Spring Tale: The Wraggle Taggle Gypsies O!

 

There were three gypsies a come to my door,
And downstairs ran this lady, O!
One sang high and another sang low,
And the other sang bonny, bonny, Biscay, O!

Then she pulled off her silk finished gown
And put on hose of leather, O!
The ragged, ragged, rags about our door,
She's gone with the wraggle taggle gypsies, O!

 

 

 

 

 

 

It was late last night, when my lord came home,
Enquiring for his a-lady, O!
The servants said, on every hand,
She's gone with the wraggle taggle gypsies, O!

O saddle to me my milk-white steed,
Go and fetch me my pony, O!
That I may ride and seek my bride,
Who is gone with the wraggle taggle gypsies, O!

 

 

  

O he rode high and he rode low,
He rode through woods and copses too,
Until he came to an open field,
And there he espied his a-lady, O!

What makes you leave your home and land?
What makes you leave your money, O?
What makes you leave your new wedded lord?
To go with the wraggle taggle gypsies, O!

 

 

 

What care I for my house and my land?
What care I for my money, O?
What care I for my new wedded lord?
I'm off with the wraggle taggle gypsies, O!

Last night you slept on a goose-feather bed,
With the sheet turned down so bravely, O!
And to-night you'll sleep in a cold open field,
Along with the wraggle taggle gypsies, O!

 

 

 

 

What care I for a goose-feather bed?
With the sheet turned down so bravely, O!
For to-night I shall sleep in a cold open field,
Along with the wraggle taggle gypsies, O!

 

 

 

 The Gypsy Outfit:

 

Red Off The Shoulder Dress: bought from Ebay

 

Blue Sequin Cuff: very old from the high street

 

Nude Pink Shoes: old from New Look in the sale

 

 

 

The Lady Outfit:

 

Vintage Victorian White Silk Satin With Black Velvet Stripe Skirt and Bodice: passed down from late granny Kiki and her mother, and possibly her mother before her. I can't do the bodice up, it's far too small for my bust!

 

Black Top Underneath: from a charity shop

 

Black Suede Court Shoes: old from Hobbs

 

Vintage Style Drop Earrings: from Accessorize

 

 

 

The Soundtrack

 

Traditional English Folk Song: The Wraggle Taggle Gypsies O!

 

 

 

Photographs taken by me, self portraits using the timer on my little digital camera. 

 I used the video function on my little camera for the first time, to make an out-of-focus/atmospheric clip; turns out that walking and singing and filming all at once isn't that easy....

This tale is the first in a series I'll create, of longer multi-outfit posts, with one planned to celebrate the beauty and nature of each season. The Spring tale was delayed by bad weather slowing down the growth of the bluebells, but here they are now and oh so very beautiful!

Let's savour the last days of Spring before Summer has truly arrived.

 

 

I'm delighted to be a part of the next Visible Monday, hosted by the lovely Patti from www.notdeadyetstyle.blogspot.co.uk, click on the website link to see her outfit and those of many others.

 

 

Meet Me Under The Ballerina Tree

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I have been taught never to brag but now

I cannot help it: I keep

a beautiful garden, all abundance,

indiscriminate, pulling itself

from the stubborn earth: does it offend you

to watch me working in it,

touching my hands to the greening tips or

tearing the yellow stalks back, so wild

the living and the dead both

snap off in my hands?

The neighbor with his stuttering

fingers, the neighbor with his broken

love: each comes up my drive

to receive his pitying,

accustomed consolations, watches me

work in silence awhile, rises in anger,

walks back. Does it offend them to watch me

not mourning with them but working

fitfully, fruitlessly, working

the way the bees work, which is to say

by instinct alone, which looks like pleasure?

I can stand for hours among the sweet

narcissus, silent as a point of bone.

I can wait longer than sadness. I can wait longer

than your grief. It is such a small thing

to be proud of, a garden. Today

there were scrub jays, quail,

a woodpecker knocking at the white-

and-black shapes of trees, and someone’s lost rabbit

scratching under the barberry: is it

indiscriminate? Should it shrink back, wither,

and expurgate? Should I, too, not be loved?

It is only a little time, a little space.

Why not watch the grasses take up their colors in a rush

like a stream of kerosene being lit?

If I could not have made this garden beautiful

I wouldn’t understand your suffering,

nor care for each the same, inflamed way.

I would have to stay only like the bees,

beyond consciousness, beyond

self-reproach, fingers dug down hard

into stone, and growing nothing.

There is no end to ego,

with its museum of disappointments.

I want to take my neighbors into the garden

and show them: Here is consolation.

Here is your pity. Look how much seed it drops

around the sparrows as they fight.

It lives alongside their misery.

It glows each evening with a violent light.

 

 

Happiness by Paisley Rekdal, via 1 

 

 

 

 

The Outfit:

 

40s/50s Style Floral Chiffon Dress With Silk Lining: bought from the sale at Toast years ago

 

Vintage 70s Does 40s Blue & White Tilt Hat: from Ebay

 

Black Lace Peep Toe High Heels: old from New Look

 

 

 

The Soundtrack

 

Anita O'Day: All The Sad Young Men

 

 

Photographs taken by me, self portraits using the timer on my little digital camera. 

I've had an eye infection for over a month now, which means I'm allowed to wear neither mascara nor concealer to cover up those dark shadows under the eyes. But I've decided to think of the gorgeous ambassador for dark shadows, Jeanne Moreau, and celebrate my dark rings as seductive, maybe even intellectual looking....

 

 

Apologies I've not been visiting and commenting on your posts much lately due to overwork, looking forward to popping by your lovely blogs this weekend!

 

 

Take Me To The Water

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“Then I felt too that I might take this opportunity to tie up a few loose ends, only of course loose ends can never be properly tied, one is always producing new ones. Time, like the sea, unties all knots. Judgements on people are never final, they emerge from summings up which at once suggest the need of a reconsideration. Human arrangements are nothing but loose ends and hazy reckoning, whatever art may otherwise pretend in order to console us.”  

 

 

Extract from The Sea, The Sea by Iris Murdoch, via 1 

 The Outfit:

 

Vintage Crinkle Skirt: passed down from granny Penny

 

Vintage Green Cashmere Cardigan: passed down from granny Penny

 

Blue Striped Jumper, just seen under cardigan: old from H&M

 

Red Tartan Leggings, just seen under skirt: from Ebay

 

Mohair Snood: old from Topshop

 

Black Boots: old from Aldo

 

 

 

The Soundtrack

 

Talking Heads: Once In A Lifetime

 

 

Photographs taken by me, self portraits using the timer on my little digital camera.

Taken at Trebarwith Strand, Cornwall, on an effing cold day in April.

 

I'm delighted to be a part of the next Visible Monday, hosted by the lovely Patti from www.notdeadyetstyle.blogspot.co.uk, click on the website link to see her outfit and those of many others.

Gypsy Spring

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Oh I am a cat that likes to
Gallop about doing good
So
One day when I was
Galloping about doing good, I saw
A figure in the path; I said
Get off! (Be-
cause
I am a cat that likes to
Gallop about doing good)
But he did not move, instead
He raised his hand as if
To land me a cuff
So I made to dodge so as to
Prevent him bringing it orf,
Un-for-tune-ately I slid
On a banana skin
Some Ass had left instead
Of putting in the bin. So
His hand caught me on the cheek
I tried
To lay his arm open from wrist to elbow
With my sharp teeth
Because I am
A cat that likes to gallop about doing good.
Would you believe it?
He wasn’t there
My teeth met nothing but air,
But a Voice said: Poor Cat,
(Meaning me) and a soft stroke
Came on me head
Since when
I have been bald.
I regard myself as
A martyr to doing good
Also I heard a swoosh
As of wings, and saw
A halo shining at the height of
Mrs Gubbins’s backyard fence,
So I thought: What’s the good
Of galloping about doing good
When angels stand in the path
And do not do as they should
Such as having an arm to be bitten off
All the same I
Intend to go on being
A cat that likes to
Gallop about doing good
So
Now with my bald head I go,
Chopping the untidy flowers down, to
and fro,
An’ scooping up the grass to show
Underneath
The cinder path of wrath
Ha ha ha ha, ho,
Angels aren’t the only ones who do
not know
What’s what and that
Galloping about doing good
Is a full time job
That needs
An experienced eye of earthly
Sharpness, worth I dare say
(if you’ll forgive a personal note)
A good deal more
Than all that skyey stuff
Of angels that make so bold as
To pity a cat like me that
Gallops about doing good.

 

 

The Galloping Cat by Stevie Smith, via 1

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 The Outfit:

 

Vintage 1970s Sweetheart Neckline Green Dress: from Ebay

 

Pink Shawl: a gift from a friend

 

Vintage Bracelets: passed down from granny Penny

 

Purple Embroidered Pumps: a gift from Barcelona from darling Mr Eve

 

Hoop Vintage Style Earrings: Accessorize

 

 

The Cat:

 

our girl Nico

 

The Soundtrack

 

Django Reinhardt: Anthology

 

 

Photographs taken by me, self portraits using the timer on my little digital camera.

 

I'm delighted to be a part of the next Visible Monday, hosted by the lovely Patti from www.notdeadyetstyle.blogspot.co.uk, click on the website link to see her outfit and those of many others.

 

Wild Flower Blue Orient

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Into my mirror has walked
A woman who will not talk
Of love or of its subsidiaries,
But who stands there,
Pleased by her own silence.
The weather has worn into her
All seasons known to me,
In one breast she holds
Evidence of forests,
In the other, of seas.

I will ask her nothing yet
Would ask so much
If she gave some sign-

Her shape is common enough,
Enough shape to love.
But what keeps me here
Is what glows beyond her.

I think at times
A boy's body
Would be as easy
To read light into,
I think at times

My own might do.

 

 

Brian Patten, via 1

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 The Outfit:

 

 

Vintage Blue Chinese Tunic: bought from a Chinese store on the left bank of Paris in the late 1990s when I lived there

 

Vintage Turquoise Indian Quilted Skirt: passed down from granny Penny

 

Miniature Vintage Japanese Fan, worn in hair: passed down from granny Penny

 

Pink Brazilian Wedge Sandals: a gift from a friend

 

Vintage Chinese Parasol: passed down from granny Kiki

 

White flower clip, just seen: Accessorize

 

The Soundtrack

 

Patti Smith Group: Wave

 

 

Photographs taken by me, self portraits using the timer on my little digital camera.

 

I'm delighted to be a part of the next Visible Monday, hosted by the lovely Patti from www.notdeadyetstyle.blogspot.co.uk, click on the website link to see her outfit and those of many others.

I've also just linked this post to Shoe Shine, a great new event hosted by the uber-cool Bella of http://www.thecitizenrosebud.com/, click on the website to see her cute shoes and those of many others.