Last week was our trip to Perth for my Steves Christmas party and blow me down with a feather, what do you think happened? I got a real bad cold and had a fever, runny nose, fuzzy head and couldn’t speak coherently for every single day. Typical, great timing I haven’t had anything planned for months!

On the plane, at the office, in restaurants, in the park, in the CBD shops, on the train, on the boat for the party and yes on the plane on the way home too I felt awful. And it was freeeezing in Perth and did I take a jumper? No! So I stocked up on Ibuprofen, drank tons of water, slept whenever I could, took Echinacea, and got drunk at said party so I didn’t feel crap anymore.

Having experienced my Steves work parties before they are usual fairly formal affairs in a posh London restaurant somewhere, its usually freezing and tights are a must. Here it was going to be on a boat and it was supposed to be hot! So I was planning on wearing a silk dress, shortish in a nice bright colour and some really girly heeled sandals, with jewels attached preferable for a vintage lady look. Anyway, after many attempts to find something in the shops I gave up and decided to alter the red dress which wasn’t quite the right length in my wardrobe. Sadly it looked even worse on me afterwards, so I decided to dig out the LBD and spice it up with some glitz.

I tried to find some second hand jewellery, like the kind of stuff you could find tons of at home, the crystal jewel variety but sadly I found none here. I found some cheap alternatives instead which I reluctantly bought, and I found some amazing shoes with matching jewels online which would match perfectly. All I needed to do, as time was a bit tight, was to order them and get them delivered to the hotel, easy!

Or was it? Sadly this isn’t the end of my wardrobe adventure for this little trip.

We arrived in Perth and apart from being rather chilly it was nice for a change not to be melting anywhere without air-con. I enquired at reception regarding my parcel, hmmm shoes, shhhh, very important parcel for business purposes don’t you know! They said they hadn’t seen them and would probably be up in my room. Nope! I stayed calm phoned down and asked again. No not there, ok so I’ll wave my magic wand and say “achio sparkly shoes” shall I?

That evening we received information regarding the party, and the dress, code, the day before, are you serious? And no not formal as expected, but casual summer dresses, shorts and flip flops??????

Luckily having been in the Brownies when I was little I learned to always be prepared and in a fit of not being able to think straight when packing, I sort of threw anything decent which I loved in my bag, including my lovely Orla Kiely summer sun dress! Perfect! All I needed to do was some nifty accessorising and I’d be sorted.

In the mean time I called the delivery company, they did deliver the shoes and they were signed for. So I mentioned this to reception who knew the person who had signed for the parcel but still no sign of the shoes. A little while later after a lady called Natlie got involved there was a knock at the door. Could it be…..yes it was my shoes!

Apparently they watched the security camera footage from the day and time it was delivered and hey presto, there was my parcel, signed for and popped in a place no one had looked, ah ha mystery solved! I didn’t tell them they wouldn’t go with my new outfit but I love them so much so I’m very happy they found them, they are my new sparkly shoes.

So to go with my Orla Kiely dress I found a necklace, some earrings and a gorgeous blue scarf to keep the cold out and decided to go with my spare pair of comfy trusty heals in a vintage dance shoe style.

The party on the boat got into full swing straight away with folks dancing as we drank champagne and drifted down the Swan River towards Fremantle and back again, the view was great and thanks to the champagne I danced pretty much the whole time too, so I was rather pleased with myself.

We arrived home, picked up George and I’m beginning to feel better now, I managed to put up a Christmas tree, non traditional, just a dead tree which fell in strong winds a few months ago and managed to decorate it.

Alas this story is not over, my Steve has caught my virus and has headed North to Darwin where I will join him in a few days. It will NOT be cold there! There will not be sparkly shoes. There will be crocodiles, beer, boots and it might all be a bit ‘Crocodile Dundee’. I shall post about that one next week.