June travels

We begin with the red button hole. I hadn't noticed until I took this photo of the denim shirt that has become my summer travel jacket for the month that it has one red accent button hole. I had purchased the shirt last year at this time at a consignment shop on the outskirts of Paris that alas is no longer there. 

I've moving around quite a lot this month, from Paris to Lyon, then to Manchester England to meet up with a friend who is going to have a baby. But one step at a time. 

While waiting to meet a friend at a cafe at the bottom of the rue Lepic in Paris, I caught these American  students standing listening to a guide. Easy target for a photo. I love the oversized look on the left with the tatoo in the middle of the upper back. 

 The boulevard de Clichy and the base of the rue Lepic provide a wonderful vantage point from which to watch all kinds of fashionable attires deambulate.

I was amused by the concept of a *supermarket* at which one could acquire "original" undergarments. 

From chilly Paris, France to ... chilly Manchester, England. My friend Elsa and I love shopping for used clothes. Her dress and shoes cost a grand total of 10 pounds, not bad! I found a nice pair of linen pants for 5. Charity shops as they are called in England are numerous and easy to find as they tend to cluster on the main streets of cities all over the country. It's so much fun to go from shop to shop in search of bargains, and then have a really good meal afterwards. 

                                                                                  One of the many Oxfam shops in Manchester, UK

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I'm now in London, staying in Marylebone. Off I go to get my hair done in the neighborhood, wearing the Eileen Fisher tunic I have layered with the Jean shirt.

First stop: the charity shops on Marylebone High Street. I find this red and white skirt for 16 pounds, a perfect "three season" piece as they say. 

Then, after the haircut,  I walk to  Primrose Hill  where there is a really good charity shop that reflects its well-to-do inhabitants. 

It's Ascot season, and there is the perfect hat to wear to the races. 

I come back down to earth and instead,  choose a cashmere cardigan, in really good condition, for 35 pounds, a really good deal I think. I remind myself that I live in a region where it's winter for six months out of the year. 

The woman who did my hair had inspired me to head across Regent's Park, the canal, across Primrose Hill to the really cute high street where I also stop into a bookshop and pick up a collection of Ishiguro short stories. 

The Regent's Canal

 On my way out of the charity shop, I catch a snapshot of a beautiful Japanese woman sporting a long, flowing belted duster that one can only wear in a place like London where the weather remains iffy even on the loveliest of days.

Heading to Ascot from Waterloo Station, the hats are called "fascinators."

Another fascinating bold move

At the Saatchi Gallery, threads, fashion, collage

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Then off to Bournemouth to a comics conference where I met a fellow charity shopper, Cath from Australia. The day of my presentation, I wore the dress I had picked up in Brattleboro, VT, to show my indigenous colors, trees, the woods, with the necklace I had picked up at a charity shop in Manchester UK. The woman on the left, Gillian from Canada, is a children's book author. 

Off to Brussels now, on the last day of June.