Autumn Colours { in springtime }

I have a new favourite dress. I bought this beauty off eBay, it's a little scratchy to the touch but is surprisingly comfortable when on. The colours and pattern are distinctly autumnal but it's a great dress for warmer weather. The one thing that annoys me so much about pre-made clothing though, is the way my top half always seems to end up looking bulkier than it is. Maybe that's just me, but in comparison to the Ain't She Sweet dress (my ever lasting favouritest of favourites) I feel like I never really get to show how slim I am - a silly thing to complain about perhaps, but this is my ridiculous issue.

Kitchen Stool { or decorating revolution }

The wolf and I had an amazing weekend, we spent most of it outdoors either tramping over Caerphilly Mountain to the pub with my parents or wandering Cardiff's beautiful Bute Park with DC of I Knit, And Sew What? (thanks for a great day out!). The weather has been divine, in fact it's been a little too hot for the poor wolf who is still yet to lose the rest of his winter coat.

It's been a while since I've posted about the house and my plans. It's amazing how one single, very simple, item can completely change your decisions. I've had very clear ideas on how to decorate my home for some time now; wood furniture, pale colours, very shabby chic. And then something happened to change all that.

My parents came by a couple of weeks back, we spent the day removing woodchip wallpaper. My step-dad is 6'4" which comes in handy when you're a piddly 5'2" and terrified of ladders (especially ladders over stairs). Mum brought with her two sets of step-stools to help us, one of which belonged to her Mother.

the evolution of glasses

I'm slowly going through the entire house, room by room and clearing out and reorganising. One of the things I found and put aside for recycling were several pairs of old, out of prescription glasses that I've never given a thought to since getting new pairs. What's interesting is that you can see how, over the last few years, I've slowly been gaining confidence in wearing styles I like. One can only hope that confidence will translate more to my clothing choices soon!

The first pair are from when I first lived in London, back in 2003, I believe I bought them after I returned from travelling. I've always liked the black framed look, but didn't have the courage to go all out. As always, I toed the line between discrete, conventional and what I liked in a style.

Hair Today, Gone Tomorrow

So, I'm rubbish at this consistent blogging thing! To get you all up to date on the sheer level of craziness that's been going on here's a bullet point list of the highlights:

• My rather expensive leak in the roof is actually phenomenally expensive as it turns out at least 4 of 8 chimneys in one stack collapsed around ten years ago and nobody thought to fix them (!)

• My friend, Kay, had a little baby girl called Jasmine and I was one of her birthing partners, despite being phobic of hospitals and doctors and needles. I'm not sure who was more traumatised, me or her!

• I've been in talks with a television company filming a home renovation programme about them coming and redecorating my house, hence the sudden urgent need to rid every wall and ceiling of wood chip wallpaper. Unfortunately I'm on hold with them at the moment due to the house they were going to pair me with falling through so it may not happen at all

• My beloved laptop, MacLeod, has pretty much keeled over since the upgrade I performed. I think he's just too old and too full of coal dust to keep running smoothly any longer but he was in danger of being thrown out a window so my lovely parents intervened and bought me a brand spanking new iMac desktop that I have named Jarvis (for he has a lovely deep voice with an English accent). No more crashing, no more swirly wheel of death, hello internet! Now I just have to start paying them back, eep!

• My dining room table is back (i.e. covered in normal crap as opposed to stacked with four bookcases worth of books) and my lounge is habitable (shame about the rest of the house) but still barely being used. I foolishly turned off my central heating a few weeks back then removed the radiators downstairs* in preparation for a wood burning stove and a new rad (which I don't have yet) and didn't re-fill the system so I now can't use the central heating no matter how cold it gets (again I say eep!)

If you follow me on Facebook or Twitter (and really, if you're not, why not, I'm really very interesting ... erm ...) then you'll have noticed that last month I cut around 12" of hair off. In fact, I had so much hair that I got three haircuts in one day while helping out my friend studying hair styling at college. By the time I left my head felt like it was in the clouds, I have so much hair that the difference in weight was just lovely. I've gone for a style that should be curled to make it look the way it's supposed to. Interesting choice for someone completely incapable of styling their own hair, but that was sort of the point, I needed to learn and this was the best way I could think of. It also meant that I wouldn't have to wake myself up each time I wanted to turn over because I had my hair trapped under a body part or two. If you are one of the few who follow me on Facebook you'll have seen the terrible first attempt that looked like I'd stepped right out of the 1970's. Thankfully, this attempt was much better.