Funny how you can have several items in your wardrobe in complimentary shades and not realising that you have them at your disposal. I wanted to wear the lilac dress with burgundy boots as the boots which I previously wore with this Max Mara dress, are really too high (I gave them to my friend Sabine who likes high heels). Also, as you can see if you click the link in the previous sentence, I used to wear the dress with the sleeves as they are. And that was COLD.
Thick burgundy tights and burgundy boots provided warmth at the bottom. Now what to do at the top? Luckily I have an excellent memory and I dug into my wardrobe to come up with an ancient purply/burgundy top. It wasn’t very thick, so I wore a Uniqlo heat-tech shirt underneath it. Next time, I will pick a skin coloured heat tech shirt or a black one, but they were both in the wash.
Now you might say that the shades that I am wearing are all slightly different and I’d say you are right. For me, that doesn’t matter; it is all family and goes together. My humble opinion.
Husband Ron was my photographer. The weather apps told us it would be dry in the afternoon, between 1 and 3 PM and after 3 o’clock it would rain. No such thing. We set out at 1 o’clock and it rained until 3. Typical.
Below: How on earth are you supposed to take blog photos in this weather?
Below: Ron suggested we’d go to a fun restaurant in Amsterdam, called Sticky Fingers. It looked nice on Google. It wasn’t as nice as we thought it would be but we had to work with it.
Below: In the corridor, near the kitchen it was really too dark to take a sharp photo, but I like the vibe of this one.
Below: We tried different areas in the restaurant to see where we could find more light.
Below: It is still pouring out there.
Below: To take a fun photo through the window, Ron stood in the rain, the sweetheart.
Below: Arty photo by Ron.
Below: If there aren’t any darts in a shift dress, it will ride up at the front if you have a 36D size bust. I long for the times when they had darts in dresses and tops. When they had real sizes instead of generic Small, Medium and Large. Of course this was more expensive and the retailer was left with a lot of unsold clothes. The solution apparently, is to sell ill-fitting clothes. And this is a Max Mara Studio dress. Top of the bill but still created for models with small breasts. Sigh.
OK, that was a bit of a rant.
Below: On the other side of the Sticky Fingers café was another restaurant; everything was part of a hotel. They had cosy corners.
Below: Close-up of the Baublehaus earrings. You have seen them before. As lilac is a pastel and certainly not a flattering colour on me, these colourful earrings ‘save’ the outfit.
Below: Just one more really nice photo to end this section. It is very similar to the first photo. Ron had to stand outside in the rain again.
So much for the outfit.
What happened in my life this week
I had lesson number two in photography. It is such a nice course and I learn so much. Only two hours on a Saturday, three weeks in a row and ‘homework’ of course. My skills are improving dramatically. Here are some photos which I think are the best for my homework this week (I sent in 12 photos).
Below: Framing the photo (with the trees on either side), also watching the lines of the landscape you photograph.
Below: Frog view, rule of thirds and levelling. I used two awesome tricks to take this photo. One was stabilizing the camera on my bag on the ground and using the fold-out display to see what I was photographing. My left knee trouble prevents me from crouching on the ground and this worked perfectly.
Below: For the third photo I went to the (prison) dome in Haarlem. This used to be a prison for many years, housing the worst criminals. After being empty for a number of years, it has been converted into an office space and cinema.
Below: Cinema in the basement, office spaces on several levels and the grand dome, letting in light through the ceiling.
Below: This was the photo I was going for: Repeat and Rhythm. The ceiling of the dome.
Below: They did leave some cells as they used to be, although they are now mostly used for storage.
That was fun. You are out and about with a goal and doing something creative. That is what retired life is for.
On Valentine’s day Ron and I took dog Watson for a walk on the beach.
I said to Ron: “Isn’t retired life great?”
He replied: “It is but I feel sorry for other pensioners”.
Me: “Oh why? Because they might have a smaller pension?”
Him: “No, because they don’t have you”.
That will do me fine for Valentine’s Day, ridiculous as it may be haha.
Below: Ron and I at the beach, me wearing a multi-coloured striped jumper on jeans.
Below: Wore this outfit the day before. Same jumper but with fancy trousers. (Link to original post.)
Do you spot one of my new poses?
Below: I saw mum again and got her to smile for the photo.
We had dinner at Georg and Marla’s and the next day at Froukje and Petro’s. Froukje created a new design for our garden (see below, summer version). This was awesome as we could discuss it with our gardener who came in Tuesday afternoon.
Had a lovely half day with Erna, my ex-colleague, now friend (see below). She came to Haarlem and was so nice to take some outfit photos for a blog post.
Received a balloon from Sabine as a way of saying thank-you for the boots. With such a sweet message on the card; I was chuffed.
And I had another photo shoot with Marjolein in The Hague. Squeezed in a quick visit to my mum before going to Marjolein as mum was inquiring after a place in a home. Not that she really wants to go (at the moment), but it was good to hear the pros and cons.
The plumber stopped by to check some plumbing work and we had a nice chat with him. He has been our plumber for about 20 years and we get on really well. He is cheeky and I love his wit.
That’s it for this week.
Greetje
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