I'm just sitting watching flowers in the rain.

Trench coat: c/o Laura Ashley. Blouse: £4.50, Jack Wills, via charity shop. Pencil skirt: £1.50, Jigsaw, via charity shop (I know, I need to sew the hem up!). Chelsea boots: £8, Bally, via charity shop. Umbrella: mum's (similar here). Necklace: c/o Laura Ashley. Rings: Topshop and vintage. Nail varnish: rainy day, Topshop.

This blog is slowly but surely turning into a series of weather observations, but when you're British that's hardly surprising - it's a bit soggy, isn't it? Although I can never be bothered to carry an umbrella round as they're so encumbering when wet, sometimes I'll have to admit defeat, particularly when I came across my mum's old Mary Poppins style duck umbrella. Underneath its boughs (or, um, metal rods) I wore a classic trench coat, which Laura Ashley asked me to style up, along with four other bloggers. It's hardly difficult to decide what to wear with something as classic as a trench, particularly as the camel goes with pretty much everything. I chose a completely charity shop ensemble (coming to a grand total of £14!), keeping the palette muted to show off the piece I entitled my "raindrop" necklace. I mean, if you're going to go with a theme, you might as well go 100%.

I also had a chat with the Laura Ashley girls about the new furniture collections a while back, so feel sure to click through and listen to me rambling about chandeliers!

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Wearing my sky blue Lacoste and your knee socks.

Leather jacket: The Kooples. Denim smock dress: £36, ASOS. Customised leather half-pint bag: c/o Brit-Stitch. Contrast knee socks: £5.40, ASOS. Anna boots: £76.50, Topshop. Necklace: won in Dina's giveaway, Toujours Toi. Lipstick: Topshop Really Ruby.

Never one to pass up an Arctic Monkeys reference, the knee socks have been back with a vengeance over the past couple of weeks. Paired with my trusty leather jacket, I felt rather toasty as I headed along the Jubilee line on my way to Wimbledon to meet Camilla and Jazmine for dinner at Aubaine. However much I love Wimbledon, it's not an area I very often explore, and the last time I visited was for Jazmine's birthday. This time she knew I was coming, however, and when Camilla arrived she showed us around the village, and led us straight to the charity shops! Is there really a better combination than good company, food, and some of your favourite ladies?

Smock dresses are a relatively new thing for me as I tend to belt everything, or at least have something that's vaguely flattering, but sometimes it's nice to wear something which you can just throw on and not worry about how much you've eaten for tea (or the McFlurries I picked up on the way to my friend's later that evening). I've been living in this little asos number recently namely because my wardrobe is currently behind a box that requires a lot of effort to move, but also as I've seen both Lisette and Lizzie pull it off admirably. Despite having made it my bag of choice recently (read: there's too much stuff in it to transfer the contents daily) my brit-stich half-pint bag has only just made it into some outfit photos. When asked if I wanted to trial their new 'Make-Your-Own' feature, I toyed with the idea of pastels for about two minutes before reverting to my failsafe navy and white combination - just imagine it with a striped tee! I've also noticed that Brit-Stitch are running a competition on their facebook page to win your own customised bag, so good luck if you enter!

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I've seen those English dramas too.

Polkadot blouse: mum's, vintage Sarsaparilla. Leather skirt: £4, charity shop (similar here, and probably won't fall apart the first time you wear it). Two-tone flats: 50p, Russell and Bromley via ebay. Shopper bag: c/o Laura Ashley. Lipstick: Topshop Really Ruby.

Apart from the obligatory burger snaps, you may have noticed a few bloggers' instagrams had a slightly different backdrop than usual yesterday. Lucy, Kristabel, Carrie and I headed West to visit our pal Dina in her university city of Oxford. One of the most beautiful cities in the country, with undoubtedly some of the most awe-inspiring architecture around (yep, I'm the girl who walks round staring up at the buildings rather than looking where she's going), I couldn't wait to head back after my two years away. 

If you don't know much about the system at Oxford, applicants apply to a college rather than to the university as a whole, and each college has its own mini campus. Dina's at Lincoln, so we headed there first to have a wander around the quad and check out the Harry Potter-style dining hall (they actually filmed it down the road at Christ Church), which put my own university's carnatic halls to shame. We meandered around many of the city's colleges, including Magdalen (where my outfit photos were taken!), which has its own deer park, and New, home to some of the most colourful flower gardens I've ever come across. The location for our mandatory group shot (taken by the ever-patient Sonia) was underneath the bridge of sighs, which should probably be renamed the bridge of lols after the amount of failed jumping shots we attempted to take - you can't have everything, after all.

We probably needed the exercise after our lunch at Atomic Burger on Cowley Road. In true fashion, we piled in at peak time, and squeezed around a table with Dina's university friends. I sampled the Jake n Elwood (blue cheese, bacon, and onions), although I noticed a Messy Jessie and Bandit around our table. It's definitely worth popping into if you're in the area, even if only for the Barbie-themed toilets. We rolled (nearly literally...) into Pierre Victoire for dinner for something a little more refined, if that's how you classify eating with a knife and fork. Sadly we then went our separate ways into the night, after our day of being tourists. Looks like I'll be heading back soon though - we didn't even have time to go punting!

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