My New City: Caen

While the thought of moving to a new place is completely daunting, I relish the fact that I have been given a new place to explore. Moving away from everything and everyone you're comfortable with is a really strange feeling, but I find if I have to find my way around somewhere new, I like to do it on my own.

3 days ago I arrived in Caen, France. Totally alone, with only the basic possessions to keep me going, I had to find my way to my new home and around this new city. Here are some of the things that I found. 

I think I'm going to like it here. 

Silk Scarves

I'm not very good at shopping in charity shops. I find it difficult to find things that look good, and difficult to imagine things looking any different, so never really succeed in finding anything I like.


One shop at home, however, often has a lovely selection of scarves, which I seem to be able to manage, and am now building up a small collection of them. Scarves are such a simple way of adding colour or texture to an otherwise boring outfit (as most of my clothes are back, they come in very useful). 

Blue scarves, make unknown, via local charity shop 


I like the dark blue scarf as the paisley pattern really stands out in the yellow. The green, red, yellow and blue mean that it goes with lots of outfits, too!

 Pink and green scarves, by Jacqmar London, via local charity shop


I love the pastel colours of these two. While I like them on their own, I think they go beautifully together, and being completely plain means that they are easy to put with any outfit.

Proper shoes

Despite owning about 40 pairs of shoes, I don't appear to have any for every day wear. They're all high heeled, or let water in, or highly impractical in any way possible.

So I have finally bought a proper pair of shoes. They are flat, and made of real leather so will definitely keep my feet dry as the summer sunshine turns to an autumnal drizzle. The colour is slightly more subtle than some of the more brash brown brogues I have seen, and will easily go with skirts and trousers, black or brown. I'm very happy that I finally have a pair of stylish and sensible shoes!

Brogues from Office