Although I've been mostly absent from re-enactment for a long while due to other commitments and mixed feelings about the scene, I did manage to attend the Easter 1940s re-enactment at Crich Tramway museum. Crich is probably my favourite of all the events I've attended, and I'm usually fortunate to run into Tony Fletcher, who is a photographer regular readers of Lovebirds Vintage are probably familiar with as he has worked with me many times in the past. He took some wonderful photos at the museum and it was hard to restrict myself to just the pictures I'm sharing here... you can see the rest along with photos of other attendees in this album of Tony's. I hope you enjoy the pictures!

Continuing on from my last post, here are the other vintage shops I visited in Haworth.

The Souk
117 Main Street
Haworth
West Yorkshire
BD22 8DP



The Souk is such an interesting shop to look round - it's jam packed with things from all eras including clothes, accessories and shoes for both men and women. The prices seemed very fair but unfortunately I was not able to find much at all which was both in my size and from the decades I prefer. I spent a long time browsing inside and really enjoyed looking at the wealth of items on offer (photography was not allowed but you can view their website here). The only downside from my point of view is that I often find these kinds of shops with so much stock to be a bit overwhelming - but if you're happy to spend some time having a good look around then there is sure to be something for you.

Sue Ryder Vintage and Retro
35 Bridgehouse Lane
Haworth
West Yorkshire
BD22 8QE





Although vintage finds at charity shops are becoming few and far between, many charity shops now own specific vintage shops where all of the vintage items that are donated end up. On this occasion I found mostly "retro" items from high street shops, but I've turned up gems in this kind of shop before so definitely worth a look if you're in the area.

Honourable Mention:
Oh La La Vintage
38 Main Street
Haworth
West Yorkshire
BD22 8DA



Unfortunately we visited Haworth on a day when Oh La La Vintage was closed - I was so disappointed because I looked in the window and saw lots of beautiful things. I'll make sure to visit if I visit Haworth again.

You can find Oh La La's website here and Facebook here.

While we were on holiday, we were staying just outside Haworth where the Bronte sisters lived and did most of their writing. It's also the home of the Haworth 1940s weekend which I've yet to attend, but I do hope to make it to the Haworth Steampunk weekend in November. Of particular interest however, is that Haworth, like several of the other places we visited on holiday, has several vintage shops that I made sure to investigate. I took lots of photos inside Rose and Co. because it's so beautiful. I've dedicated this post to Rose and Co. by itself to avoid the post getting too long, but I will share some photos and information from the other vintage shops I visited in another post soon.

Rose and Co. Apothecary 
84 Main Street
Haworth
West Yorkshire
BD22 8DP






















*apologies for that last blurry photo, the little lady was too pretty not to share!

Rose and Co. Apothecary is housed in the original apothecary where Branwell Bronte purchased opium. The shop décor is in keeping with the apothecary theme and there are lots of interesting things to look at such as posters advertising for old products (think along the lines of Pears soap, Cadbury cocoa, etc), antique shop fittings, and beautiful old packets and bottles. The apothecary section of the shops sells bath and body products such as soaps, hand creams, and perfumes. In the back of the shop is a clothing boutique selling items from brands such as Lindy Bop, Vivien of Holloway, Banned, Freddies of Pinewood, and Stop Staring, as well as lingerie and beauty products.

This was one of my favourite shops to visit, and well worth looking into if you wear any reproduction vintage garments.

Rose and Co. have a website which you can find here and you can also keep up with them on Twitter and Facebook.

If you'd like to see similar posts featuring vintage shopping elsewhere in the UK, please click here.

Last week I went on holiday with my family to West Yorkshire. Although my brother and I are in our 20s, we still like to go on holiday as a family whilst we're all living within reasonable driving distance of each other, and this time we chose Yorkshire because it would be easy for my brother to travel to and from his flat in Leeds as he only had a few days to spare in between having to work.







Unfortunately, although the weather was lovely on the day of our arrival, it basically sucked the rest of the week. We had rain, unseasonably cold temperatures and very high winds, with the result that I could barely be separated from my ever-so-glamourous cagoule for the duration.



See? Gorgeous.

Underneath the cagoule I kept it super easy with Freddies and cardigans.

I always think how lucky I am to live where I do - I'm about a 15-20 minute drive from the nearest town, but also only a short walk from a lot of agricultural land. When I happened upon these yellow flowers (buttercups?) I knew I would have to come back to take some photos. I didn't stay long but I grabbed a few snaps - perhaps I will manage to go back and get some more photos before the end of the summer.

Today I went with my parents to a local nature reserve to scout out a small pond where you're allowed to go pond dipping. I wore my new favourite shoes, these awesome jelly sandals - or jellyfish shoes as I usually call them, which I think comes from this book which I read as a child. Of course they're not vintage style at all (unless you count 90s as vintage) , and I don't normally buy modern things that aren't vintage appropriate, but I had an idea in my head of how they'd look paired with a 1950s dress and socks. I'm pretty happy with the look although I have worn the same shoes with other 50s dresses and I think I actually have other dresses which look even better with the shoes. I'll be wearing them all summer anyway, as I like to have a cheap pair of shoes to wear over the summer which go with everything and don't matter if they get messed up. Last year it was these blue lace-ups which I wore until they fell apart.

The socks I'm wearing were a Christmas present from my mum and I've been saving them to wear in the summer because they are too cute to be hidden away underneath trousers and winter shoes. Hopefully you can tell from the picture that the pattern is of some cute little sheep.

I've been really busy recently with a lot of things that caused me to take a bit of a step back from blogging etc, so I really wanted to just check in and share a few things. The majority of my time has been taken up with finishing off the last few hours of my research assistant job (which I've been doing since March or so this year) and the remainder with volunteering, my weekend job, and a couple of trips away. Between everything that's been happening, I've had very little worth sharing on my blog because I don't generally wear vintage or vintage styles for work. For my RA work and volunteering, I like to choose outfits that are comfortable and easy to move around in, and which I wouldn't be heartbroken about if they were to get dirty or damaged. For my weekend job, I mostly wear modern workwear, even though the company I work for is quite happy for me to dress in a vintage style. I actually used to wear vintage for work a lot when I first started, but I had a lot of modern workwear that I otherwise wouldn't wear, and I've found over time that I prefer to dress in a modern style for work because it allows me to be a bit more lazy about things - for example I almost always wear my hair straight for work, and usually tied up in a basic ponytail.





The next few weeks I have some "time off" before getting back in the lab, but a lot of my time will be taken up with job and PhD applications. I am excited for the next phase of my life to start but I'm finding it tough not knowing what will be happening for me over the upcoming months.

I've been trying to dress in a vintage style in my limited time off, but I've been drawn a lot to casual low maintenance looks and I've mostly been leaving my dresses in the wardrobe. My Freddies have been getting a lot of mileage recently as they're so easy to throw on but still look polished and put together. These blue ones seem to be a bit shorter in the leg than my grey ones and don't have such a good turn-up if I just turn them up to my ankle, so I like to roll them a bit higher up my legs instead.





For this outfit I'm also wearing one of my favourite t-shirts (I have a small collection of Bowie t-shirts; I'm a huge fan) and a coat which I stole from my brother, but which I think he won't be getting back! It's just the perfect finishing touch for this outfit. I am all over the teddy girl vibes the coat lends. I really want to try this same outfit with a men's white button down.



It's a long time since I wore anything deliberately teddy girl inspired but I've been meaning for ages to revisit it on a more regular basis. The other teddy girl outfit that I blogged back in 2013 remains one of my most viewed outfit posts, and I know several other vintage bloggers have done similar outfit posts, so I'm always surprised that the look doesn't crop up more often.

The coat, by the way, is totally necessary at the moment because the weather here is rubbish recently. Cold, wet, and really windy. We're supposed to be getting some better weather over the next few weeks though, so fingers crossed!