On Saturday I popped over to The Albert Hall in Nottingham for a visit to Lou Lou's Vintage Fair.

I didn't take many photos as I was too busy shopping, but here are a few things that I saw:






I didn't buy any clothes but I bought a hat and a handbag which will be appearing in future outfit posts.

I also had my photo taken twice, once by the lovely people at Lou Lou's Vintage Fair, and once by H.E.R Vintage while I was looking at all their pretty vintage things.


I will be at Lou Lou's at the Albert Hall again on Sunday 27th October so come and say hi if you're in the area.

I love old music. Most of the music in my iTunes collection is from the 80s backwards, with a majority being from the 1940s to 1960s.

Although I can't swing dance very well (I can do a few simple dances such as the Charleston Stroll, Gay Gordons and a bit of barn dancing) I love to listen to swing music, especially when it's played by a live band.

Today comes with the sad news that the BBC Big Band has had had it's funding cut by a lot - the regular Radio 2 show 'Big Band Special' will no longer be aired, and their studio recording sessions have been cut by 80%.




And Sing Sing Sing:

I hope you agree with me that this band is worth saving!

This is the church I used to go to when I was little. Its construction began in around 1310 but there has been a church on this site since the late 600s AD. One of the vicars died of the plague in the 1300s and another was ejected in 1660 during the restoration of the monarchy.

There is a small wooded area next to the church in the grounds of what used to be a manor house (built in the 1840s) but which has now been converted into apartments.

I love living in an area with so much history and there's so much more of it to photograph.

In a short while I'm off for my induction day for my new university course.




I've also realised that I passed my first year of blogging at the beginning of August and I didn't even think about it! I'm more looking forward to Christmas time when I can say that I've been blogging for one full year, January to December. In the time I've been blogging I hope that my blogging has improved in quality; I think on the whole my photos tend to be better than they were when I started and I think my little digital snap camera does a pretty good job considering it's not one of the lovely DSLRs that I know a lot of bloggers use.

I started blogging as a means of keeping more in touch with the vintage community and helping to grow and improve my own vintage style. I really think this has helped my wardrobe evolve over time to a point where I'm really beginning to feel happy with my look and I'm more comfortable than ever with myself.

So with that, I'd like to thank you for visiting my little corner of the internet and keeping me inspired. See you all on Friday for a little book review.

As I write this I'm looking out of the window at the rain that's arrived this morning - as you'll see from these pictures, the weather was rather lovely for us yesterday when we (that is, myself, my brother and two of his flatmates) headed to Matlock Bath in Derbyshire for a day out.

Matlock Bath is an old Spa town, where Victorians would go to "take the waters". It's mentioned in a lot of literature of the time as a fashionable place for people to visit. It was visited by Queen Victoria and has a lot of history attached. For Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee in 1897, a parade of illuminated boats was held on the river and this has continued annually to the present day. Nowadays the boats are lit with electric lights, but the first boat is still lit with candles in keeping with the history of the Illuminations. If you've never seen anything like this before, I'd recommend watching the video of some of the boats from 2011, it's quite amazing.


Most of the shops in the town are touristy souvenir shops, cafés and amusement arcades, and there is also an aquarium and a petrifying well. It's remained a "seaside" town in spirit for us Midlands folk who are hours away from the nearest beach.