&T clown clothes……I wonder if saying “Pimm’s!” loudly really works?
Liz Eggleston 
