Another shirtwaister

It's definitely autumn now, with that going back to school feel in the air. I'm in a dress that is similar to ones that I wore as a school girl in the '50's. My autumn/winter school uniform was navy and white, a navy gymslip and white blouse and I've felt comfortable in those colours ever since. This navy cotton shirtwaister by Samantha Sung is a delight to wear. It is beautifully made, with attention to the smallest detail. Buttoned through and finely pleated at the waist, it opens out into a very full skirt. It can be dressed up or, as here with tatty old shoes, dressed down.

Sharing with Patti at not dead yet style.

Visible Monday - shirtwaisters.

The heavens opened this morning and the wind blew, no skinny top and shorts for me today. It feels rather autumnal, cool enough to do a bit of layering, with a white tee under my indigo chambray shirtwaister from Toast. I bought it in their sale a few years ago for £35 reduced from £135, the sort of price reduction that makes me very happy! It is extremely comfortable to wear, a roomy size 12, button-through with side pockets. I could also wear it as a duster coat should I choose. In the afternoon the rain stopped so I climbed up the garden ladder to cut back some branches that were whipping about in the wind. The dress has an easy work-wear vibe that seems quite at home up a ladder in a gale!

Sharing with Patti at Not Dead Yet Style.

This month I'm reading.......

The mobile library stops outside our gate every other week and it's pot luck as to what books will be on offer. We can order books, which I now do for our reading group choices as they are rarely books that I want to keep and re-read.

Sally Rooney's 'Normal People' has received a great deal of praise. Well, I liked it well enough, but actually it made me feel very much of a different generation, critical of the behaviour of the central characters. Here is the blurb on the back cover and the opening page.

A book that I've just finished reading and absolutely loved is 'Olive Kitteridge'. The structure is interesting, each chapter being a stand alone story. Sometimes the central characters have all the action, other times they have just a fleeting walk-on role so that you see them from different points of view. This book I could really identify with (although I was surprised to read the age of thirty-nine described as middle aged and the seventies as OLD!) What a piece of work Olive is! I'm delighted to learn that a continuation of this book is just about to be published.

What makes you choose a particular book? I am very susceptible to an attractive cover. My friend has recently completed a book cover commission and has written about the process on her blog janethaighherwork.com Live a little. Do take a look. It was quite a business. I illustrated book covers when I was working, but never as complicated as this!

Here she is in my daughter's kitchen working on a heart.

The Holburne Museum

We went to the Holburne Museum in Bath yesterday to see an exhibition of work by Édouard Vuillard. What a treat! 

The exhibition is small, and some of the paintings very small indeed, but what a joy to get up close and see how he applies the paint and makes good use of the cardboard ground.

The room was dark and no flash allowed so it was difficult to photograph the work very well.

I've been a great admirer of his work since my student days. I bought a print of his work while on a study trip to Paris and it cheered a wall of my grotty student bedsit.

Another temporary exhibition at the museum was that of the children's illustrator, Lauren Child.

She uses collage in her illustrations, moving her small cut-out figures about the page. Interesting to read that she is influenced by Vuillard. You can see it in the way she places pattern on pattern.

Illustrations for Mary Poppins and The Secret garden.

I much prefer the immediacy of the sketchbook drawings to the finished result and the collaged photographs seem far too crude in colour and too literal for my taste.

I preferred this more elegant double page spread - and Vuillard would appreciate the pattern on pattern!

We had a happy wander around the museum's permanent collection.

No pattern on pattern for Priscilla.

I've been living in the area since 1968 but have only this week discovered that the museum is free on Wednesday afternoons. What a saving! I treated myself to the Vuillard catalogue  and a card with the £12.50 that would have been spent on my exhibition entry.

And Himself blew his entry money in the café where we had coffee and cake, sitting outside here in the sunshine.

Now that's what I call a good day out!

At the beach

We've been in Bournemouth  for a few days to see our grandson. There's lots to do, with a pile of subsoil bunging up the drive in preparation for levelling the steep back garden.

But, hang on a minute, the sun is shining. Forget the garden, we are heading to the beach!

It's glorious weather, and we set off in the early morning so that we can be back home before the midday heat becomes too intense. The beach is quiet - for now.

Just how we like it!

Still a bit cold for swimming.

We all do our own thing.

Bournemouth seafront has many beach huts.

It's hard to resist peering in at the ones that are occupied, each with it's own little tableau. We would love to have  a hut but are not prepared to camp out for days in the queue  each year when the rentals come available.

On Sunday we walked down Alum Chine for lunch at the beach café. 

More lovely beach huts to see.

Keeping up with a one year old is quite hard work!

Okay for him,

 but I could have done with being pushed back up the chine as well!