Back on the train gang

Yes, it's finally happened: this week I rejoined the land of the gainfully full-time employed.
I got this job - a fantastic, dream of a role albeit only a maternity leave contract - because I started chatting to a crowd of people who always sit together on the train home. In the end, I was the only one they interviewed, given I'd been given the nod by the woman on the train. All the social media networking efforts I'd been making and I get my new job by answering some newspaper quiz questions on the commuter train and moaning about my current job. Truly, you couldn't make it up.
I wore this for my first day there. The skirt has two coordinating silk blouses, one pink and one green, with matching camis and yet I always wear this skirt with the black tee. As the small person would say - why?
The rest of the week I wore either a skirt or a dress. When did I start being such a lady? The semantics of this worry me slightly - already, thanks to my accent, I'm always pegged as a tiny bit genteel here and then I go and reinforce it by wearing pretty-pretty. As T agreed, on this occasion the pearls were de trop.

Lisa wears: black tee - Target, silk skirt - Laura Ashley, nude tights - Woolies, flats - Diana Ferrari, hair - inspired by Erin O'Connor (and oh, how I wish I looked like her).

Queen of tartan

This is the third iteration of the ur-skirt, and the least successful, to my mind. I thought I was cutting it out in such a way that the pattern would line up at the seams, but I was very wrong. And the waist needs to be heavily darted, but the zip is so short (thrifted) that if the waist is darted it will no longer fit over my hips. As it is now, it just kind of sacks around my hips necessitating a long top to cover the huge gap. In this instance, I hoisted it up under the belt to sit more on my waist, but then it was shorter than I had anticipated!
I have a huge amount of this fabric left and would like to attempt a longer length, bias cut skirt, but there are other projects that are more pressing at the moment and my failure with this one means I'm reluctant to touch the stuff again for a while.
Despite this skirt's many shortcomings, T always compliments me when I wear it. I went out on a limb and teamed it with a belt that has had me scratching my head in puzzlement - I'm new to belts and this whole knotting the belt round the buckle business seems rather advanced level. First I tried it with the 'tail' straight down, but instead of a sporran effect it looked just plain old phallic. In the end, with a double loop around the buckle, it seemed to work out and I spent the day feeling like I was Sara Stockbridge.

Lisa wears: jumper - M&S outlet, belt - thrifted, skirt - I made it, tights - Woolworths, I expect

The ur-skirt

In many respects, this was the skirt that started it all. I bought it in Vinnies in Randwick, NSW, at a time of great upheaval and unhappiness with the thought that it might make a beautiful cushion cover. Then I tried it on and, to my amazement, it fit. Suddenly the cushion cover took a back seat, so to speak.
I'm sure most people could pick it out as a 'Lisa' item - sage/olive green, silk, rosy red, that limy spring green that I seem to pick up everywhere. At the time though - 18 months or so ago - it seemed like a big leap: short, flirty and tight at a time when I was in a mummy morass and miserable.
When I was given yards and yards of fabric, this skirt seemed a natural choice to use as a pattern. Now, to be fair, all the subsequent iterations in wool and denim have had their faults with fit being less than stellar or my sewing just a little cack handed, but my enthusiasm has only been slightly dimmed and my confidence in the original remains undented.
I usually wear the skirt with a brown jumper, giving the pattern of the skirt room to breathe, but I like the twisted-twinset effect of the green and red layers.

Lisa wears: red cardi - Target (see what I mean about it getting a lot of wear?), green jumper - M&S, silk skirt - thrifted, tights - Woolworths, probably.

Ladies who lunch

We went out for lunch for my father-in-law's birthday. It was supposed to be pretty much the whole clan, but in the end only two of the five children showed up along with me and the small person. It was a bit of a damp squib really, not least because it was tipping it down with rain. Also, it took more than two hours - by train and tram - to get there. A four-hour round trip for terrible food? I'm much nicer to my in-laws than I am to my own family.
For the birthday lunch I wore an outfit I built around a vintage Jaeger silk scarf. I ummed and ahhed about buying the skirt as I'm not au fait with wearing this three-quarter length, but in the end decided that at Vinnies' prices it was worth the gamble, not to mention the fashionistas say it's the length du jour. I inherited the silk scarf and it brings me much joy.
My father spent a lot of time with his cousin during the war and, as a result, they were more like brothers. After the war their life paths diverged for all the usual reasons - money, class, education, children (or not in the cousin's case), political sensibilities...but they remained friends. My father's cousin married a woman who we were all very fond of as well as slightly scared by. She was a cross between Kim of Kim and Aggie, Margo Leadbetter and, of course, Maggie and Judy. Her house was pristine, aseptic. She was immensely warm hearted, as long as you were white and middle class. Everything was immaculate; everything was perfect. An amazing cook, a lovely hostess and a wicked sense of humour in a naughty schoolgirl vein (she called her local MP, Virgina Bottomley, Virgin Bum); her politics were firmly to the right of Attila the Hun.
Her life was full of tragedy though - first the childlessness, then her husband's death a year before he was due to retire and finally the cancer that saw her diminish into death.
She tidied her entire life away and left everything to charity. Her bewildered brother had to sell her house, her car and anything of worth so that the charities could get their money - it wasn't an easy process and he was grieving too. The estate clearance people wanted money to clear the house of what few remaining bits had escaped the pre-death clearout, so it was that her brother was able - in good conscience - to tell me I could take the lot. I didn't quite manage that, but in among the things I did take - Denby plates, rugs, a music box table - was this vintage silk scarf by Jaeger.
I wear it and think of her. I go out of my way to wear it. I buy clothes in the hope that I can wear it with them. And when I wear it I remember her, perhaps even take some of her qualities as my own. And quality - in all senses - is the apposite word.





Lisa wears: silk scarf - vintage Jaeger, cardi - Target, cami - Laura Ashley, linen skirt - thrifted (1980s Laura Ashley, I think!), shoes - Rivers.

Ranch dressing

Australia is, to me, a very disconcerting hybrid of the US and the UK, with its own added idiosyncrasies. The parallels with the US - the space, the pioneer spirit, the supression of an indiginous people, the historic dependence on farming - are clear. And then there are the strong ties with the UK; culturally and politically Australia was much more closely aligned with Westminster than the US ever was, and it shows. And then there are the bits that are pure Australian, not all of them as charming as the unique flora and fauna.
RM Williams is - as the tag line proudly proclaims - the bush outfitter. I enjoy looking at their iconography. The Australian cowboy or, more accurately perhaps, sheepboy is a close cousin to the more famous American version, but the differences are endlessly fascinating. Of course, there's a startling disconnect here: the authenticity of the heritage brand that was founded in the 1930s and the genuineness of workwear priced to be worn 'by choice by global leaders, international movie stars, world sporting champions and media moguls' and me, of course.

Lisa wears: shirt - RM Williams, jeans - Levis handmedowns (thanks, Kate!), belt - Laura Ashley, socks - Woolworths men's 'work socks' (not shown), boots - Nine West

Anyone for tennis?

Winter seems to have lasted an absolute age this year. Silly, as a Melbourne winter - wet and windy as it may be - is shorter and sweeter by far than its London counterpart. Last year - my first Australian winter - I stumbled into spring without ever having left autumn, as far as I could tell.
Sartorially, the feeling that winter has overstayed its welcome has led me to break out ostensibly summer clothes at least a month too early. I know that summer, when it arrives, will be much longer and much, much hotter than I like and that I will long for a cold snap and the comfort of wearing substantial clothes, but even that hasn't stopped me.
And so, I find myself wearing a dress with a jumper and tights...

Lisa wears: jumper - M&S outlet, dress - thrifted, tights - Woolworths, probably, shoes - Diana Ferrari

The wall wears: Sudocrem - as applied by the small person. Like a starlet's lack of underwear, it only seems to show up with the flash.

Out for a duck, or in vino veritas

T and I cut loose from parental responsibilities yesterday and went to a wine festival. I wanted to look nice but not overdone - and I wanted to be warm as the tasting was being held in a barn. A dress and layers, kept casual by the flat boots. Also, we walked there making flats a necessity. Then we strolled to his friend's house to continue talking (and drinking).
I can't keep up with the boys, but still haven't learnt not to try, and the results were predictable. I came home worse for wear and decided to try to capture my 'true' face by looking at the camera and the mirror at the same time. Yeah, how teenage of me. But, still, it sort of worked - not a trace of the dreaded 'mother gurn'.
This morning we took small person to feed the ducks and I pulled on the same outfit - too tired from yesterday's over indulgence to put any thought into dressing. And, anyway, it's still a good look even second time around.

Lisa wears: jacket - Wallis via a shady blink-and-you-miss-it closing down sale shop (part of a suit, but the trousers departed long ago), scarf - gift, dress - H&M, long-sleeve black T - Target, tights - who knows, boots - Nine West

SP wears: coat - gift from UK, trousers - Mini Mode (UK), jumper - his nan knitted it, sandals - Robeez