Getting festive

Yesterday, my childhood friend and I decided to go to Westfield shopping centre. If this name doesn’t mean anything to you, imagine the hugest most enormous building in the world, full of shops and restaurants. I think it’s the biggest one in Europe or something. We made a plan to go there and sort out a few Christmas presents. I also kind of thought I’d keep an eye out for a nice outfit for Christmas day and maybe some new shoes as a few pairs are starting to look a bit scrappy.

Remember this: I was looking for a Christmas day outfit, shoes and some presents.

My friend’s agenda was something like this: new warm winter coat, smart clothes for work-related placement, Christmas presents for family.

We entered the foray and started our shopping expedition. We went into shop after shop, looking for warm coats. I kept an eye out for a nice dress for Christmas Day. There’s just one problem though…. I am a different person in my head than I am in real life, when it comes to clothes.

In my head, I’m edgy and cool, my style is very All Saints and when I pass people in the street, they wonder how they will ever be as cool and fashionable as me. I’d describe my look as ‘off-duty supermodel’ if asked. I’ve got beach-babe tousled hair and ooze effortlessness and cool, while being au naturel and fabulous.

….In real life, however…. I’m more non-descript. I wear neutral clothes for work – jeans and t-shirts mostly. So even when I have a day off, out come the jeans and t-shirts anyway. I think I own make-up, god knows where it might be though. There are also some high heels somewhere in a cupboard, I think. I’m quite flat-footed though, so don’t really wear them for long before I’m dying to take them off. I live in my Crocs whilst at work, which no supermodel, not even an off duty one, would ever wear. My hair could be described as tousled-beach-babe but if I’m honest, it’s more unbrushed-and-trying-to-turn-into-dreads. And in desperate need of a cut, which I’m too lazy to go and get. I wear dresses quite often but they’re the casual stretchy summery dresses that you team up with leggings and boots, not the elegant ladylike dresses that, in my head, I look so great in….

Hence, there is an issue when shopping. The me in my head looks fab in floor-length bejewelled gowns are beautiful and head-turning. The me in real life looks like a little squat dwarf in them as I’m FAR too short and look totally lost inside such long dresses. So as I wandered around oohing and aahing at the lovely dresses, I didn’t find anything I could actually wear, just what I thought I might be able wear when my moment of ‘cool’ kicks in. I’ve been waiting 27 years for it to happen so it’s bound to be any minute now.

I loved the plum-coloured fitted dress which looked like it would really compliment my body, if it weren’t for the 10inch lumpy tummy scar from my operation that shows through tight tops.

I loved the knee high brown leather boots that looked like they belonged on a horse farm, if it weren’t for the fact that I couldn’t pull them further than my chunky little mid calves.

And so it went on, for hours – me spotting things that would perfectly compliment the imagined me, but which didn’t suit or fit the real me. Things that would suit the real me were boring so I didn’t look at them.

We stopped for a food break halfway round and discussed a game plan. We remembered that I was looking for shoes, a dress and presents. She was looking for a coat, smart clothes and presents.

When we were on the move again, we made real efforts to find things. We walked. And we walked. And we walked. For about three and a half hours in total.

The result? My friend bought a jumper and some warm leggings. I bought a Christmas jumper and a leather jacket, because I’ve never owned one and it was more than 50% off the original price, bringing into my financial sights.

I’m not quite sure whether I’d consider this trip a success….. But I do LOVE my jumper.

Another exciting award!

Last week, a fabulous blogger Kindredspirit23, included me in his list of nominees for the Blogger of the Year award! Scott writes a brilliant blog, with fantastic perspectives on life, given his recent serious health issues. There is always something lovely to read there.

This one is especially fabulous because there are no guidelines on having to give it to a certain number of people. You just give to the people you feel deserve it, which I like. The rules are as follows:

 

1 Select the blog(s) you think deserve the ‘Blog of the Year 2012’ Award
2 Write a blog post and tell us about the blog(s) you have chosen – there’s no minimum or maximum number of blogs required – and ‘present’ them with their award.
3 Please include a link back to this page ‘Blog of the Year 2012’ Award – and include these ‘rules’ in your post (please don’t alter the rules or the badges!)
4 Let the blog(s) you have chosen know that you have given them this award and share the ‘rules’ with them
5 You can now also join our Facebook page – click the link here ‘Blog of the Year 2012’ Award Award and then you can share your blog with an even wider audience
6 As a winner of the award – please add a link back to the blog that presented you with the award – and then proudly display the award on your blog and sidebar … and start collecting stars…

 

Now for my post about why I have nominated the people I have. It’s mainly because they are some of my favourite blogging friends and I’d love to circumvent the ocean that divides us and have a cup of tea together. These nominations are like a virtual cup of tea, if you use your imagination….

 

Fitness and Frozen Grapes – The healthiest plates of food I have ever seen, for starters. And because reading about all that running and swimming and cycling kind of makes me feel fit by association.

 

Someone Fat Happened – Because there is nothing that I don’t like on this blog. Plus, I’m trying to get her to say she’ll wear my big ugly purple crocs at her wedding and I figure this nomination might persuade her it’s a good idea.

 

The Waiting – Because the insights of a new mother can be very amusing. As can pictures of babies in funny costumes. And posts called ‘Gingivitis Friday’ – what’s not to love?

 

Eat, Move, Love – A great new blog on the fitness scene. After reading it, I decided to try the yoga class which prompted this post.

The Good Greatsby – There is always space for a nomination for this blog. I often check it for advice before making big important life decisions.

Enjoy your weekend, everyone!

A few follow ups and a ladle of soup

A little while ago, I wrote a post called Sometimes I Think Too Much about a girl who was new in the area and had asked me to go for a drink, in a best-friend-date type of way. Some of you asked about how it had gone.

So here’s the story. The next time she came in, she mentioned needing a job, I said we had one. Two and two were put together and they equalled my new potential best friend and I working together. It was all ok for a few weeks. Then she got another job and left. And that was that really. Done.

Clearly I gave it way more thought than it warranted when she asked me out for a drink.

The second thing is that the local drunk who featured in “Are these donuts?” recently took a picture to a gallery nearby to have it reframed. It has been reframed now and, as the owner of the gallery is a friend and has a bad shoulder at the moment, he has asked me to help him go to Mr Red Wine’s flat and help him reframe it.

That’s right. I get to go INSIDE Mr Red Wine’s flat! I am beyond excited. I imagine it’ll be like one of those programmes called Grime Fighters or something, where cleaning companies go into old flats which are full of crap and pizza boxes with mould growing on them and rats running around.

My gallery owner friend has pre warned me that we will have to stand on Mr Red Wine’s bed to hang the picture and that it is alive with bed bugs. He also said I shouldn’t worry about just standing on stuff as I walk in the flat as there is no free floor space anyway.

It is going to be mental, I can tell.

Also, a few days ago, whilst at work, I was leaning over a bowl of soup to get something and there was a ladle in it with a hook on the end, for hanging it up with. Somehow the ladle hook caught on my apron and as I stood back up, I pulled the ladle with me, which was full of soup, and scooped it onto myself. It went all down my front and onto my Crocs and in the little holes and into my feet. Niiiiice.

I just thought you might like that little story.

My Crocs and I

At first, when my manager at work said she was going to get us all Crocs to wear, I groaned in horror. Crocs! How ugly! I’d never be able to walk out from behind the counter for fear people would see them and judge me.

As if it weren’t bad enough that we were being given Crocs to wear, by the time it got around to ordering mine, there were only yellow and purple left to choose from! To save getting confused, we were each to pick a different colour, so we’d be able to tell which pair were ours. The more ordinary colours had been picked already, the brown, blue, black and grey, which, unless you looked closely, could kind of look like an ordinary pair of shoes. So I had a dull purple or a bright yellow as my options. I picked the purple, it was quite dark and not that noticeable. We ordered them online and then when they arrived, they were obviously an eye-catching bright purple. Obviously. The type of colour which immediately draws your eye.

I was extremely self conscious about wearing them at first. I’d point them out, jokingly, as though I was desperate for people to know that I was aware how idiotic they looked, but they were just my work shoes! Honest! I didn’t buy them out of choice! They’re just my work shoes! Don’t judge me!

Occasionally, I’d put a purple t-shirt on, absent-mindedly and then get to work, change into my Crocs and realise that it looked like I’d organised my outfit that way, to match my Crocs.

Then I started getting casual about them, wearing them home after work, or to the shops. Sometimes I’d go and see a friend straight from work and I’d still have the Crocs on. By the time I realised, I’d just shrug and keep going, hoping that the friendship was strong enough to withstand the extreme ugliness and the general impression they gave, that my feet were ginormous flippers.

Before I knew it, they’d sneaked a place in my line up of shoes and demanded to be considered as the shoe I might choose when I got ready in the morning. Even on days I wasn’t working. There they were, the hugest purplest ugliest things I’d ever come across, with big holes in them, which made rain a nightmare, and with a considerable layer of dirt around the toe area that I was too lazy to clean.

And yet.

And yet they are MY Crocs. They are my big ugly purple Crocs.

And I love them.