Today’s November writing prompt is ‘Write about an outfit you associate with an important memory.’

I’ve chosen the above dress, and it’s not memories per se that have prompted me to choose this outfit (though the ones below are good ones). It’s the dress itself I feel attached to and even although I can no longer fit into it I can’t bring myself to put it out to the charity shop as I love it so much. I bought it from the Joe Browns website back in 2011 I reckon, and I love the ‘graffiti’ style of it and the detail of the skulls and playing cards and random other squiggles.

I wore this dress a lot during my 30s which was a fun decade for me. It was when I developed confidence in a lot of areas of my life; with work, with my writing, forged some great new friendships and went on amazing trips alone, with family, friends and then later, with my now husband.

This dress joined me on some of those journeys…

The Writing Conference

This blurry photo was taken at the York Writing festival back in 2012. I’ve cropped out the very drunk ‘celebrity’ who was in attendance trying to pitch his book to agents. This was a great conference where I got to pitch Follow Me to two agents, one of whom loved the idea and first few chapters and told me she was dying to read the rest, so as you can imagine I was excited for the rest of the conference and the six months that followed, until it was a disappointing ‘no.’ I felt this conference marked a turning point for me with my writing, where I was starting to get really serious about it, in terms of thinking maybe one day I could get a book published, and I was soaking up all the workshops with hints and tips of how to submit, and improve my work.

Cruising the Mediterranean

I was lucky enough to go on a couple of amazing cruises with my parents – this photo was also taken in 2012, on the lead up to my Dad’s 60th birthday, when we went on a cruise around the Mediterranean. My Dad always worked in travel and as a family we went on some amazing trips throughout the years. One of the best things about this cruise was the amazing food served on board and the library! I loved the fact I got to see so many interesting places without having to unpack each time. This was me dressed for dinner one night and it wasn’t long after posing beside this big apple that I made it to the actual Big Apple… (on a separate trip). Some favourite stops on this trip were Venice, Taormina and Dubrovnik.

In Barcelona (one of my favourite cities)

I’ve been on some great trips to Barcelona. This photo was taken in 2017 and it was fairly early on in my relationship with my now husband. We had a great time on this trip – visiting lots of great art galleries and the food was amazing. I loved this piece of art work behind us called ‘The World Begins with Every Kiss.’ by Joan Fontcuberta. It’s a mural which is made up of hundreds of little photographs and I just think it looks so cool. (and has quite a lovely title).

Chris loves to remind me of the evening we started off with pre-dinner drinks at the amazing Vietnamese restaurant/bar beside our hotel and by the time we finished our bottle of white wine and pizza at another restaurant he had to practically carry me home. I blame the rocket fuelled cocktails in the first bar. Europeans seem to like to free pour their measures! I also have some great memories of another Barcelona trip I went on in 2015 (or thereabouts!) with my friend, Julie, but ‘the dress’ didn’t join me on that adventure.