Bloody hell ma darling where are you? It's Friday, Are you dead?! I thought I was the one that was nearly dead?

Evening all. Remember me?! I didn't mean for there to be such a hiatus in posting but it's been a busy few weeks. I'm blowing the dust off the keyboard now, though so I hope you'll all forgive me - I'm sure so many people have been wondering over the past week or more "But what is Roisin doing? Where has she been?!"

It's all been good, though. Work has been really busy and while I have had my fair share of swearing and kicking the photocopier, and filling out forms and all of the boring stuff there has actually been a bit of interesting work in there too. Right now I'd say my job is boring about 85% of the time, but the other 15% is really interesting. Last Friday I attended a meeting at our parent organisation's offices in London with Professor David Crystal. The team I work in were consulting him on a project we're working on, and it was very exciting to get to meet him and work with him. I know that's going to hold little interest for a lot of people but it was terribly exciting for the former English teacher and language geek in me. It was a small meeting, and Professor Crystal was amazing. It was so useful and interesting, and we were treated to discussions on apostrophes, the Oxford Comma, and the controversy around I/me. This kind of work day is rare, but I can live with the other tedium for the chance to get involved in this kind of work. It's also nice to have a day in our London office, which is in Westminster and therefore surrounded by beautiful buildings.

I was much too tired and disheveled when I got home from London that night to want to get a photo of my outfit and anyway, Nic and Viv were waiting for me in the pub with a large glass of Sauvignon Blanc and my dinner. It was a long day, but I felt very happy and tipsy and excited by the end of it. If only all work days could be so satisfying! The rest of the weekend felt like a holiday as the weather was so beautiful and Nic and I were free of social obligations. On Saturday we went out for breakfast before spending the day in Banbury. Banbury isn't terribly exciting, I'll admit, but there are a few places there that make it worth visiting. One is Books and Ink, which is a beautiful independent bookshop and the other is the Pinto Lounge, which is an excellent bar. Nic and I whiled away the afternoon browsing in charity shops and eating tapas in the Pinto Lounge, and we had time to visit the Banbury museum on the way back to the railway station. Banbury isn't far from Leamington, and it was good to have a change of scenery.

Nic in the Pinto Lounge

On Sunday we took advantage of the beautiful weather to go for a good long walk, this time over to Warwick. Again, it was so nice just to have a potter around. Warwick seems to have become suddenly full of vintage shops and although none of them were open on a Sunday I'm looking forward to going over there on Saturday to see what they're like. I tried on a few dresses in Aspire, and Nic treated me to lunch in an Italian restaurant. It was a thoroughly relaxed and uneventful weekend.

It was straight back into a busy work week. Everything is a bit mad at work right now because we're about to undergo a significant change, so there are lots of training courses and checklists and all sorts of admin to do around that - not so much fun. However, Nic came to meet me after work on Tuesday and we went for dinner in Nando's and then on to Brown's for a few drinks with some of my colleagues. Well, it was meant to be just one drink. However, one of our external colleagues was in Coventry for the evening and she was buying the drinks, and we ended up drinking lots of that nice house Merlot and staying out long past my bedtime.

Luckily for me I was working from home yesterday, and I didn't have a hangover! I had lots to do but I did manage to save a pair of shoes in the process...

Fever Bunty jacket and Ontario Lillies dress and Irregular Choice Patty shoes

Close-up of the pretty shoes

These shoes are a wee bit too big, just a bit, so they wouldn't be the best choice if I had lots of running around to do. However, for a wander around town at lunchtime and to do a few errands they're absolutely grand. I did get changed in the evening into something much more casual (and warm!) to go to the cinema with the Third Row Centre team to see I Don't Know How She Does It. The film was fine, but just that. I quite enjoyed it, but mainly because I enjoy Sarah Jessica Parker generally. Of course, it was also excellent to see Christina Hendricks lighting up the big screen as Kate's best friend Allison. Hendricks is underused, sadly, because she's really excellent. That's a face that was made for the movies - the small screen doesn't do this beauty justice:

Sigh.

Anyway, I'm back in the office tomorrow - more shenanigans ahead of the big change, and also a meeting. Boke. I hate being in the office on a Friday, but I do have nice things to look forward to, including my birthday party tomorrow night, going home on Saturday and a whole week off work to spend with my family and friends. I'll endeavour not to leave it so long the next time between posts, deal? Okay then, have a good evening and I'll catch you all soon.

It's Keitha here. I'm moving back to Wollongong. It was nice going out with you, but I'm never going to see you again. Oh, and I'm married.

Evening all! Last week proved to be unexpectedly busy and I ended up not having the time to post or really to do much of anything, so here it is, Monday again.

Firstly - the planned bombshell meetup is GO! Lovely Fi suggested moving it to Birmingham but at least this time, it seems like more people will be able to meet in London. I do like the idea of doing something more central at a later date, so maybe a few of us could get our heads together and plan something before too long. As far as the bombshell meetup goes the plan is to meet on Saturday 29th October. I'm thinking we meet in the early afternoon and hang out until the last train home. I'm still provisional on the venue of the bar at the BFI - it appeals to me because it's on the Bakerloo line so it's easy for me to get back up to Marylebone for my train home to Leamington at the end of it, and I know they do cocktails, and they take bookings. However, I am very open to suggestions for alternative venues so if you can think of somewhere you'd prefer do let me know in the comments, or via email. My email address is thestreak@gmail.com so if you could drop me an email and let me know if you're interested, I'll do an email out to everyone to confirm times etc.

Now that that's all planned, my only consideration is what to sew, as I don't yet have anything fancy enough to compete with Suzy and Karen's bombshell frocks. One of my oldest friends is getting married on New Year's Eve so it seems a good idea to sew something that I can wear to both events. I'm leaning towards a Sewaholic Lonsdale dress in satin - maybe bottle green - and hopefully I can find the perfect fabric in one of Birmingham's many fabric emporia when I go along to Debbie and Winnie's shopping trip in Birmingham on 6th October. October is going to rock! It's probably going to be hard on the pennies too, though so I'm going to have to be good until then.

As I said, last week proved to be suprisingly busy. Nic was working hard and I was having one of those boring but busy weeks at work, and it just slipped by. I was working from home on Friday, which meant the chance to catch up on boring jobs and do a few chores as well - the sun coming out eased the pain of that a bit. I went out for coffee with a friend in the afternoon and I took the chance to save a pair of open toed shoes. Amber's realisation that she had some pairs still to save before the weather turned reminded me that I have the same issue. These orange peep toes are by Bronx and were a gift from my friend L. No close-up shot - Nic did take one for me, but my toes look really prehensile in it and to be honest it freaks me out a bit.

River Island apple print dress and Bronx shoes

I don't really need an excuse to wear this dress because I love it, but also it has a wee hint of orange in it so I could go matchy matchy with the shoes. This is always weirdly satisfying to me. Friday night was excellent - Nic had been given a bottle of champagne to celebrate submitting his thesis so we had that and a glass or two of wine. It was rock and roll, I tell you - we played scrabble, I knitted and we listened to jazz. Listen, I know how utterly lame that sounds on paper but it was really nice, even though I had to unravel my knitting the next day. Alcohol and knitting needles don't mix, kids! Just say no!

I was feeling the effects of that hard-living night on Saturday morning. Feeling like your hangover is unearned really does suck, but a cup of coffee and some pastries and an episode of Flight of the Conchords later I was somewhat revived. Well, I was revived enough to have lunch for £1 (£1!!) in a local Indian restaurant before dashing around town to do some errands. It was still sunny, so it was time to save another pair of shoes. This time, the totally impractical Mighty Monster wedges by Irregular Choice. From a distance they look like they might be suede, but I think they're actually felt - these would not do well in the rain. I do like them, though - even though they're quite mad.

Red Herring dress and Irregular Choice Mighty Monster shoes

Those mighty monsters close up

I do have a confession to make, though. After I got home I did get changed - I was colouring my hair and my friend SJ was coming to cut it, so I changed into something that wouldn't suffer if I spilled red hair dye on it. I didn't wear these for a whole day, then, but for most of it. Phew, I feel better for confessing to that (!) SJ came round and cut my hair, and then I taught her how to crochet a granny square (see, I told you I was rock and roll) Before long it was time to go out - Lauren and Rick had invited us round to watch Doctor Who before going along to celebrate a friend's birthday at her house. It was a good night - an unexpectedly late night, but a good night, with dancing and drinking and crisps and cake - everything you could wish for from a birthday party, in short. I can only hope that my own upcoming birthday party will be so much fun!

Most of Sunday was spent recovering from the rest of the weekend's debauch, which is fine in its own way. This weekend was the Leamington food festival, so Nic and I took our delicate selves down to the park to see what was happening, and to hang out with Kate and Evelina. The food festival was pretty big this year, with cooking demonstrations, a wine tasting thing, a jazz band and TV chefs, and about 13 (approx) stalls selling churros and chocolate. We found a spot on the grass, listened to the mariachi band and ate churros. It was pretty cool.

The mariachi band

Hanging with Evelina

So, after a hectic week it was good to just have fun with friends this weekend. This week is looking like it's going to be an interesting one, but hopefully I'll be around a bit anyway. For now, it's time to eat pizza and watch a DVD.

Mulder? Why do we have to go to Dallas?!

Happy Sunday evening, all. I hope you've all had a good weekend. It's been unexpectedly summery around here, and that was nice. It was like summer's last hurrah, although I'm sure there are a few more good days left before it's all knee-boots and berets. I've had a great few days, made even better by the fact that the horrible cold/flu type thing that had been hanging around all week finally shoved off. In time for the weekend, too, which was lucky! On Friday afternoon I went for a mosey round the shops with Lauren and Hannah, which was just the thing to lift my spirits after a few days of sniffling, sleeping and generally being a bit of a hermit. Having just bought a new dress from the Aspire sale, I was restrained in terms of shopping but that's not really the point - it was fun, as was catching up over drinks and nachos in the pub garden afterwards. That evening we headed back to Hannah's house for a marathon of The X-Files in celebration of Nic's thesis submission. It was such a fun evening - Nic and I have been really getting into The X-Files again recently, and watching it with an audience made it about 450% more enjoyable - especially the Season 5 classic Bad Blood. I also finally watched the S4 episode Home, one which I've always been too scared to watch. It is really distressing, but I'm glad to have watched it - although I probably won't be watching it again, for any reason. Still though, it was a great evening - wine, Mulder, crisps, cheese, friends and two cups of tea - plus a beautiful walk home in the starlight.

Nic and I had been planning to go to London on Saturday but I didn't want to get tired out by a long day, so we opted instead to spend Saturday closer to home. I was awoken by our lovely cheery postman bearing a little something I'd bought myself from the A Wear sale, which I naturally enough put straight on:

Floral dress from Closet at A Wear and Swedish Hasbeen sandals from H&M - and it was time to get my Joules handbag into rotation again!

I have to say, I am very impressed with this dress. Amber and Gemma have been bigging up Closet as a brand and I was interested to try one for myself. It was reduced to £20 in the sale - £18 with the extra 10% discount A Wear were offering - and it is beautiful quality. It's made of a reasonably heavy twill with a tiny bit of stretch to it, it has pockets and a gorgeous sort-of-exposed zipper. You can see the zipper teeth, but not the tape - it looks really nice. Also, it's a metal zipper which is a nice vintage-y detail. I thought it'd be a bit longer - and I am really short- but, sure, you can't have everything. I wore it with my new blogger-cliche-wear, a pair of Swedish Hasbeens for H&M sandals:

Yeah, I know. But at least they're not Jeffrey Cambpell Litas, right?

I spotted these in the chaotic sale rack in my local branch of H&M and picked them up thinking I could put them on ebay, as they were only £17, but when I saw they were in my size curiosity led me to try them on, and I found myself liking them a lot. They're so not my usual style, but that's no bad thing, I think. I might still stick them on ebay at some point - I'm watching a few pairs at the moment to see what they go for, but for the time being I'm going to call these as shoes saved as per the Shoeper Shoe Challenge. I might not get another chance to wear them this year!

Saturday evening was the second part of our thesis submission celebrations - Nic and I had dinner in a local curry house with friends, before going to the pub and then out for some dancing. The curry was fab - and so was the curry house, they had amazingly cheap drinks. Like, £1.20 for a gin and tonic cheap. So that was good! We were all quite excited about the idea of dancing to some 90s pop and indie classics, but the DJ sucked so the night didn't live quite up to our expectations. Still, though - it was really fun to be out with friends and it's been an absolute age since I went out dancing, so I had a thoroughly enjoyable evening. We ended up by taking some chips back to Lauren and Rick's house to watch Doctor Who. I fell asleep, but I think everyone else enjoyed it. That's how it came to be that Nic and I didn't get to bed until five in the morning. I'm a bit too old for these late nights now, I've been yawning all through today!

As I'm sure you can imagine, today has been correspondingly quiet, with the nice highlight of coffee with Lysy, The Scientist and Zoe. I've mostly been dozing on the sofa, drinking tea and watching The O.C. but I did manage to get in another shoe save. I need to get caught up!

Fever Daisy dress and purple ruffle heels from Faith

These shoes were a birthday present from my parents a few years ago - totally unexpected and picked out by my mum. I love the colour of them and they're really comfortable when worn with tights - the top of the t-bar rubs bare feet, even with anti-friction stuff, which is a shame. I'll probably wear them more in the autumn but it was good to photograph them.

Now to change the subject completely - I said in my last blog post that I had some exciting news. Well, it's exciting for me, anyway! I'm sure a fair few of you read Karen's brilliant blog Did You Make That? Well, she's signed up for Gertie's online bombshell dress course and in her concern about not having anywhere to wear a bombshell dress, the two of us cooked up a plan to give her an excuse to wear it. So, my thinking is this - I'm going to propose a blogging cocktail party, a chance for you to show off your finest handmade (for the sewists among you) or shop bought duds, drink some cocktails and have fun. I need some time to plan this but my initial thoughts are an afternoon/evening meetup at the end of October, and my proposed venue is the bar at the British Film Institute on London's South Bank. This is not limited to sewists - if you read my blog and you fancy coming along, the more the merrier! If it's just me and Karen dressed up to the nines, drinking cosmopolitans, that's fine too - but I'd love if you could join us. I haven't fixed a date yet and obviously the venue isn't fixed either - if you think you'd like to come along leave me a comment or email me (thestreak@gmail.com) I'd love to meet some of you folks.

On that note, I'm off to put my pyjamas on and watch some The X-Files. Goodnight all!