Memory Walk - Clumber Park

Evening folks!

I have been for a long soak in the tub and coated myself in numerous Lush products to unwind after a busy Monday. This weekend we got up to a fair bit and the weather has turned really autumnal which we are really enjoying. Autumn is potentially my favourite season so I might just have to write about that at some point.

On Saturday we were out enjoying a beautiful and bright autumn morning since we went on a Memory Walk in Clumber Park. It really was very picturesque and I'm quite surprised that we have never been over there since it is not far from Lincoln. I loved the misty morning with bright shards of light cutting through the oak woods. We agreed that we really must take part in this time of the morning more often since getting up that early on a Saturday was quite a novelty for us!

The Memory Walk was for the Alzheimer's Society and we really enjoyed taking part. It was very well organised and I would definitely take part in one again. There was a short 3km walk and a long 9km one so you could chose which to do depending on how far you are able to walk. Lots of people also brought their dogs so we spent the whole time cooing over gorgeous pups!

What did you get up to this weekend? Have you ever done a Memory Walk?
ttfn!

5 Things Vintage Means to Me - Events

Hi there folks!

How are we all doing? I've been thinking about doing a little series of posts for a while about what vintage means to me so I'm very excited to get started on this subject. Vintage isn't just about clothes to me because there are so many other things which I have found go hand in hand with this amazing scene and I thought I would start it off with the events.

Very early on when I started getting into vintage I began to go to events and when I look back I kind of feel that it goes hand in hand. I remember the first time Indi and I went to some events and we just thought everything was amazing. Having been to quite a few I feel like we now know what events work best for us but we still love going to them and try to attend as many as we possibly can during the year.

Since Lincolnshire has such as rich history of RAF bases we have a fair few 1940's events happening locally to us. Since we do civilian clothing we tend to enjoy the home front type events particularly those that take place in towns or villages. We love the feeling when the community gets involved and all the decorations are out. I also like them because pavements are easier to walk on in heels than grass!

Events are great places to meet people, check out other people's vintage style, and do a spot of shopping. I really feel that attending events has helped us not only get more into vintage but it also holds our enjoyment for the scene. It's just grown and grown for us and I'm so happy we got into it.

So, how do we find out about all of these events? Well at the beginning of the year when I get my new diary I like to trawl through the internet and find all of the dates for the rest of the year; though I will go back through periodically and update this. I go through websites like Friends of the Forties and Rod's 1940's calendar to find out what is going on throughout the year.

Facebook is also really helpful and I'm a member on a few pages which also lets you know what's going on. If you find that there are no or few events near you then facebook is really helpful for connecting with other fabulous vintage folks. I'm a member of Ohh Laa Laa Vintage Swap and Sell on facebook and with friends we have arranged meets with other OLL members in the area and created our own mini event. Another page on facebook great for meeting with other vintage folks is 1940's/1950's Most Marvellous Meet Ups. You can either connect online or arrange your own meet up; just be careful who you befriend as Indi will attest to in the picture below!

Have you been to any events? What are your favourite events to go to? Let me know!

ttfn!

Post Wedding Relief and Exciting Plans For Blogtober

Ahoy hoy folks!

Well we did it. Indi and I are now married and I can tell you the sense of relief is amazing. It was quite a stressful journey as I already am a highly strung person anyway and then I also had to organise a whole flipping wedding. We're out the other side though and we are already starting to look towards the next big grown up thing on the horizon, house buying. We have a plan for our savings and since we were very frugal with the wedding coming in at about £5000 for the whole thing we're not too badly in debt so can get pretty much straight on with the task of saving. We made a budget and have set out how much spending money we each have a week so I'm going to have to get creative with mine since I still want to have lovely new outfits to wear. I think mine will be mainly clothing rations and the sewing machine is going to be cracked out to help me through it.

One of the frustrating things I found about wedding planning, and about myself as well, is that if I wasn't doing something for the wedding then I felt guilty so a lot of the things I enjoy fell by the wayside. But I also struggled to feel motivated to do things for the wedding, because when faced with a large and stressful task which feels insurmountable to me I tend to shut down, so nothing really got done. The blog now needs some serious tending and since I don't have as much spending money as I previously did I'm hoping that I will fill my time with more frugal activities and blogging, which is free for me, is one of those on the list.

So I thought to myself what can I do to come back to my blog with a bit of a big bang? I want a bit of a fanfare and to provide lots of interesting content for people. I got my thinking cap on and realised that Blogtober is coming up! Blogtober, for those who have not heard of it, is a challenge where you attempt to write a blog post for every day in the month of October. This is a pretty hefty challenge considering I think blogging once a week is strenuous!

I have wanted to do Blogtober for the past couple of years but always seemed to remember it too late in the day to really be able to give it my all. One of the other things which really put me off was content; being able to provide that much content which was relevant and interesting seemed like a pretty big call especially for me as I don't want to fall into the trap of content for contents sake (and I don't ever have that many ideas for blog posts anyway haha!).

I didn't want this to just be yet another big bag o stress balls in my life because having just got over the wedding I really want to relax and take it easy for a while. I have given myself plenty of time to plan for this Blogtober in the hopes that being prepared will make it more manageable. I have planned out a large amount of posts but have left some flexibility in there to be able to react to things which are happening at the time. I feel like I have some interesting pieces in there including a 5 part series which I am really excited about and also some more generally chatty pieces about myself and the things I love. Shockingly it's not all about vintage but I wanted to show all aspects of myself and not just the preened vintage side. For a while now I have been wanting to make my blog into more of a record of happy things rather than rigidly being about vintage so I'm hoping the content I have planned for Blogtober will help to deliver this.

Let me know your thoughts on Blogtober! Are you planning to do Blogtober yourself or do you have any suggestions for me of posts you would like to see?

ttfn!

Newark Air Museum

Dear Readers,

Last month I went for a grand day out with some friends from the Lincoln Steampunk Society who we met through attending their weekly meet ups at The Victoria pub on a Wednesday night. While Indi and I are not steampunk, but do dabble in the dieselpunk, we were still welcomed with open arms to the group and we feel it is the best thing we have ever done to meet such wonderful and like minded people. Our events are not just limited to meeting down the pub and recently we have been on a couple of excursions with them. I thought I would share a few pictures from our trip out to Newark Air Museum with you.

It was a beautiful day and I was a tad warm in my outfit but my Aviatrix outfit was perfect for the occasion.

There was so much to see and do here, you really do feel like you get your money's worth. If I had to choose a favourite it would be this one but there were so many that I could easily fill this whole post with nothing but pictures of planes.

We were very lucky in that we had our own personal tour guide as Mr Smut has previously volunteered at the museum so was very knowledgeable and he really made the day great for us!

We did turn quite a few heads as we made our way around the museum and we were even asked for a photograph by the museum staff so we got to get really close to some of the exhibits.

We had no idea it was going to happen but the Dakota from the Battle of Britain Memorial Flight also did a fly past and we waved frantically at them.

There were so many exhibits you could explore and climb into and I absolutely love this picture with Ben in the background. Also just want to make a note of how amazingly well behaved my hair was that day which never usually happens!

This cockpit was so ridiculously cramped and difficult to get in to that it was quite funny but as soon as I was in I just wanted to get out again because it was hot, humid, and really claustrophobic.

It was a busy, hot, and fun day so at the end of it all I got home, put some Foyle's War on, and had some tea and cake. A perfect way to end a perfect day!

ttfn!

Crich Tramway Village 2016

Dear Readers,

Suddenly! As if from nowhere spring appeared, then quickly retreated again! But the clocks have changed so officially it is British Summer Time so after a long, old winter the days are now longer, the sun has warmth to it again, and there's so much promise of the year to come. The daffodils bobbing their bright faces around makes me so happy and finally I feel like I can shed my winter cocoon. Also you get a Bank Holiday at this time of year too which makes nearly everyone really happy. Easter Bank Holiday means mainly two things in our household; eat loads of chocolate weekend and the first 1940's weekend of the year!

Twice a year, in April and August, Crich Tramway Village hold a 1940's weekend within the museum. We went again this year for the Easter one since we enjoyed it so much last year. If you haven't been Crich is a museum filled with trams some of which you can ride up and down. When you pay at the door you are given your national identity card and an old penny so you have everything you need for when the conductor comes round! It's not huge but we find there's plenty to keep us occupied all day and the pub is beautiful. We appreciate a good pub in this family!

This year we went along with friends Mike, Rachael, and Billy. It's always nice to go along with other folks and I must admit I got rather giddy; zip line brolly jousting anyone? That was until we were watching some singing and one of the singers had a roving microphone. I find roving microphones incredibly sobering; it's a very British affliction.

Crich is a great event and really gets me excited for all the other events the year has in store. I told Indi I'm already excited for Pickering but we have quite a few other things happening before then, like getting married, so I shouldn't wish my time away! Here's a few pictures Billy took from the day. Isn't Rachael an absolute Betty?

I hope you all had wonderful Easter weekends. Did you do anything you enjoyed? What are you looking forward to most this summer? Thanks for stopping by and a big thank you to Billy for letting me use his photographs. He's really rather good!

ttfn!

The Pro's and Con's of Reproduction Vintage

Dear Readers,

How are we all today? Full of the joys of spring? I am not, I currently have a stinking cold. And while I was shuffling around doing the laundry in my yoga pants and t-shirt (oh so glamorous I know!) I got to thinking about reproduction vintage. Now I have been accused of being a vintage snob in the past  (with regards reproduction vintage) but I really don't believe this term applies to me so I have weighed up the positives and negatives of purchasing reproduction vintage clothing. I'm fussy, yes. Passionate about vintage, certainly! But a snob, never.

Dress from the Seamstress of Bloosbury

Ease of use - do you know how often I do hand washing? About every 6 months so I have a number of clothes which are pretty much never worn and only gazed at adoringly. During those times I have done the hand washing I have pondered quite what a marvellous invention of women's liberation the washing machine actually is. So to be able to gad about, do what I like, be as clumsy as I am want to be, and still be able to lob my frock in the washing machine is a great boon in my eyes. Modern fabrics are very easy to keep and clean.

Preserving the past - as previously mentioned I am clumsy and so very often something will happen to my frock to cause damage or destruction and to do that to a garment which managed to survive 60 or more years before I got my mitts on it is true vandalism. I hate the thought of destroying that history, that past, everything that garment was and meant. Also if I do destroy my dress then it is more easily replaced than true vintage.

Choice and variety - certainly folks back in't day were much smaller than we are now. This is a statistical fact. Therefore I find it difficult to get my ankle into some dresses let alone the rest of me. Having the choice of sizes certainly makes life easier and I feel more inclusive.

Dress from Heyday! vintage clothing

Cost - one thing that has niggled me about reproduction vintage in the past is the price because "how much" is something I find I actually exclaim from time to time. I do like my bargains. So to find that sometimes a reproduction dress costs the same or more than buying true vintage puts me off somewhat. Though I will say that since the companies producing reproduction are often small, local, businesses they have bigger overheads and do not have the advantage of economies of scale.

Quality - all I will say is "Primark finishing" is not going to cut it on a dress I am shelling out £80 for.

Individuality - one of the main reasons I turned to vintage in the first place many moons ago was because I wanted to look different so to wear the exact same outfit that 80% of everyone else at the event also has feels like it's going against that. To some degree as well it feels to me like there is a blurring of the eras and styles and it's almost changing history or skewing people's perceptions and I'm not happy with that. I feel that there is almost a bit of an obligation to get it right, to honour the past and remember things as they were.

Oh blimey I think I'd better stop there as I am in danger of going into a completely different conversation all together! Those are my feelings of reproduction vintage for better and worse. I would never judge anyone for wearing reproduction and I myself wear it often for the reasons I have given above. But I do still love my true vintage!

What are your thoughts? Do you wear reproduction or are you true vintage right down to your knick knocks?

ttfn!

Awesome Events For Your Diary - January 2016

Dear Readers,

How is 2016 treating you so far? If you're anything like me and Mr VL then you'll be just itching to get back to some of the vintage events which are so frequent during the summer. Happily though there are a few events on the horizon, this month and the next, which can quell your appetite for vintage be that shopping, dancing or partying. I was very happy to realise that there are a couple of events coming up next week and I thought I would share them with you all and get back to my what's on posts. These events are correct at time of publishing and have found out about them via various sources on the internet please go to the events directly for further information and tickets so as to avoid disappointment.

30th January 2016
1940s Ladies Evening, Woodhall Spa

This Saturday the great folks who organise the 1940's weekend in Woodhall Spa are putting on a Ladies Evening to raise funds for the weekend which costs thousands each year to put on. They have put this event on before but this is the first time I will be able to attend. I'm really looking forward to going and I think it's really good value for money considering how much you get for the price of a ticket.

30th January 2016
The January Jive, Baston

Down at Baston, near Bourne, they are also having a 1940's evening to raise funds for their 40's weekend too. I've been to their 1940's weekend a couple of times before and it has always been fun and friendly. The January Jive is taking place at The Baskervilles Hotel in Baston. They have a live singer, Rachel Bea, and also dance music put on by The Blitz Dancers. At only £6 a ticket it sounds like it's going to be a great night. For enquiries call 01778 561148. To find out more about their 40's weekend pop over to their website www.bastonblitz.org

It all seems to be happening this Saturday but sadly I haven't mastered being in two places at once and so I have had to choose which I will be going to. Since I love Woodhall Spa 1940's weekend, it's close, and some friends are going the Ladies' Evening was the best choice for me.

What are your plans for next weekend folks? Will you be going to either of the events above? Perhaps you know of an event I haven't mentioned? I'd love to know!

ttfn!