Personally I would call this orange snake print shirt, a python (print) shirt. But not everybody knows which snake they are after. And perhaps I am wrong thinking it is python. No doubt my friend Lisa (The Sequinist) will set me right as she knows these things.

You saw me with this shirt when I was shopping with my friends Sabine and Anke. Of course it looks fab with jeans, but I wanted to style it more elegantly as well. Ta-raa, this is what I came up with: a pair of wool black trousers …earth shattering (NOT). The trousers are Max Mara, a find at the outlet in Turin. Very high quality. I think they look even better with pumps as then you see a bit of skin at the bottom of the leg, but it is still winter, so boots it is.

Kitty and I went to a little park in Haarlem where the mansion Huis te Zaanen is located. Very pretty.

Below: The front of the house.

Below: And the back of the house.

Below: As we walked through the park, I wore my orange coat. It so brightens up the day. Much more than safe black.

Below: The house was closed as it is only open for events and we didn’t book, now did we? But I tried the little gate and it opened.

Below: Trespassing…… At the entrance, still in my warm coat.

Below: Of course the coat came off.

Below: My hair is behaving so well which pleases me no end. I found new hair gel and it is great! It helps a lot that my hair is also extremely well cut. The belt is made by my cobbler. I gave him two old ones. He used the shape of belt number one and the buckle of belt number two to create this one. Such a clever lad.

Below: The shirt is tucked in at the front and left long at the back. A very good way of styling for my body shape (inverted triangle).

Below: Hmm, the trousers ride up when I sit down, revealing the skin which I thought would look good haha.

Below: Going round to the side of the house. Steps always make a nice background.

Below: Trying to warm my nose by breathing hot air into my hands.

Below: Tiptoeing to the back of the house, hoping nobody is in.

Below: Details…close-up of the bag. Brand: Longchamps

Below: My Kendall & Kylie boots.

Below: This little handy loop isn’t very handy when your trousers get stuck behind it. I decided to not be bothered by it.

Over to Kitty.

Below: Kitty with a new skirt and new jacket. Lovely bright colours.

Below: Kitty has a tiny waist.

Below: There is a little bow at the back of the jacket. She was also wearing her new boots.

Below: Spring is just around the corner: crocuses and snowdrops.

What happened in my life this week

Saturday was a hoot. My stepdaughter Nicky and her boyfriend Randolf wanted to celebrate our 25th wedding anniversary (which was the next day-Sunday). I only count how many years we are together (31). Going with Ron’s suggestion we dined at a sort of burlesque restaurant, preceded by a drink in a café. You are going to love these photos…

First question of course was: WHAT TO WEAR? I have considered hiring a wedding dress as I didn’t have one on my wedding day (still frustrated about that). But the weather was awful and Ron would not have appreciated it. We had to go by public transport and do some walking, so dresses and high heels were no option.

Below: Nicky suggested I’d wear this blouse by A.R.R.T and I added my leather jogging trousers. You can see by my face I was in doubt.

Below: that is better: the blouse tucked in at the front. In reality I had the blouse out a bit more, covering the elastic waist band. You can have a better look at the trousers in my post with a yellow jumper and with a lime shirt.

Below: while walking I wore my hairy flat boots. But I did schlepp my high heels with me. Ron thought that was utter madness as my feet would be under a table most of the time. Cannot help it, heels make me feel better.

The dog sitter arrived and off we went, meeting Nicky and Randolf at the Amsterdam Central Station. From there we walked to the café which is in the red-light district (oh la la).

Below: anniversary gift from Nicky and Randolf. Everything silver: champagne, heart-shaped chocolates, the box and crystal champagne glasses. So nice. We unpacked it in the café where they treated us to drinks as well.

Below: restaurant/theatre: Casablanca also in the red-light district of Amsterdam. Here we are, the four of us.

Below: it is hard to get Ron to smile on command, especially when I am all lovey dovey haha.

The dinner was surprisingly good. The menu was extensive and the food was really tasty. Hadn’t expected that, given our previous burlesque restaurant/theatre experience in Paris a couple of years ago (bad food/great performance).

Below: the theatre was tiny and we were only with 8 people (including us).

Below: Statler and Waldorf from the muppets were present as well.

The performing artist was Miss Molly Strychnine and he was great. He could actually sing. Usually transvestite acts are play-backed, but he really sang the songs and very well too. He was funny, entertaining and gave it his all, not minding it a bit there were only 8 people in the room. (The next day the restaurant was packed with 100 people.)

Below: Here you see Miss Molly in four costumes. The dress was layered and one by one the layers fell to the ground.

Below: Miss Molly took a shine to Ron and sat with him for a short while after the performance.

It was a bloody great evening.

Sunday: very quiet. Did the laundry and went to the hairdresser.

Monday: quiet day at work, nothing special.

Tuesday: visit to the cobbler as I had a lot of repair work to pick up. At the end of the day my team (the one I left) had an outing and we dined in Amsterdam. It was good fun. Because of my knee and because the dinner would end in the evening, I went by car. Parked it for an enormous fee on one of the canals and had 15 minutes left to visit Young Designers United (YDU) at Keizersgracht. Usually it is like a candy box for me, but this time they had mostly pastel and camel coloured clothes which are not my colours. I would probably have found something anyway as I am terrible, but the 15 minutes before closing time saved me.

Wednesday: visit to a piercing shop to check how my earlobes are healing. They look pretty good but the back of my right earlobe could do with another month of healing. Pity but I will be a good girl and wait.

In the evening my IT-guy came round because 98 records had disappeared from my iTunes library. Unfortunately we could not see what caused it but he did find a fault in iTunes which he corrected and it will prevent this from happening again in the future. It is the second time I lost music from my iTunes library. The first time we could retrieve the records from a back-up. This time no such luck. One more time and I will abandon it and subscribe to Spotify. Only Spotify costs money, so I don’t want to.

Life has become rather expensive with all the possibilities the internet offers. Subscription to internet access at home, subscription to internet access on your phone, subscription to Netflix, subscription to Spotify. Of course I can choose to not have any subscription but I would miss out on a lot and be the odd one out. Also, some things cannot be stopped. Like for instance internet banking. It won’t be long and it will be the only way of banking left. What if you would never have been on the internet?

People who are poor and cannot afford computers or internet are really poor. Even if they have a roof over their head and enough food, the relative poverty of this really gives them severe mental blows, especially the children.

Thursday: again a normal day at work. Had fun because I took over some tasks of my advertising colleague in the mortgage marketing team as she is on holiday. The mortgage marketing team is my previous team and it was like old times. I felt I made a difference, that I contributed something useful. That feeling is something I want to hang on to when I am retired: the job search continues !

Friday: visited my mother who lives an hour’s drive away. Always nice to see my mother.

Greetje