A girls day out!

A trip to London with R to see the Dior exhibition at the V&A.

This has been a sell out show which has been extended until the end of this month. I treated myself to membership in order to get the free admission to all of the shows for me and a guest.

R isn’t into sewing, but this gave her some background insight into the creation of these beautiful garments. She was amazed at the amount of work required and the complexity. I was in 7th heaven being so close to the designs and fabrics.

I’ve put a picture in extras which shows the toiles, made from fine cotton, as a preliminary for fitting purposes prior to making the garment in the very expensive final material.

We also saw the Mary Quant exhibition. It was well designed and interesting, but hadn’t the oomph of the Dior one. I was part of that generation in the ‘60’s and made all my own clothes at that time. I copied the Mary Quant fashions, but bought inexpensive material locally. It’s amazing what you could make out of a yard of fabric ....when you were young and skinny!!!

I was surprised at how dreary the colours of these displayed garments are (In extras). I never wore these brown/beige/mustard colours and can only think that I must have chosen my favourite colours blue/green to make my clothes using Mary Quant designs. As a student nurse on a pittance, I only needed clothes for off duty time and made sure that my money was well spent. My clothes were unique!!! Such a pity that I didn’t kept anything from that era.

We called in by Covent Garden on the way back and had a wander round some of the stores and had a drink.

B met us off the train at Newark and R headed home. We got back about 9.30 and I was greeted by a young man (not sure if the hedgehog is male or female....but I refer to it as him). He was on top of the brick edging waiting to be fed. His biscuits hadn’t been soaked, so I gave him a couple of dry ones to be going on with. When I went out 10 minutes later with the food he had disappeared, but an adult ‘hog’ was scurrying across the drive into the hedge and another adult was wandering across the front garden. Three in one evening is remarkable!!!

A fantastic day on all counts. I will sleep well tonight!!!