Busy day of meetings and then tonight I'm going straight on to 2 parents' evenings - 2 different sons, 2 different schools - it's going to be a frantic night of running around. My blog went live today and I've been really encouraged by kind comments from other bloggers - what a nice community the 40-something bloggerati seems to be. Better than my family anyway - Mr MC has taken to calling my blog midlife chick whereas the sons are [...]
We aren't blessed with retail opportunities up here in the Lakes but one thing we do have is the New Balance outlet and factory. This half term, the only thing my 17 year old son wanted to do was to visit it with a big spend in mind so, dragging Mr MC and the 2 smalls along, we set off for a day out. In case you don't know, New Balance has a big factory in Flimby and 4 New [...]
Last week I went down to London for a meeting with a new business that I'm getting involved with - more about that another day. Everything was very nice, great people with lovely offices in Kensington, the only drawback was that as we're a new team, we all had to have our photo taken for the bio page on the website. To start with, I wasn't confident that I'd chosen the right thing to wear. My comfort ground for this [...]
I had a really big surprise when I was down in London last week for meetings. Joy of joys we finished early and happened to be on Kensington High Street. Mr MC was with me and wanted to pop into Gap for some new jeans so I went in to have a look around the womenswear on the ground floor and boy is it back on form. Of course I'd read about their Spring/Summer 14 collection and new creative director Rebekka [...]
Lovely shoes – so forgiving – however big you’re feeling your feet can always look beautiful. Shoes. And coats. I have too many of both. I have piles of shoeboxes at the back of my dressing room and I know it’s one of many areas where I need to have an amnesty...but some of them I’ve hardly worn and they’re really lovely and I keep thinking the day will come when some great event will mean that I need them. [...]
Finding the best moisturiser for 40-something skin 2014 has become a personal mission. One of the things that I'm really enjoying about having my own blog, is being able to write genuine, unbiased reviews of products that I believe really work. When I was editor of Selfridges' magazine, I was able to select, shoot and write about anything in the store apart from the Beauty Hall which was a total, political nest of vipers. I was only allowed to feature [...]
I'm showing my age but I remember back in the nineties everyone having an obsession with 'Colour Me Beautiful.' They used to run sessions where they held scarves up against your face to find which suited your skin colouring best. I remember being told what colours suit me - peach and lime green which I wasn't too keen on, but they also introduced me to grey and that has remained a lifelong love affair. They do still appear when you [...]
The 2014 metallic trend is an absolute gift to women over 40, with a simple accessory from the high street you can raise any outfit from humdrum to chic. I've always loved metallics, I remember having a bright pink metallic bomber jacket in about 1982. Now they're back in a big way - the only thing about them is that they do shout "look at me" which was fine then when I was 15 but now I'd prefer to suggest [...]
Courtesy of Pinterest In the same way that many women are addicted to shoes, I’m addicted to coats. I don’t know whether it’s because it’s always so cold where we live or because I just want to cover up! The thing about a coat is that in the UK and especially in the North, you need one (or at least a jacket) for about 75% of the year. The other benefit is it doesn’t really matter what you’re [...]
When I started wanting to change how I dressed, I started shopping like I’d won a trolley dash. I’d hit the weight I wanted to get to, I’d taken lots of my old clothes to a dress agency to be sold and I truly believed that everything I saw and liked would now look great on me. Because we live in a retail desert, I did huge orders from Boden, White Company, Zara, Hobbs, Jigsaw and ASOS expecting to have [...]
If you're anything like me, you will be reluctantly accepting that you'll never be the shape that (a) you wanted to be and (b) you were sure you would be again if you lost those last few pounds. With each child I've had, my body has changed because it has been stretched beyond recognition with each successive pregnancy. Not only that but my hips have widened through giving birth, the skin on my abdomen is looser and even my feet [...]
