At the end of November last year, I was lucky enough to attend the Country & Town House Future Icons awards at the very lovely Mandarin Oriental in Mayfair. If you ever get a chance to head into the Mandarin Oriental at Christmas, do. It’s like a magical fairytale inside all decked out and sparkly. Beautiful!

Anyway, I arrived in London a bit early and decided to take a wander through the floors of Harvey Nichols across the road. I tend not to go into high end department stores or designer clothes shops as they put the fear of God in me (and my bank account) but it was there and I had time. I feel more practised these days too, as over the past few years I have had a private tour of Selfridge’s circular economy offerings, been through the archives section in Libertys and had meetings in the boardroom of Fortnum & Mason. So really, it’s just Harrods left and I will have completed the London high end department store experiences!

Harvey Nics is lovely and I was immediately drawn to a rail that had garments made from repurposed denim (so more work research than anything else) and one skirt in particular. It had clearly been made from a pair of jeans with some well-placed godets to create a new shape and some very cool lines. Weirdly this designer had decided to chop off the waistband and didn’t hem it. Not my choice but it’s ‘designer’. It also cost £450. Yikes – quite a bit outside of my denim skirt budget – the last one I bought was £7 from a local charity shop!

But the skirt nagged at my brain and with a few pairs of jeans sitting in my sewing room, I knew I had to at least have a go. I started this project before Christmas and finally finished it this week. I opted to keep the waistband, hem the skirt and couldn’t for the life of me find the thicker topstitching thread to create the same lines but I love the fan godet and couldn’t resist adding the flowers! It’s not floor length and don’t look too closely at the finishing inside but I love it and more than that will forever be thankful I can sew and make something new out of old and will (much to COD’s dismay) continue to stockpile old jeans for new projects!

In other news:

• On a recent work trip, I managed to have pretty much everything go wrong. The work part was great but here’s all the things that preceded and succeded the symposium itself:
  • I took the train to Gatwick airport, only to realise my flight left from Heathrow. WTF? Who goes to the wrong airport? I booked the flights and the train. I can’t even blame anyone else. (a quick driving Uber man got me to Heathrow on time – thank goodness)
  • Arrived in Zurich at 8:15pm with a loooong customs queue. A message from my accommodation reminded me I had to check in before 9pm. Cue many messages back and forth (and mild panic about sleeping on pavements) and it turned out I could still get into the apartment after 9pm.
  • Got to the apartment (great public transport navigation there ROD) and set about charging the various items requiring charging. Discovered Switzerland has its very own plugs meaning my useful EU plugs wouldn’t work. Thank heavens for a battery pack…….
  • Woke up and headed out to buy a Swiss adapter. Located store and bought said adapter. Walking back, I walked on the roadside of a tram stop and managed to get knocked on the head by the wing mirror of a tram. Luckily it just brushed my head although there were lots of ‘ooooh’s’ from those who saw and heard what happened. Cue huge embarrassment.
  • After the symposium, I had a drink in the hotel bar with others and then headed to the airport with a lovely lady I met at the event. We had loads of time and were both starving so headed for a burger and about 20 mins before the gate was due to close headed for the plane. Only to discover we were miles from the gate and had to get through another passport control point en route. Cue much running along the concourse and just about joining the back of the queue for the plane.
  • Discovered I needed a ‘blue stamp’ to get on the plane. This involved another counter (luckily right there) to have a further passport check and get a piece of cardboard with a blue stamp! We got on the plane…..
  • Landed at Heathrow. Now, I knew that I wouldn’t be able to make the ferry home so had booked a hotel BUT of course that booked hotel was at Gatwick where I clearly had thought my flights went out of and in to! Got on the bus to Gatwick.
  • Finally got to my hotel at midnight. At this point things looked up as a – I got upgraded to a deluxe King suite and b – there was a huge bath in the bathroom. At this point, nothing filled me with more joy than a midnight bubble bath!
  • Woke up late, faffed about and eventually headed for breakfast (which I prepaid for) and arrived at brekkie at 10:32am only to be told breakfast ended at 10:30am. Fuck, could anything else go wrong? I was allowed a quick bowl of yoghurt and granola but by the time I had finished that, everything had been cleared away.
  • Got on the train and went home. Felt mostly stupid.
• All hopes of running the Brighton marathon have been dashed by an ankle injury that won’t get better. Lots of time and money spent on physio now in the hopes that it will be fixed enough for to start training for Marathon Du Medoc. Training needs to start in April latest….. Luckily, as Marathon Du Medoc requires drinking training as well as running training, I can confirm drinking traiinng is going well to date.
• This not working thing is interesting. It is both freeing and exceedingly boring. I don’t think I am very good at it and am popping my sticky fingers into all sorts of different opportunities. Lunching with friends, sewing, blogging, cooking and going to school things all seem to be filling my days. Along with some speaking gigs, conferencing and the occassional job interview.
• I did have a massage this week though. Perhaps I am getting a bit better at chilling…..?
• Excitingly, I am going to attempt to make LOD’s prom dress. Think Kate Hudson in the yellow dress at the end of How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days! I mean, how wrong can that go?????