I appreciate weekends more and more as I get older. When I was at college/university I used to dread them - I had to work every weekend, blah, what's so great about that? I worked in a shop right in the middle of an enormous mall, which made things even worse. Every Saturday was spent glaring angrily at 'real' grown up people with their 'real' 9-5 jobs and their 'real' weekends, spending all of their lovely real money on silly things like slippers and ice cream. Bitterness comes easy when you spend 90% of your free time selling people cheap fleeces and ugly pleather shoes for minimum wage, let me tell you. Now, though, I get what all the fuss is about. I love weekends, I need weekends. But do I want to spend them wandering around a hot and crowded shopping centre? No, I do not. 

If all those years working in retail taught me one thing, it's that weekends are sacred. Weekends are for staying in bed until midday, drinking coffee, reading magazines and listening to the radio. Weekends are for only wearing pyjamas and only leaving the house for leisurely strolls in the sunshine. For spending too long making your lunch look pretty (because every other day you're in such a rush, and you just can't take yet another sloppy bowl of beans or packet of chipsticks) and for taking candle-lit bubble baths that last two hours.

I'll let you in on a little secret - for all my obsessing over fashion and clothes, and for all of the lovely garments I have hanging in my wardrobe, I almost never wear actual clothes when I'm inside of my own house. The first thing I do when I get in from work is rip off my jeans and swap them for pj bottoms. I just can't imagine lounging on my sofa or on my bed in clothes I've just spent all day at work in. Is that weird? A result of this I have a fairly large collection of nightwear, so I'd consider myself a bit of a connoisseur.

Imagine my delight then, at getting to spend this past weekend in a fabulous pair of pyjamas courtesy of Derek Rose. I feel like James Bond in these beauties, or Sherlock, or the Queen. I've never felt cotton like this; it flows like silk, and is insanely light and comfortable. I love the delicate paisley pattern, which looks wonderful next to crisp white sheets and milky pale skin. The china blue somehow matches the smells of my bedtime routine: lavender perfume, cold cream, chamomile hand salve, peppermint toothpaste, and the breeze coming in through the window. Mmmmmm, synesthetic harmony.

I'm on Instagram, username: fenfrances

All change; one day I woke up and went about my life as it had been for over a year, the next I woke to find I had been transplanted - into a new home, and a new workplace. Although the move is a step in the right direction (I certainly hope so anyway) it's a very curious and uncanny experience all the same. Lots of our things are still living in boxes, we've only just got a bed.

Our new flat is lovely, though. We have so much space. After living in a cramped - basically one roomed - apartment for the last year it feels so liberating to be able to wander around our new rooms without bumping into furniture. There's a huge public park right at the end of our street: Sunday was glorious and spring-like, so we went there for the first time and walked along by the swan filled lake, visited the peacocks and rabbits, smelled flowers... it was beautiful and relaxing and a moment of calm in the relocation storm.

I've been trying to write a longish post detailing some things I've been thinking about recently. I feel guilty for - once again - failing to update this blog for too long. But I'm tired and ill (flu, boo) and I've been in meetings all week (& last week!) and my brain won't work. So here are some bullet points instead:

• I bought these trousers from Uniqlo in grey, and liked them so much that I ordered the navy too. They look kind of smart and kind of slouchy at the same time, and remind me of the futuristic uniform that Micheal Fassbender wears in this Prometheus promo (poor film, great character). They're insanely comfortable, I feel like I'm wearing pyjamas for work, which is wrong but so so right.
• I recently got some new clothing storage which includes a rail. I hung my clothes on it and realised I still love, wear, and would purchase again, 90% of what I own. I'd been feeling - for a while - disheartened; like I'd made no progress on the whole 'wardrobe rehab' front. Now that I can see everything I own more clearly, I know that I'm finally getting somewhere. 
• This post on one of my favourite blogs - Of Stranger Sensilbilities - is wonderful and thought provoking. I completely agree with everything Joy has to say about style bloggers telling stories through their clothing. All of my favourite reads provide context and narrative in their musings over style and shopping.
• I've been watching The Great British Sewing Bee on BBC1 and it's amazing. Who'da thought they could replicate the unique charm of Bake Off in a different show and still provide something new and interesting? Amazing, and inspiring (I've got my sewing machine out!). 
• I finally got my hands on the latest issue of The Gentlewoman magazine. It's utterly wonderful. 
• I've been suffering from a few unfortunate ailments recently, including terrible eczema and a really bad back. Never before have I been so grateful for my mum's expertise as a holistic therapist, and her ability to both fix my back (with massage therapy) and recommend good essential oil combinations to soothe my irritated skin. 
• Making a rented space (one which you're are forbidden to change too much) feel personal and homely is a challenge I'm enjoying (probably more on this later).
• The weather is really stressing me out. Is it spring yet? Maybe even - dare I mention it - summer? One day we're enjoying glorious sunshine and warm breezes (see earlier anecdote about parks and swans) and the next it's blustery and icy and horrid. It's positively schizophrenic.  

'April showers, spring flowers' (April 2013) collection at Toast

I'm seeing a lot of loose, cropped pants in my favourite stores at the moment; inspired by Margaret Howell's latest collection perhaps? I'm tempted (especially by the very reasonably priced Uniqlo versions) but am very wary of making my legs look ten times chunkier than they actually are -- they'd have to be the perfect length to look good I think, cutting off at the very skinniest point of my (not so skinny) [c]ankles. At any rate, they're looking very appealing to me right now in my post-winter, skinny jean fatigued, state. 

The entirety of this collection is just magic though, really. Toast knows me so well; breton stripes, grey marl, baskets and white sneakers... delicious :) 

Hotel Lobby by Edward Hopper, 1943 (original here)

“I have always, essentially, been waiting. Waiting to become something else, waiting to be that person I always thought I was on the verge of becoming, waiting for that life I thought I would have. In my head, I was always one step away. In high school, I was biding my time until I could become the college version of myself, the one my mind could see so clearly. In college, the post-college 'adult' person was always looming in front of me, smarter, stronger, more organized. Then the married person, then the person I’d become when we have kids. For twenty years, literally, I have waited to become the thin version of myself, because that’s when life will really begin.

via pyoruru

So excited by the 70s vibes in the new APC lookbook: glorious, bouffanty hair, beige, flares, chunky sneakers, casual-luxe... mmmmmmm. 

scarf / t-shirt / basket / trousers / jumper / deodorant spray / espadrilles