Do you know those ‘elephant’ jokes? You know, like, how many elephants can you fit into a Mini? Two in the front, two in the back! How do you know there are elephants in your house? There’s an empty Mini parked outside! How do you know there are elephants in your fridge? Footprints in the butter! Boom, boom! 😛
Which got me thinking the other day. How do you know when there are Danish kids in your house? A pile of shoes or boots at the front door!
Or… You can’t get into your garden for bikes, helmets and rucksacks!
My own two (half Danish/half Scottish) little ‘uns have had a tough day today. I’m off to give them a cuddle. And tell them a few (bad) jokes.
I did another “those crazy Danes” post today – all about Danes and their ‘on-off’ relationship with shoes… If you’d like to see it, it’s here http://blogs.denmark.dk/diane/2010/11/10/shoes/ at the official website of Denmark.
Welcome back to another week and another Pamper Monday! Is it hotting up where you are? It’s certainly been sunny in Copenhagen this last week. Alas, the heat is dragging its feet. So – on that note, boom boom! – this week I’m going to focus on pampering my pins!
Here are my brand new, metallic strappy sandals. I needed a new, fairly flat pair for pottering around in, and these are going to be great with all my white and silver/grey things for summer. (I already have two pairs of high-heeled Ecco sandals, the same model in two colours, that I love!) And, yes, they have zips at the back – just like the ones Missus Smarty Pants bought! You can see her gladiator sandals here 🙂
Have the shoes. Now the legs… I had a nice long shower yesterday morning and followed it up with some fake tan, especially on my feet and toes. And then applied some nice dark purple nail varnish on my toenails. Do you remember my Scaredy Cat Challenge at the end of January when I got myself a professional pedicure? You can read it here, Twinkle Toes. Well, that one session gave me a really good base to start on and I’ve been applying foot lotion etc (which I got for Christmas) almost every night since. So I’m almost good to go!
All we need now is the heat… Here’s DD8 at 7.30am this morning. I actually had to go and dig out our gloves (which I had just put down in the basement) for the bike ride to school – yikes, it was chilly!
But I can’t go wandering around in big boots until it heats up outside can I? So I was ‘forced’ to get these too. And if you read yesterday’s Scaredy Cat Challenge – Declutter Time 2 – don’t worry, lots of old pairs of shoes have already been flung 😉
Missus Smarty Pants, the style sister of the Flylady family, often mentions accessories when putting together an outfit. I’ve never been a shoe fetichist (though I have been known to buy the same shoe in two colours when I do find some that I love…like my sweetie sandals from Ecco).
I’ve been hoarding collecting them since I was a child. My Granny loved (bright) jewellry and scarves, my Mum not so much, so I think the gene skipped a generation and reappeared in me 🙂 I got lots of stuff from Granny when I was a child and, when I started Secondary School (age 11), I started buying them myself from charity/thrift shops. And, joy of joys, when I started earning my own money working as a secretary (age 19), I was able to buy them from the department store!
I have (literally) two boxes full and the ones I’m currently wearing are in a drawer. Or three. There are lots of days when I wear two scarves – one as an accessory for my outfit, another for warmth if I’m going outside and wearing a coat. I never throw a scarf away these days. Unless, of course, the colours just don’t suit me…Missus Smarty Pants has taught me well! 😉
You can almost tell the decade I wore them by their shape and material: small, cotton, squares (late 80s, worn in a jaunty French style) large, square silky Hermès type ones (90s, used them tucked inside or outside the dark business suits I wore at the EC Court of Justice), long thin knitted ones (early 00s, in bright colours worn over jumpers and coats).
These days I’m back to the large, square scarves – but wearing them this way, see photo above. The current Danish trend is to have an exaggerated v-shape at the front. This is the outfit I’ve got on today. I bought the jumper yesterday for a pittance from Mango (they have great colours and their prices are similar to H&M). Came home from town and discovered an old scarf in the very same colour, pale rose pink.
And this is my current ‘I’m-in-love-with-this’ scarf. From one of my favourite scarf producers, the Danish company Erfurt. Paisley pattern, also very ‘on-trend’ here in Denmark right now. The base colour (green) is not one I wear very often these days, but the colours in the scarf suit me and it goes with everything else in my wardrobe. And it’s got bells on…or at least green, white and pink pompoms! 😉
