Girl In The Pretty Dress

I am a self confessed bargain-hunter. I like nothing better than shopping the sales - so when Long Tall Sally took an extra 20% off their sale stock a couple of weeks ago, I was helpless to resist! It may well have been the first day of Spring recently, but Winter hasn't shaken it's grip on my part of the world just yet. I have a feeling I'll be getting a lot of wear out of these pieces over the next few weeks. The wool wrap jacket is exceptionally cosy with the perfect sleeve length. The fairisle print jumper may look a little out of season elsewhere in the world but with this lovely English weather behaving the way it is, it didn't feel it. The black jeggings are an old faithful pair (if a little faded now) also from Long Tall Sally - in fact I think they were my first ever purchase from the original LTS Manchester store (you can read my review of the new store here ). The boots are another sale bargain - from F&F . Sadly these exact ones are no longer in...

Last month we had a short family trip up to Scotland - back to my favourite area on the west coast. We'd decided to travel with 3 dogs in tow so were limited on options for where to stay but struck it lucky with a beautiful rented cottage on the Ardmaddy Estate . We weren't quite so lucky with the weather (having arrived in the lead up to 'Storm Desmond') but we made the most of the few moments that the sunshine managed to break through the clouds. The Ardmaddy estate is only a few miles from the Isle of Seil - which gave us the perfect opportunity to explore this ruggedly beautiful island.

Self-shooting is hard. Sometimes, for whatever reason, it just doesn't come together like you hoped it would. This is one of those times... I struggled with the exposure and focus on all these images, but I'm taking comfort in the fact that in the 1950s all the images of actresses were in shot in soft focus, on purpose. It was considered flattering. Today people expect more and more of the images they consume. Well... here's hoping you find this nostalgic and not annoying... I've been investigating and investing in more and more tall clothing recently. This super snuggly cardigan is from New Look's Tall range (via ASOS). Unfortunately it came out a little oddly coloured in each image - the close up (5th image down) gives a more accurate idea of the colour and material. But the tall item I love most at the moment has to be my long length skinny jeans from M&S (the unsung hero of many an outfit of mine). In addition to being tall, I'm also pear shaped - ...

Jumper Dress: F&F | Leggings: Topshop Tall | Boots: Debenhams | Mittens: Next This time last year I wrote about my ' 14 for 2014 '. I've never been one for resolutions, but I'd suddenly found myself with a lot of spare time on my hands and it seemed like a good way to organise my spare time into something more productive and enjoyable. So far so good-intentioned... I started as I meant to go on with Number 1: Blog more - and managed to do this for the first few weeks. Then in March something rather wonderful and unexpected happened... I got a promotion at work. And all of a sudden my spare time started to shrink. So number 1 had to be re-assessed whilst I adjusted to my workload. A few of the other numbers were also neglected whilst I was enjoying my new role, so this year I've decided not to make new resolutions, I'm just going to carry some forward: 1) Blog more 2) Keep a Journal 4) Get back in the saddle and go...

Before I sat down to do this post, I didn't actually know what Bouclé meant. I knew what a Bouclé jacket looked like of course - but not what specifically made it that. Turns out it's not the cut or the style, but the yarn (or, as Wikipedia called it the 'novelty yarn'). Anyway the point is, that yarn is a lot warmer than you might expect, I was pretty toasty when taking these photos. Jacket: Miss Selfridge (similar here ) Top: F&F (buy it here ) Longer-length Jeggings: Marks and Spencer  ( indigo ) Boots: Primark Statement Necklace: via Luan Matthews

This has got to be one of my favourite places in the world, and only a few minutes drive from where I live. Though strangely, I don't visit it that much. It's such a spectacular view that I think if I went too often, I'd stop appreciating it as much.  But every now and again I'll just jump in the car and go. Luckily, this time around I had my sister with me who very kindly took these photos - it was so windy I think the tripod would have blown over if I'd tried to self-shoot!  Coat: George at Asda | Jeggings: Marks and Spencer | Boots: Debenhams Quilted Jumper:  ASOS Bag: Aldo