Weekend in review: 'Name That Toucan'

We all know I'm an accessories fiend, hoovering up the ridiculous and the inappropriate in my ongoing quest to make myself look like the most fabulous bag lady in town.  I have necklaces with jewels, spikes and jingle bells, rings cast from gothic animal skulls and bags made of green fur, two-tone jelly and inside-out neoprene.  Even when I was a teenager I was obsessed with wearing a set of vintage rings I bought in a market in Moscow.  I used to think they had magical powers (to repel 'straight-acting' men, do doubt).  But what I didn't have, until this weekend, was a comedy umbrella head.  I did have a fabulous long umbrella I bought when I was studying in Munich but that was carried away by the naughty, drunken fairies the night of our last family gathering.  Either that or my taxi driver stole it, the bastard.

A Twitter poll suggested I go to James Smith and Sons to find a replacement and, with recommendations from the likes of Amro and Hugh, I could hardly refuse.  The company has been making brollies since 1830 and the gorgeous traditional store front on New Oxford Street hasn't changed for 140 years.  Sadly they have a no-photography policy so you'll just have to believe me when I say you need to visit this place.  Apart from the exquisite wooden décor - why don't they design shops/anything to last any more? - James Smith has an amazingly wide selection of umbrellas in all sorts of sizes and shapes...  I was tempted by the solid wood/cane options but all coming in over the £200 mark they were completely unrealistic.  Then I set eyes on this, my sweet, darling toucan.  The bird head is cast in resin while the rest of the handle is maple wood; the style is 'slim-rolled London' which means it's a little bit thinner and a little bit lighter, handy for hopping on and off a double decker.  The clincher: it came in nicely below my £100 upper cap.

The only issue remaining is what to call her?  I'm leaning towards Penelope but I could be swayed by a strong argument; I'm covering my ears to Anastasia's heinous suggestions.  

Obviously it would be impossible for me to walk that far along Oxford St without a quick pop into the British Museum.  I hoped to wander through the room on Viking period (Mother is studying Scandinavian history at university just now and I need to bone up for our 'debates') but unfortunately they were under renovation and I had to make do with Iron Age/Celtic Britain.  After satisfying my curiosity about insular art and the Celtic/Roman religious fusion I gave the gift shop a good seeing-to, liberating a book on The Origins of the British.  An application of modern genetics to track the history of the British populations through the ages, this is being added to my large pile of extracurricular reading material for when the going gets tough (next up The Virgin Suicides, The World According to Garp and A History of Scandinavia: Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Finland, Iceland [I will beat her and her polymath ways]). 

This weekend I've also been experimenting with a new cleansing ritual thanks to a little shipment from Zirh that arrived last week.  Since I'm still humming and hawing over joining the bearded crew I didn't bother trying out the shaving products, but I have given the cleanser, scrub and ointments a good go.  I love the fresh scent of the face wash and the satisfying grit of the scrub though it seems my face is a bit oily to cope with the serum and moisturiser all at once - one will suffice! I'm probably going to stick to my Shu Uemura cleansing oil in the long run but this definitely makes a refreshing change every so often when I want to feel 'squeaky clean'. 

Thanks to the nice people at Tesco Direct I have a Zirh grooming kit to give away with full-sized products (cleanser, scrub, oil, shave gel, after shave, serum, moisturiser, under eye cream) to the person who comes up with the best name for my new brolly (comment below).  If I really like it I'll even use the name (more likely, it will become her middle name - I'm already sort of attached to 'Penelope')!

[Competition running until 10am Wednesday 23rd May]  

xxx
Duck