Skip to main content

All Creatures Great and Watkyn Bassett. . .

Tristan and Siegfried Farnon?  The Earl of Grantham?  Or Tuppy Glossop?  Nope.  It's Heinz-Ulrich, channeling his best 1930s country gentleman on the way to the local village fete.

Going for a 1930-ish English country vibe today. . .  although sadly my horse, riding boots, and pack of hounds are nowhere to be found.  The above combination of clothing consists of various items all anchored by an old tweed jacket that I found almost right off the bat when I began visiting thrift/charity shops in the summer of 2010 and discovered that there was all kinds of good quality classic menswear for the taking at rock bottom prices.  

Here's a breakdown of everything:

*Hunting Horn brand Harris Tweed Jacket (thrifted)
*Land's End Sweater (seasonal clearance)
*Land's End Dress Chinos (new in 2005 or '06)
*Club Room Oxford Cloth Button-down (a sale item in late '06 pr early '07)
*Rooster Plaid Wool Necktie (thrifted)
*Allen Edmonds Long-wing Brogues (Ebay)
*Italian Silk Pocket Square (thrifted)
*Ralph Lauren Charcoal and Olive Argyll Socks (new some years ago)
*Land's End Tan Leather Belt (new in '04)


The jacket is, admittedly, a bit long on me, but I think it still looks pretty good all things considered, and it's always fun to pull it out in mid-October and wear it during the colder months.  Speaking of which. . .   It has been a cool, gray fall day outside today, so the Grand Duchess and I had a few minutes of fun snapping three or four photographs before heading our separate ways back to opposite ends of campus for our respective afternoon classes.  

My particular batch of undergrads did nicely this afternoon.  We had another student-led discussion today, this time on the John Landis horror-comedy An American Werewolf in London (1982), and the two young ladies in charge ran a good session.  Of course, it always helps when the rest of the class has an "on" day, and indeed, there was lots of lively discussion, commentary, and laughter about the movie and related readings.  You can't ask for more than that.  I always have one group of students per year that I genuinely enjoy spending time with thanks to just the right mix of personalities, and this is the group for this semester at least.

I also touched base briefly with an old professor of mine, via telephone, at UW-Madison for a few minutes, and it was nice to hear her voice after so many years.  A good afternoon all the way around, and tomorrow is a fairly easy day, so no lesson planning or related course preparation this evening.  Who knows?  I might just enjoy a wee bit of single malt after the Young Master's bedtime before turning in early myself.

-- Heinz-Ulrich

Stand still, will ya??!!


Normally, I'd button my jacket, but it seems a shame to hide such a pretty sweater, and it wasn't quite that frigid outside this afternoon either.

Comments

Popular Posts

Mid-June Thursday Style. . .

    A nother pretty typical variation on the theme for late spring, summer, and very early fall.  I'm a huge fan of Madras and have several such shirts in the seasonal rotation.  Lightweight, exceedingly comfortable, and even dressy when pressed and tucked in, which is the usual way of things here at Totleigh in the Wold.   Now, if I had my druthers, I'd still rather be skiing the trails in the upper half of "The Mitten" (of Michigan), in the Upper Peninsula, or Ontario.  But summers ain't so bad either, and I'd look pretty funny walking around in cross-country ski attire during June. -- Heinz-Ulrich

The Power of Ideas. . .

  T he end is nigh!  The autumn semester/term approaches.  And while we still have almost two months of summer left according to the calendar, "Summer is over and gone," as the crickets sang in Charlotte's Web .  At least for those of us who head back to the classroom in less than a month.   In advance of a meeting with my program director late Monday morning, I spent about 40 minutes total during the weekend to jot down several ideas about planned workshops and related activities for the coming 2024-2025 academic year.  At an opportune moment, I mentioned "I have a few ideas," and opened my leather portfolio.   My director was highly receptive to almost everything I suggested, and we had a very productive planning session for just over 90 minutes.  Just about everything I sketched out on Sunday aligns with his own ideas.  It's nice when meetings go that well, and two related things occur to me in hindsight. One, it pays to exercise...

A Lazy Saturday at the End of June. . .

  A sleepy first half of the weekend here at Totleigh.  Warmer and quite humid ahead of an approaching cool front here in Mid-Michigan.  Perfect for yet another pair of chino shorts an a seersucker shirt -- tucked in of course -- with the usual leather deck shoes and ribbon belt.  Otherwise, not much accomplished beyond a page or so of writing and monkeying around with audio settings for an upcoming podcast episode.   However, I was not completely useless yesterday!  I made a huge fruit salad for dinner, which the Grand Duchess and I enjoyed a short while later at the table on the back porch.  The Young Master, as is his wont on Saturday evenings,  took his dinner on a tray in the TV room upstairs where he whiled away a couple of hours on Flight Simulator, flying some sort of commercial airliner to some destination across the Atlantic or Pacific.  I would have loved that sort of technology at about nine or 10 way back during the late 19...