London Diary December & Links à la Mode

December will soon be upon and the capital is gearing up for a Santa filled sack of festivities.  Here are some events that may tickle your fancy, if you're looking for alternatives to the usual fare of ice rinks and Winter Wonderlands.

Magic Lantern Festival, Chiswick House
Tall Brown Fox and I did this last year and is a lovely evening event.  It's now open until 1st January and as it's popular make sure you book in good time.  Last year's theme was The Silk Road and the installations were truly stunning and intricately designed.

Wear wellies or walking boots, as some parts of the trail were very muddy by the time we got there.  And taking a torch with you is good idea too.

Christmas at Kew Gardens
It you want to see Kew Gardens in a totally different setting to its daytime one, then you'll be in for a treat with a nightime visit to Christmas At Kew.  A light trail winds its way through the gardens taking you on a wonderful outdoor journey through and past beautiful light installations.  And at the famous Palm House, you are treated to an incredible lazer light show. There are food stalls, a few vintage fairground rides and you can sip mulled wine to keep you warm on your way round.  

Book as soon as you can as it sells out.  Tip - book an early evening slot to get the maximum time there.  Last year, we could only book a late evening slot.  We still had time to enjoy the evening but an extra hour there would have been even better.  

As with the Magic Lantern Festival, wellies and torch are advisable especially if it's recently been raining.

Here I am last year, being totally dwarfed by two towering trees of light at the start of the trail!

Hampton Court Food Festival, 8th-10th Dec
A good start to your Seasonal Feasting would be to visit the BBC's Good Food Festive Feast in the grounds of Hampton Court Palace.  Mulled wine and mince pies here we come.

Unusual Afternoon Teas
So you've done your Christmas shopping and before heading home you fancy a cuppa tea in town but you want to eschew the usual chain of coffee shops for something a tad different.  Nowadays, you don't have to go to the North Pole to taste some Nordic cuisine. How about indulging in  twist on a British classic - a Nordic Afternoon Tea at Aquavit Restaurant.  

You can find lots of other Usual Afternoon Teas in town from a Choco-lat Tea to a Mad Hatter's Tea Party!

The Magic Circle Christmas Show, 19th-29th Dec
If Christmas is to you a magical time of the year, then why not combine it with some real magic at The Magic Circle Christmas Show?

Wildlife Photographer of the Year
And if you need a detox from anything remotely Christmassy, I can highly recommend the The Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2017, held annually at the Natural History Museum.  Tall Brown Fox and I go every year, as we shall next month and the stunning photography never fails to disappoint.  It's running through until 28th May 2018.  

And Finally... Links à la Mode

With only just getting back into a blogging rhythm again after a long time away,  I decided to dip my toe in and submit a post to the weekly round up feature on Independent Fashion Bloggers.  I've been full of cold this week - thank you so much Tall Brown Fox for sharing your cold with me (!) so it was a welcomed boost to find out that my Playing with Proportions  post was chosen.

Thanks to Tarah-Lynn for including my post in the weekly round up Links à la Mode.  All the links are listed below.  Swing by some of them for interesting reads.

On to the links...

I particularly liked Cubicle Chic's post on why the change to Instagram's algorithm holds no fear for her.

Machu Picchu is on my bucket list and if you have the travel bug, then Have Clothes, Will Travel's post on visiting this extraordinary place is worth book marking.  

All the links are below, so why not dive in and discover some new blogs.  
Happy reading!

Tarah Lynn writes: So many ideas, so little time! Time to dig deep into this week's fashions posts and in-depth thought pieces dealing with feeling stuck in the blogger-sphere and Instagram algorithm mind games. You ready?

Links à la Mode, November 16th

• Aesthetic Distance: Can Fur Ever Be Ethical?
• Cubicle Chic: Why I Have No Fear of the Instagram Algorithm Change
• Gutterfashion: THRIFTED: Help! This Blogging Thing is Stressing Me Out!
• Have Clothes, Will Travel: 10 Things To Know Before Visiting Machu Picchu
• LunaVida Blog: Olive You, Fall | Denim Jacket + Tank + Black Jeans + d'Orsay Flats
• Online Personal Stylist: How to Create the Perfect Capsule Wardrobe
• Petite Silver Vixen: Playing with Proportions
• Sifa's Corner: Why You Need to Try Pop Beauty Velvet Powder Base
• Tales of Two Blog: Unisex Fashion - Is It Really Working?
• Smile Is It: Fall/Winter Fashion Trend: How to Wear a Suede Dress
• Style and Grace: Taking Flight

SPONSOR: Shopbop Coach 1941, T by Alexander Wang Tops, Salvatore Ferragamo Flats, Caterina Bertini, Barton Perreira, Winston White, Joggers, Leather Jackets, Beanies, Men's Hogarth

We've Had A Blog Make-over | Future Plans for the Blog

Welcome to my new blog design!

Spring is decidedly here now.  It officially started last Monday and I, for one, am cock-a-hoop about it.

Why?

Because Spring is my favourite season.

It heralds new beginnings, awakenings, the rebirth of nature; so much promise on the horizon and the glorious prospect of longer days and warmer weather ahead of us.  We're all shaking off the sloth of Winter and for me, on a personal level, as some of you may know, I'm wanting to slowly emerge from the dark time of losing my Mum at the end of October, last year.  This Winter gone was certainly bleaker than any that had been before.  Of course, I'm still grieving and will be for some time.  Grief doesn't suddenly vanish with the appearance of the daffodils, however cheering their bright yellow blooms may be.  I miss Mum terribly, especially as yesterday was Mother's Day in the UK.

This Season more than the other three I feel, gives us a chance to reassess, reorganise and hopefully look forward with renewed energy.

If you've been a visitor here before, you may notice we look a little different!  We've done a Spring clean at Petite Silver Vixen.

We've a brand spanking new website design!

It's something I've wanted to do for a good few months now; since last Autumn in fact.  But with everything going on with my Dad's cancer diagnosis and then losing Mum, anything blog related was the last thing on my mind.

However, Spring seemed the perfect time for a blog make-over.  There are still a few tweaks to iron out here and there with the design, but in the main, I'm absolutely chuffed to bits with it.

How did I choose it?

Choosing a new design can be a daunting process.  I had to get it right first time because you don't really want to be chopping and changing your design.  I did quite abit a research before settling on a design from Pipdig.  I know of several bloggers who've used their designs and they have always given them the thumbs up.  My blogging pal Laurie, from Vanity and Me Style, has her template from them and said how helpful they'd been with her design.  Laurie, by her own admission is not the most tech savvy of people and I would say that I'm only slightly further up the tech ladder than her.  If Laurie was happy with them, then that was an excellent recommendation in my eyes.

They have a very varied selection of templates for both blogger and wordpress but the one design I kept coming back to was Equinox.  It's one of their most expensive templates but even at £49.00 it doesn't break the bank.  It comes with lots of features, more than some of the other designs they offer and I liked the cleanness of the design, both the screen version and the mobile version.

Thank you that man!

I can't extol the virtues of the design without also extolling the virtues of the service from Pipdig. Phil was extremely helpful and, more importantly very patient.  It can't be easy dealing with a self confessed techno-idiot and partial techno-phobe like myself but he answered every query in ways that the layman could understand.

A hearty round of applause to Phil.

Defining my Blog Personality

Along with the new template, it was also pertinent to update my colours and tag line.  Even with only 18 months of blogging under my belt, my blogging personality has evolved and sharpened just as my wardrobe has.  They needed to be brought more into sync with each other.

The header on my old design was in my favourite colour - blue.  Given half the chance, everything in my life would be blue.  But how boring would that be, living just in a world of blue!

Time for a change.  But what colour?

It was so obvious what it should be.  I mean it had been staring me in the face for quite a while, that it was about to slap me round the face with a wet fish!  In my avatar and profile photo, I'm wearing one of my favourite coloured berets; a gorgeously rich raspberry, burgundy one.  As my berets are something of a signature for me, when I looked at the photo again, it wasn't just like a light bulb going off but a ruddy great big EXPLOSION!

That's it!  There!  That's the colour!  BINGO!

In order to get the right colour - or certainly near enough to the beret in the photo - I used imagecolorpicker.com.  It's so ridiculously easy to use, even I, the techno-idiot that I am, didn't need to ask Tall Brown Fox for any help!

'And that's saying something.' says small voice of reason, taking a sly swig of vodka in the corner.

You upload the image, hover the cursor over the area you want to get your colour match and you get the HTML colour code for that pixel!

My font colours match my beret.  How brilliant is that?

Next up; my tagline

My old one was,

'Rediscovering the 80% of my wardrobe, I wore less than 20% of the time, pre blog.'

Somewhat wordy but certainly very true at the time I started blogging.  Since turning 50 last June, I had wanted a punchier tagline.  One that was short and sweet and in a sentence defined my long held attitude to life and style.  After much brain storming and running ideas past Tall Brown Fox for his opinion I chose,

'Not letting age define my life or style'

because it doesn't and it won't!

I now feel my blog is truly reflective of not just my style but my personality.

Future Blog Plans

With my new design in place, I can stride confidently forward with blog plans that have been brewing in my blog cauldron for quite a while, minus eye of newt and toe of frog!

- I'll be resuming The Seasonal Skinny Style Challenge.  I have unfinished business with this as it unfortunately got abandoned half way through the Spring Season last year.  I dislike loose threads so come April, I'll be taking up my weekly styling again to get to the finish line at the end of August.

- From April, I'll be hosting a monthly style link-up.  But it will be a link-up with a twist!  In the next week or so, I'll be announcing details of what it will be.  As a hint, there'll be a chance to participate in the link-up way beyond just linking various outfits from the previous month.

- I've a 5 part blog series planned on the Menopause.  I'm right in the throes of this currently and it's been a turbulent time to say the least.  In a series of posts, I'll explain how I'm approaching and dealing with this life-changing experience.  Sharing tips that hopefully other menopausal women will be able to use.

- New categories will be added.  In particular, look out for them under Style Ideas and Categories.  All designed to make it easier to find previous posts on specific style features or lifestyle topics.

Make-over Footnote

The whole blog make-over has been a far less stressful process than I imagined and absolutely worth every second I've spent on planning it.  And thank you for your patience as I ease myself back into the land of blogging after what has been rather a traumatic previous 5 months.

I hope you like the new layout and design.  Let me know your thoughts and comments below.

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