Rainy Sunday Style. . .

A very quiet and damp day here at Totleigh today. I actually managed to sleep until 10am! Can't remember the last time that occurred.

In any case, a shower, a splash of St. John's 'Madras', some informal attire, and we're ready to put the back porch together for the 2024 season, which will be a nice surprise for the Grand Duchess, who is out with the Young Master right now. I'll get to that after another mug of fresh coffee and submitting final course grades to the requisite online portal of course.

The navy blue Rugby jersey and leather deck shoes have been in the rotation for years. The red shorts were an end of season clearance purchase last fall, and today is their inaugural wearing. A 9" inseam when I stand by the way.

In the next week or so, depending on available time, I'll stow the rest of my cool weather attire and finish replacing it with the usual late spring and summer gear, both more formal and the casual stuff. A lot of men, for some reason, have trouble with colorful or patterned clothing. For summertime, or indeed anytime at all, I'm quite happy to stick out like a sore thumb with madras, colorful shorts, striped seersucker, and the like.

It's classic style after all. And certainly preferable to a sweat stained t-shirt, a tank top with underarm hair on full view, or ratty cargo shorts. I have no problem with masculinity, but some polish, sophistication, finesse, and discretion are necessary attributes. We're not cavemen after all. But then I've just shared shots of my unshaven jawline and hairy legs above, so what do I know?

-- Heinz Ulrich

All put together for the late spring and summer season.

Mid-afternoon grazing.

Comments

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...

Classic Style

Search This Blog