Look carefully - this is a picture of a UK school-teacher

She has a first degree in astro-physics, is partway through a masters degree and has recently completed a PGCE ( post graduate certificate in education) in the UK. An American citizen, she currently teaches physics at a London school where she also runs the astronomy club among other things. She also happens to be a close friend (!) of Number One son.

She recently wrote this comment on her Facebook page - best argument I've heard for ages for such a sorely very underrated and under appreciated job. What do you think?

"Teachers' hefty salaries are driving up taxes, and they only work 9 or 10 months a year! It's time we put things in perspective and pay them for what they do - babysit! We can get that for minimum wage. That's right. Let's give them £6.08 an hour and only the hours they worked; not any of that silly planning time, or the hours they spend before or after school. That would be £39.52 a day (8:30 to 3:45pm with 45 min. off for lunch that equals 6 1/2 hours). Each parent should pay £39.52 a day for these teachers to baby-sit their children. Now how many students do they teach in a day, maybe 30? So that's £39.52 x 30 = £1185.60 a day. However, remember they only work 180 days a year!!! I am not going to pay them for any vacations. LET'S SEE.... that's £1185.60 x 180 = £213,408 per year. (Hold on! My calculator needs new batteries.) Wait a minute -- there's something wrong here! There sure is! The average teacher's salary (nation wide) is £32,000. £32,000/180 days = £177.77/per day/30 students=£5.92/6.5 hours = £0.91 per hour per student--a very inexpensive "baby-sitter" and they even EDUCATE your kids!' WHAT A DEAL!!!! Make a teacher smile; re-post this to show appreciation for teachers. Easy! :) "

Frock Me! Fun and Christmas Goodwill

A Christmas Elf

Frocking it!

A more soberly styled lady visitor of a certain age...

What about this mid-century table with integral sewing machine

- yours for £270!

Queuing to post Christmas cards and parcels 

- made sweeter in our lovely little high street PO

And an apology about my 200th post Giveaway. I messed up the links and people have been confused about which post to comment on to take part. My mind has mostly been on other (family) things and I haven't been concentrating - so please bear with!

I think the easiest thing is to re-run the Giveaway with the couple of extra things as promised, but I will keep a note of those who actually left comments on the original post to make sure you are definitely included. I shall do the re-run in a few days so keep watching.

Vintage Fairs, Recycled Vintage, and Giveaway Reminder

Anita's Vintage Fashion Fair Battersea

These are a few photos of my stand at Anita's fair last Sunday. It's held in Battersea Arts Centre known as The BAC, and which is actually the beautiful Battersea Old Town Hall.

Vintage accessories

All that glitters is not gold - but gloves!

Old and worn waxed jackets recycled to new fashion by Recycle and Sew

Look at that lining!

Also at Anita's fair giving sewing, repair and alteration advice, was Recycle and Sew run by mother and daughter tutors, June Allnutt and Ria Loveridge who are both qualified and experienced in textiles and costume making. Do check out their website here  for information about an extensive and exciting range of classes for individuals and groups. As well as sewing lessons for beginners to advanced, they offer intensive day courses on corset-making, bridal and couture, repairing precious vintage items and alterations. 

Two very stylish regular customers

Still time to enter my Giveaway - here

I shall also be adding another bit of bling or crafting materials for the winner to choose. Good luck!

I shall be at Frock Me! Chelsea on Sunday 

I can send out free tickets to any readers. Please email at mcgemmell@elegancemaison.com if you can't print out this one shown above.

Christmas stockings and Debenham's Beauty Card

M&S comes up trumps for treats for tiny people

Ho Ho Ho - traditional fun for a faraway Christmas

Fair trade stocking fillers

A lovely treasure trove of a shop

The India Shop is a wonderful place stocked with entirely Fair Trade goods made by disadvantaged people in India. The array of charmingly hand-made Christmas decorations is so beautiful and really inexpensive.  The Christmas tree decoration in a variety of colours and themes are only £2.99 each and the red bauble with a gold leaping reindeer only £1.99. These, plus all the other items, are destined for Australia. The sparkly 'jewelled' butterfly notebook and pen will be gathered into the cotton printed pouch which only cost £1. Perfect for our granddaughter. This shop, far from charging for bags, puts all purchases into handmade recycled newspaper bags. The larger ones can easily be re-used again. Do have a look on their website if you live in the UK, but if one of their shops is in your town you will probably already know it well. Though all I bought was a small selection, I was offered a free bag - see the pink mesh one in the photo below.

Sugar mice for Granddaughter, 
'Handbag chocolate' for her mum

from our local Chocolate Shop

Gratuitous self-gifting with Debenham's Beauty Club

If you have a Debenham's department store near you or go on-line, I urge you to join their Beauty Club. It is free to join and offers terrific savings collecting points for purchases which are redeemed as multiples of £5 vouchers. The best time to buy is like now when they are having one of their, increasingly frequent, 10% off all areas promotions. They often increase the points giveaway at the same time. 

And talking of Giveaways - don't forget mine, here. It is quite modest but I shall add some extra items depending on whether the winner is mainly a crafter or a fashionista, I'll let the winner choose. As I am quite busy for the next few days I have decided to extend the deadline to midnight GMT on Friday 25th November. 

Tomorrow, Sunday 20th November I shall be exhibiting at Anita's Vintage Fashion Fair in Battersea, London. I shall try to remember to take photos to show you!

My Potato Peeler (for MMMC) and Laura Ashley Bargains

Wiggly pointy peeler

Peeler in action on dead carrot from bottom of veg basket

My lovely Aussie Blog-Pal Make mine Mid-Century recently showed her favourite peeler but I just can't get on with that type, though a lot of people I know also swear by it. I just can't manage all that scraping in the wrong direction. I promised her that I would show a pic of my trusty peeler - useful for all sorts of veg and perfect for shaving Parmesan cheese. I prefer this one as it doesn't swivel, it just wiggles so it follows the contours of even the most knobbly veg. I also find it much more accurately manageable like a pencil rather than a brush if you see what I mean. I wonder what you find the best/easiest to use?

Right, chores done, let's look at fashion bargains! From the Laura Ashley sale rail...

Retro print jersey dress

Very flattering and just needs a long-sleeved T-shirt underneath plus tights and knee-length boots, to make a smart but cosy autumn/winter outfit. 

Fine needlecord long-sleeved dress with pockets!

Won't need the T-shirt with this, just tights and boots as before. Though fashionistas living in the frozen north ( or the south if we also get the forecast big freeze) could add a thermal vest underneath.

The main reason for posting about these dresses is that I bought them from the reduced rail but one dress had a massive reduction and the other only a modest one. Though grateful, I did query the calculations, but apparently it was correct. But hooray for Google. Later that evening I went to Laura Ashley website and found that the blue cord dress had indeed been reduced in line with the other one. So I duly trotted back to the store and queried the price again. I found that the cord dress was part of a new special offer that had only started effectively the day after I had shopped. So I went through an instant 'return' and re-purchase to collect a sizeable refund. Well worth being a sharp-eyed shopper these days. 

New Look coloured tights £2.99

Although I love black opaque tights for their slimming and flattering qualities as well as the warmth, coloured tights are very 'in' this season. And great fun too. The best range on the (my) High Street is definitely those from New Look. You could even go matchy matchy with a coloured T-shirt under a short sleeved dress or woolly tunic. Like I almost did here - if only you could see my legs!

Sunday Lunch at The Sun Inn, Barnes, South West London

Delicious fig, goat's cheese, pecan nuts and butternut squash in a Wensleydale cheese pastry tart. Topped with crispy cabbage ( like Chinese 'seaweed'), yum. If you look carefully to my right you can see England footballer Frank Lampard and his fiancee Christine Bleakley (UK fame only), who were sitting at the next table. Both looking much prettier in real life than on-screen. But I only had eyes for Number One son and his lovely girl-friend who were treating me. 

PS added Friday 18/11/11: For kind followers enquiring about mother, she is doing well though slowly and the problems are still manifest. Thankfully we are promised that she is now top of the list for a transfer back to the specialist unit in our home town, which will save the five hour round trip we currently have to make to visit her. But absolutely no complaints about the fantastic, and almost one to one care she is receiving from the dedicated medical team. xxx

200th Post Giveaway from Ikea - and a bit of Bling

Ikea on wheels

This van visited our town a few days ago to promote the Southampton Ikea store. A young man and woman jumped out  carrying gifts which they distributed to passersby and inside the coffee shop I was sitting in. The young man handed out orange flowers to us, " ladies" while the young lady went across the street to offer chocolates to, " the men".  Mmmn. What sort of market research did Ikea do to come up with that scenario? Much as I lusted after the chocolates, I have to admit that the flower is quite pretty. Though what on earth should I do with one lone orange Michaelmas daisy? Perhaps a crafty blogger could find a use for it?

Rather beautiful faux dahlia (?)

I know that many of my creative followers can turn the most mundane objects and into the most amazing things. So would one of you like this flower? Or it could stay as is and add finishing touch to a modernist interior in a simple single stem vase. It's actually quite tactile and delightful to handle, constructed from a sort of plush fabric.  Oh dear I may have to keep it after all!

Prefer a bit of bling in a ring?

This a sweet, adjustable, cocktail ring that I bought from East a couple of years ago, but it's become the wallflower (!) of my costume ring collection as it never seems quite right for whatever outfit I'm wearing. It is a bronze coloured open band decorated with a handsome large striated faux stone on one finial and on the other, a bouquet of prettily sparkling faux precious stones: 'ruby', 'citrine' and 'diamonds'. So I will put them both together for my Giveaway to celebrate my 200th blog post.

Flower Power 

This Giveaway is open to all and any of my followers, new or longstanding, wherever in the world that you live. If you would like to enter the draw please leave a comment below. The closing date is 12noon GMT next Sunday 20th November. Good luck!

11 November - a day like any other

Sunset over the derelict Birnbeck Pier in the Bristol Channel, yesterday

Armistice Day is also my brother's birthday. On a visit to my mother in a distant hospital unit yesterday, I took a card for her to send him. She wrote a long message then sealed the envelope before handing it back to me for 'posting'. I delivered it by hand last night. Neither will thank me. He because he has forsaken me for some unknown reason, and my mother because she has lost touch with me in her mind. I have my lovely memories, I hope she has some real ones to comfort her.

"The glamour 

Of childish days is upon me, my manhood is cast

Down in the flood of remembrance, I weep like a child for my past."

DH Lawrence, 1918

Shop4Kids Australia - Shameless Granny Boast

Yes - that's our own Aussie granddaughter, Amelia!

Surf's Up! 

Photo-shoot on Palm Beach - the location for 'Home And Away'

(Copyright acknowledgement - these are the Target advertisement pages from the current issue of Shop4Kids magazine in Australia.)

Our dear sweet granddaughter has now taken part in a couple of fashion 'shoots' but her considered opinion is that it is 'boring' - sensible girl!

These pictures brought us such happiness and cheered us up while we keep watch over her great-grandmother whose health is still a cause for concern. Thank you all so much, yet again, for all the kind thoughts and comments on my last post. It is a trying time, but we have great hopes. 

Mare, mer and mere - leaving on the tide

Incoming afternoon tide at Weston Super Mare yesterday

'Mare' from the Latin for sea, 'super mare' being similar to 'sur mer' as incorporated in many French coastal town names, meaning 'on' or beside the sea. And this brings me to my dear mother, ma 'mere', who is now in a hospital near here. 

Hoping and wishing that the tide turns in her favour very soon.