Enjoying Vintage Blogs

After over a decade of being on-line, it's only over the last week or so, I've really got into reading other people's blogs! I really have a love hate relationship with being on-line. My laptop is rarely switched off all the hours I'm awake. I frequently, like 20 times a day turn to it as a reference source, about a program I'm watching on tv, an author, looking up the fact a drama is based on, something to do with cooking, what's on the news, you name it, I'll google it. I've even considered having Wikipedia as my home page.

But there's also a lot online I hate. I'll often play a game of Mah-Jong which I down loaded, but the thought of practising genocide with someone living on the other side of the planet, leaves me cold. And as for FaceBook, Ugh. I'm on it but hate it with a passion I'm not able to explain. I have most of the options and setting turned off or for friends only. I use it only to find people I know in real life and send them an instant message which is formatted more attractively than an email. I would no more write on someone's wall as shout a private conversation across a crowded room, it just strikes me as soooooo gauche. Sometimes it seem, (and it seems only to me) the world has gone mad. All this strident screaming on people's walls about the great life, advertising your private life, tagging in photos and then allowing companies to use you, your photo and your wall to advertise their goods to your friends! Are you serious? It's why I call it FakeBook and I hate the culture it's creating. Can you tell I'm over 50? :)

In the early days of blogging I never knew what to look for. I tried reading blogs by journalists I liked, but often it crashed down to mumbling about the minutiae of everyday life and I really don't need to read the ponderings of someone's breakfast cheese of watch the collapse of their marriage.

But recently, this all seems to have changed and I'm finding my interests better reflected. I have always loved the fashions of the Belle Epoch. The time between about 1910 to the 1930s. When women's Edwardian fashion started becoming more practical. Currently you'll see the best of it well portrayed in Downton Abbey. It was a fashion created for mature curvaceous women, not skinny models. It is meant to be beautiful, flattering, erotic and sexy. Edwardian clothes sexy? You're so damn right! It was the first time lingerie was developed. This sudden jump from ankle length thick cotton  nighties with full sleeves and cotton mop hats to flowing gowns with matching peignoirs, all the better to be seen sitting brushing out your hair in with a come hither look. This is no surprise. As soon as motion pictures were invented, it's fashions went straight to the bedroom. One of the other reasons I love this period is that between 1910 to the 40s fashions were flattering for women with, big boobs. You may think the 20s were just about young boyish figures, and it was, if you were like that, but check out the photos of larger women during the time. How they celebrated being freed from looking like roosting hens. In fact the fashions from 1910 right the way through to the end of utility wear in WWII were the most democratic of womens fashions as far as body fascism is concerned. It's why I love it.

So here I am, this 5'4' rather dumpy woman with a love of serious vintage clothing, in the autumn of my years. One of the things I'm really looking forward to doing is making my own clothes adapted from the many vintage patterns I have from the time. I'll also be trying my hand at hat making as well, which should be interesting, but if anything, if I can nail this, it could become a bit of an earner. Who could resist a cloche hat with the winters being as they have been over recent years?

But lastly, the most difficult aspect of these interests are at large being reflected 'out there'. By far most of the women on line who are interested in wearing and making vintage wear tend to be young (under 30), very slim and white. Nothing wrong with that at all, I salute my sisters and their individuality. I on the other hand am in my 50s, very rounded and a mixture of British and Ghanian (west african) descent. Yes I know, I'm more likely to look eccentric. Do you think I look as if I care?

But the availability of the vintage pictorial history of the Diaspora has not been well documented over here in the UK.  Sure you can find grim US images of African Americans (post)slavery, dirt poor in the deep south or urban decay in the depression. Apart from publicity photos of early jazz musicians it's hardly a visual history anyone would want to re-create. But now new images are beginning to emerge and it's this new emerging history I want to salute, of African Americans, happy healthy and beautiful and getting on with their lives. And they ore the ones I see myself in. I must add, more diverse images may have been more accessibly in the US, but are not widely available on this side of the Atlantic.

So for anyone who has ever wondered, what would a Black aristocrat look like on the set of Downton Abbey, here's a taster. And if ever I get to go to a ball, I hope to do her justice.

Enjoy.

Saying Goodbye To Elizabeth

I've just returned from London, where I attended the funeral for a lovely woman called Elizabeth Fosgate, someone who I've known for about 30 years. She died a few days after a cerebral haemorrhage on 8th September  a month before she was 82, a good age, but it doesn't make it any better.

Elizabeth was the younger sister of a wonderful woman called Lorna, who 'took me in' when she realised the extent of my sufferings with my own family. Lorna and her family have done more for me than any member of my family did. My only regret is that I wished, at the time, I could have accepted their support with more grace than I did, but I think they knew that was down to the damage that had already been done. It's not easy having a mother who is a diagnosed psychopath, I just wish I had been told earlier. I would never have poured so much of my life down the drain, in an effort to meet the demands of a parent who could (unknown to me) never be satisfied, happy or safe to be around.

Back to Elizabeth, she was kindness itself. She spent her life caring for others, as a nurse, and as a carer. When she was around 30, she contracted a form of TB which left her an invalid for the rest of her life. Most people who knew her had more to do with her interests, meditation and various esoteric beliefs like the White Eagle Lodge. I don't engage in any of these types of activities, I'm just allergic to anything that offers someone the opportunity to engage with what's going on inside my head. (Ahh? I wonder what caused that???) But there were two aspects of her character that really impressed me.

She was a very attractive woman who never married and seemed content to be single. I asked her once why she didn't marry and we had a long talk about it one Christmas in the family cottage in Dorset. She explained that when she was younger she hated the attention she got from men because of her looks, her large bust, the fact she was a nurse and the fantasies that created. She ended up cringing in the face of a sensual approach, feeling like prey. At the time, I didn't understand it, but I sure do now.

The other aspect I so admired was how she conducted herself as a disabled woman. She always cared for her appearance, she pursued her interests, she did as much as she could with her life when she wasn't engaged in continuous service to others and did it all with a genuine generous smile. Over the last 5 years or so, since the development of kidney disease and rheumatoid arthritis which have forced me to live differently, Elizabeth has been a model of how to conduce myself. It could have all been so different. There have been times when I've been so angry at my loss of abilities and opportunities I cold feel tempted by the comfort of bitterness and resentment. There have also been occasions when I've found myself the object of exotic fantasies rather than a partner in a relationship. Do I stay around, just so I have 'someone', or become murderous in my fury at dishonest manipulation? Elizabeth was a model of how to conduct yourself when faced by such base motives. She did show me it was possible to look inside for what you need. And I'm so thankful for that.

I've never been much good at the funerals of those I have found difficult to lose. I was sobbing, I hope quietly. I never find the eulogies appropriate as they don't seem to reflect the deceased in the same way I appreciate them. I'm not a picture of grace at funerals of those I love. Neither would I have wanted Elizabeth to have struggled on with a more limited life after her stroke. She would have hated further loss of her independence which was so important to her. She wasn't without her faults. She should have stopped driving, and ironically, she would have really benefited from the social interaction of living in a warden assisted group home, something she really resisted. Her last year or so she found frustrating and isolating, unfortunately due to her stubbornness, so it could be said, she left us on her own terms. I'm grateful to know, just before she left home to visit her nephew for lunch, she had a stroke while walking there, (nephew's neighbour called an ambulance, hospital, died 4 days later without regaining conciousness) she was singing and dancing in her lounge with her carer to Abba.

I'm also very grateful to write this about Elizabeth, because by doing so,  it's shown me, she taught me, and others, very well. I've realised we don't need her to stay any longer. Liz, I Thank You. I'll miss you. You don't need to stay. Your job is done.

I'm Waisting My Time

I've just spent ages trying, unsuccessfully to load images straight from my phone. It's just not working. It's a reasonably standard iconic Sony, but it's sooooo complicated. And if I can't post images from my camera phone reasonably easily or quickly, why blog? This is suppossed to be a relatively concurrent experience of real life isn't it. Bloody not the way I'm going.

Anyhow I've just cooked my 2nd cake this week. My first Hummingbird Cake, yes gluten-free and fat free. Need to amend the recipe, you just can't taste the pineapple, But I do have a photo, and very nice it is too. A project to be invested in.

I'm going to have to consider a new phone, one of those android thingies. Meanwhile, I'm going to have to figure out what's going on with my laptop. Even Avast has suspected there's suspicious activity going on. Sometimes I don't feel I'm being the techno wiz I sometimes feel I am, or am I only able to work with new and shiny toys. Hmm may be some truth in that