What a perfect day!

Sorry it's been a while - I've been up in Norfolk with my folks for a week - doing a bit shopping with my Mum, celebrating my Dad's birthday, having my hair coloured for a quid - my nephew's girlfriend is training to be a hairdresser and she needed a willing volunteer for one of her college assessments. The colour's great, but she omitted to tell me that the other assessment she needed to cover was the "all-over use of curling tongs", hence I came out looking like an ageing Shirley Temple.  And yes, there are photos, and no you're not seeing them.  I had a day with my sister too,  at her patchwork group and then a mooch round the shops to buy a few threads, and ribbons, a bit of fabric - oh and a new sewing machine. All the usual stuff.

But I'm back now, had a couple of days at work, followed by an evening at Leyton Orient.  I know you're not at all interested, and neither am I normally, but I think it only fair to mention that they won FIVE-Nil on Tuesday.  Even I got mildly excited.

But not nearly as excited as I got today.

It started well, and I met my friend Val and we went up to town to go here again ...

Yes, it's my third visit to the  Fashion and Textile Museum in Bermondsey, and I still noticed things I hadn't seen before. 

In addition to the Foale and Tuffin exhibition,  there was another small exhibition about Debbie Moore, the former model who founded the Pineapple Dance Studios.  We watched a video about her - apparently she was born in Manchester, but I think she must have been to elocution lessons, because she spoke with a very clipped and posh accent.  In fact she was interviewed by a young Lynda Lee Potter, and it sounded as if they'd both been sent to the same Finishing School.  I think that was the only way you got on the television in those days.  There were examples of the Pineapple range of clothing too, lots of stretch animal prints.  And no, I wasn't tempted to buy - I think my leopardskin catsuits days are over.  The videos of the aerobics classes made us smile - rows of dancers exercising in shiny coloured lycra, with highlighted perms and heavy make up - and the women were just as bad!

Having left the exhibition we headed to a wool shop near Waterloo Station, and decided that we'd walk, rather than catching the tube.  You find places you'd just never know about otherwise.  Like this lovely cake shop- Konditor & Cook  - they had masses of delicious looking cakes, and some really pretty ones like this....

 and these (which remind me of a game called Misfits that I had as a kid)

Val bought a couple of slices of cake for the men in her life, but I resisted, partly because I haven't got a man to buy cake for, and partly because I ought to be watching my weight, just in case I change my mind about the leopardskin cat suit.

Then, we'd almost got to the wool shop when we passed a great looking vintage store called Radio Days

I said to Val, "Can we just pop in here for a look"  It was brilliant - loads of clothes, accessories, vintage magazines, books, music, jewellery, ceramics and other collectables from the 1920's to 1970's.  I could have spent hours in there, but I did buy this lovely bit of pink vintage bling ...

You can never have too many sparkly brooches.

Then we dragged ourselves away, and finally got to the wool shop  I Knit London.  I bought some Jelly Yarn (plastic knitting yarn) in Shocking Pink, to knit a flower pot cover, like you do.   Val spent several hours (I kid you not) drooling and choosing, and particularly sorting through a large barrel of yarn, while I happily flicked through knitting books.  She bought lots of yarn, needles and other essentials, and whilst I'm not prepared to reveal the exact sum she spent, suffice it to say that the slice of cake she intends to present to her husband seems a rather meagre offering by comparison.

So, I got home, having had a lovely day, and popped in to check my emails, and had some very exciting news.  I've won a beautiful set of TG Green Mugs in a giveaway on DogDaisyChain's Blog.  What a perfect end to a perfect day.