Today I popped on a dress that I found at a clothes swap earlier this year. I had every intention of removing the frill around the bottom but having put it on today I decided that I quite like it.

It's originally from Next and 3 sizes bigger than I normally wear but it has a tie to the back so I can nip it in a bit and I like a loose fitting dress anyway - I can't be doing with tight clothing in this weather.


It has some lovely details - sparkly buttons, frill to the neckline, ruched sleeves (which I have decided are my new favourite thing) and pintucks across the shoulders at the back. You'd think all of these things put together would look dreadful but it all works. The creases just all out of it too so this has the potential to become a firm favourite.


It was lovely in the garden today, my honeysuckle is flowering for the second time this year and the bees just love it. It smells divine.

I spent some time with a friend's daughter today. She has just completed her GCSE's (are they still called that?) and is about to start 6th form. She wanted to come and talk to me about what my job as a graphic designer entails. I was impressed with her eagerness to learn, she asked so many pertinent questions, which illustrated that not only was she listening (I did waffle a bit) but she understood too. I've had far less enthusiastic responses from students on work experience who were studying design!

She doesn't know what she wants to do yet but wanted to get an idea of the industry. I guess it is difficult to know what you want to do when you don't know much about what a job actually involves. I hope to put her in touch with a few other people to chat about web development and marketing to give her insight into other careers too.

When she asked how I became a graphic designer I realised that my journey has been a pretty easy one. I've been very fortunate and it dawned on me that it must be so much harder for youngsters to decide on a career, there seems to be so much pressure. My eldest nephew is almost 13 so he has all of this to come and I worry that being expected to make a career choice at 16 is too young. Some people have a passion for what they do, they know from a very young age what they want to 'be when they grow up'. Others don't, it's as simple as that.

Even when I started college at 16 I didn't have a clear idea and it took the following six years of study for me to work it out. So, as I sat there today with a 16 year old, who has yet to even start her further education, who seems almost desperate to find out what she wants to be, I felt very sad for the school leavers of today and tomorrow.

I'll never forget a lecturer telling me that the most interesting people he has ever met didn't know what they wanted to be, and they led varied and interesting lives as a result. It seems to me that that isn't an option for youngsters anymore.