Help The Aged

I know that it's a quite (okay, very) likely scenario that you are all completely sick of these dress up party posts but, unfortunately for you, I'm not. And neither is Sydney, apparently, because I don't think I've been to a party since arriving back in the old home-town that wasn't a dress up party. The most recent of this series of splendour was courtesy of the lovely and beautiful Miss Janaki Peart, who celebrated her seventy-fourth birthday in her pretty little inner-west home. We drunk punch from teacups and peered over our spectacles at the young folk in the backyard.

The ol' birthday girl.

Everything's thrifted. Nothing cost over a fiver.

P.S. So many new things to share with you. Studded boots, chunky black watches, computerised sewing machines, owls, black leather bumbags, more glasses... Oh my, more regular posts are needed, I think.

Degrassi Junior High

Wow. I just deleted a whole post and I don't even know how. And you know what? I could Control Z but I think it's a sign. It's definitely a sign. I'm not in the right state of mind to be blogging, especially about that time I thought I was a werewolf. It's raining, cold, grey as all hell, I'm kind of grumpy and I'm pretty sure I just called Bobby the c word because he didn't peel the garlic properly. It might (but probably doesn't) have something to do with the fact that I'm still a little hungover from Saturday's trio of parties, one of which had a bar tab and another of which was within stair-climbing distance of my place in which sat, eagerly awaiting my frequent visits, a large bottle of vodka and a bag of goon. Side note: Did you know that they don't even say goon in England? They call it 'boxed wine'. Doesn't that just make it sound so much more classy than it actually is? Goon doesn't deserve class. Take down the streamers and show it for what it is: Horrible, egg containing, preservative ridden, acrid tasting goon. And it's WONDERFUL. So much so that it deserves capitals. Much like the third party of my Saturday evening, which was, from what I can remember, pretty bloody awesome. Admittedly, I spent most of my evening speaking to complete strangers (albeit, apart from one odd, incredibly-keen-to-give-out-entirely-unrequested-autographs fellow, absolutely lovely strangers) rambling on to them about the beauty of vintage and retro clothes and encouraging, neigh, insisting that they drop along to my market this weekend because basically, it's going to be one big friendly-on-the-pocket party. I NETWORKED, baby. Not sure how true to the word 'party' the event's actually going to be; we'll be sellin' poppas of the fruity kind not the sniffable kind and it'll be during daylight hours only so, in all honesty, it's probably going to be a lot more low-key/kid friendly than I might have made out. If you do happen to turn up really drunk however, I promise to show you to the toilet where you'll be more than welcome to spew your guts up. Because that's just the kind of person I am: Accommodating.

Of course, last Saturday's party was themed (because all the best ones are), and the theme was Degrassi Junior High. Whilst the actual number of people dressed up was rather low, it was great if only for the simple reason that I had an excuse to go all eighties. Again.

I should add that the night was in celebration of the amazing Miss Marissa Ziesing (above), whose birthday it was. I hope you had a suitably brilliant evening, Marissa. I'm pretty sure I forgot to say 'Happy Birthday' on the night. I'm remarkably talented at things like that. I do hope that announcing it publicly, to the billions of readers of my blog (hah!), makes up for that tiny nugget of forgetfulness.



Fashion Launches Rocket Launches (above) played a set in the early evening. Unfortunately, we missed the better half of it (or what I'd hope, all things considered, was the better half) so I'll reserve my criticism for another time. In their own right, they're each very talented musicians.


See? Networking.

Fight For Your Right To Party

I've been back in Sydney for almost a week now. You wanna know what I've spent this past week doing? Sleeping. And blowing my nose. Yep, both Bobby and I have been ill. AND jet lagged. Whilst Bobby has tried more than once to convince me it's Swine Flu that's been plaguing us, I can safely reassure the few friends I have hugged/seen since arriving back in the land of Oz that it is not Swine Flu, merely a harmless, mildly annoying cold. I reckon he just thinks it's the cool thing to have right now. Which, let's be honest, it kind of is. I heard that my friend Jess had swine flu and how she was quarantined for two weeks and all her housemates had to wear swine flu MASKS. Can you imagine? All her housemates in piggy masks? Feeding her soup? I have to admit, it sounds pretty incredible. Alas, this whole lethargy thing has meant that I haven't spent more than five minutes on the computer (total), bar the time spent filling out online forms and doing the most utterly boring and monotonous yet essential administrative work imaginable. So, no blog posts for you, my friends.

One good thing to come out of this little sickness of ours however, is that it's given both Bobs and I a little time to become acquainted with our new housemates. Indeed, the shell of our home has changed little but when I say 'new' housemates, I really do mean brand spanking new. Like, all of them. We stumbled into the living room on Tuesday night to be greeted by four strangers sitting in our living room. Since that experience, I'm quite certain that Bobby and I are entirely qualified to be professional Big Brother intruders. Hello Grace, hello Dave, hello Dom and hello Katrina. Thankfully, they're super duper awesome. Actually, the whole situation is pretty frickin' awesome. I've spent more time hanging out in the living room in the past week than I think I ever have because it's just that good. Seriously, like, if I weren't me, I'd be totally jealous. Actually, even being me I'm still kinda jealous because imagine if I could live with all these incredible folks PLUS myself. Wow. I reckon we'd get along ace. Me and me. Although, I'd have to clean up after myself, which would kind of suck. But then I would still be just as lazy so I totally wouldn't but then I'd probably get annoyed at myself cause there'd be DOUBLE the mess. Double trouble? Cool. Double junk? Not so much. Unless it's the other kind of junk. Before I blow my own mind, I'd better change the subject:

Yes, Sydney is amazing and I missed it terribly and man, my cat? Totally missed her to bits. Though, luckily, she was returned to me not literally in bits, because that would have been really sad. However, I didn't really expect (well I might've a little bit. But not as much as I do) to miss England. The fact that those Eastbourners (and Brightoners) made our leaving do the best leaving do to ever happen to anyone ever didn't exactly help. I thought Eastbourners didn't 'do' dress up parties. How wrong I was. It was frickin' amazing. A M A Z I N G. The theme was the eighties and the nineties and everyone took it as far as they could. You might think that the amount of photos that I've posted here is a lot, but spare a thought to those that were subjected to the entirety of the night's photos. Three hundred? Nope. Try five hundred and something. I'm pretty sure I crashed the Internet trying to put them all on Facebook. And they're ALL brilliant. To be honest though, it's really difficult to take a non-brilliant photo when everybody's dressed so fantastically. Everybody should definitely dress like this all the time.

Looking COOL.

As, hopefully, you might have guessed, I was Madonna from Desperately Seeking Susan.

Patent bow, I made myself. Earrings and necklances from various charity stores.
Glittery top from a pay by the kilo store in Berlin.
Belt, shoes and scarf were both thrifted in Eastbourne.
And the pants are my stay-at-home pants, from Primark.