We need to talk about velvet

So I'm back in London. Yeah. The new job is bloody amazing. It's such a delight to be in the warm bosom of a women's magazines.

The first week was well a bit stressful really. It was aces fun but I was so tense that I gave myself stress headaches. Fool. A early night combined with running again helped sort that out. Also I relaxed a bit.

I had my first Friday in the pub with the gang, it was excellent and I was invited onto the newly formed 'Style Council' by the fashion desk. We have had our first theme day velvet and on Thursday the theme is tweed.

There will be feature on how velvet is coming back in a future issue of the magazine, and that is my fault. I'm not just fashionable, I'm setting the agenda!

Also I'm going to get a make-over. I have a gang!

It's so great to be back it doesn't feel entirely real. I keep thinking I'm going to wake up or get sent back to the Wilderness...

Let's hope not eh?

Bitchin' Suit day

I went drinking with some work people last night. It was a post-work wine and chat about things. One of them revealed that when they first spotted me they thought I looked like an eccentric, the sort of person who has cravats and pocket watches.

I wasn't wearing either of these items at the time. Or anything even mildly outlandish so it seems that I've now reached the point where I don't need foppish affectations to come across as the sort of berk who frets about socks too much.

My wardrobe is returning to form. Every time I go to Devon I pick up more items, the last trip involved my first suit. I don't wear a suit for work. Most people don't even wear shirts, which isn't to say they run around topless, but that T-shirts are the usual thing.

I'm not sure what I'll wear this suit for, I suggested that once a month we have 'bitching suit day' where a chap can wear something lilac or a solid tweed. Pipes were also mentioned, so we could discuss matters of importance while loading up some nice clay pipes. The suit I brought up was a light-weight tweed number, perfect for spring time. Now I just need an good excuse to break it out.

I think it's a sign of how I'm feeling more comfortable in my job that now the suits are starting to reappear. Relocating up here required a lot of changes, and I initally thought that I was going to leave all the dandy-style misadventures behind.

Now I know that is wrong. It's just that the part of you that makes you want to invest in waistcoats and cufflinks travels slower than the rest of you. So it takes a while to catch up with the rest of you. It's here now, and judging by the misadventures of last night it's just as potent as it ever was.

I wonder if they are ready for it.

I feel the need, the need for tweed

Today is going to be a shopping day. I'm going to take the Hitchcock Blonde to my favourite vintage clothes shop. There will be some fairly intensive shopping, they have a whole rack of amazingly cheap vintage motorcycle jackets that I've never noticed before so I shall be examining them closely and possibly texting Piqued about how much he would like them. This isn't a terribly good plan (the shopping not the texting) as any spare cash is supposed to be saved up for a motorcycle, not spent on more motorcycle clothes.

The Hitchcock Blonde will be picking up a tweed jacket for her brother and then probably falling for the charms of one of the many 1950s dresses that bedeck the walls. This would be completely understandable as they really do have a lot of smashing dresses.

The picture was taken last week when my little brother and I visited the shop, we managed to resist buying anything but only just. This time I doubt I'll get away without buying something lovely that I don't really need.

Goodie bags

I had to give the ol' room a bit of a clean as it wasn't really suitable for visiting, not that any visitors are planned but I think that a clean room is much more relaxing. Plus it's sort of a traditional signifier of a new start in life.

Of course I have far too much stuff and thus tidy is more of a state of mind rather then an absolute concept. I put on some nice music and set about stuffing freshly laundered shirts into my wardrobe. It has a light in it, which always makes me smile when I turn it on. It doesn't matter that most of my shirts are slightly crumpled and squished when they are dramatically lit.

Wardrobes can be telling places, I went back to the flat of a 'new friend' for a coffee a few weeks ago and things were terribly civilised until she showed me the contents of her wardrobe. Things got out of control just after she brought out the vintage dresses. I'm not sure what that says about either of us apart from the fact we should stay away from Chanel in polite company.

Anyway, while I was tucking away various velvet and tweed numbers I also realised that I had made a line of goodie bags. Returning home from a drunken night out I triumphantly throw the bag down and collapse on my bed. This has happened more than a few times in the last few weeks and now a very pleasantl looking row of little paper bags full of exciting things has built up.

They are bulging of minature bottles of booze, glasses, make-up, leather wallets, vouchers for things I shall never do and other promotional items. If you open them they can be a bit disappointing as you often realise that they are mostly fluff with very little gift but undistirbed they are rather pretty. The spoils of a strange war, trophies of the party circuit lined up against a wall.

This also means another nice tradition can return. Now that I'm out and about again and I'm building up the bags of little pleasant things, everyone who visits will get a goodie bag. I'm returning to the days when everyone who pops by for a cup of tea or restoring glass of gin will get a little gift to go away with. Some pleasant little amusement just because.

This tradition started because I used to work in a female world, so many of the gifts pressed into my palm as I stumbled into a cab at the end of the evening were not really for chaps. I had a surplus of fripperies and make-up that needed a good home. A good home that could always be provided by my chums.

Anyway it's back, in force so who wants to come over for tea?

I've got a bike

It was London Freecycle today, large sections of the city were given over to the exclusive pursuit of bimbling around on bikes.

I could go on about it, but nothing I could say would be as good as this robot panda that was cycling around with a lady in a tweed suit.

Some other stuff happened this weekend which wasn't so good, but I can't go into it because it's just a bit too much to deal with right now.

I wish I had a robot panda.