I’ve been spending time in Suffolk this week visiting my half sister and her beautiful daughter. For my blogging friends around the world, Suffolk is a county in East Anglia, a part of the country which has the earliest sunrise in the UK. Travelling friend came too and yesterday we had a girls dressing up day when Patricia got us all done up in Nigerian clothes from her copious wardrobe. Actually her wardrobe is several rooms including this one where she keeps some of her shoes. 

She herself looked fabulous of course; her outfit was made to measure for her, a lovely little number in blue. I chose a turquoise wrapper and headtie with a white buba (blouse); travelling friend wore a three piece set in a turquoise print with white panels and turquoise edging. Headties are great for bad hair days, just scrape it all up under and no-one knows if it looks a mess! A touch more make up than usual to try to do something with the very exposed face, some matching jewellery and off we drove. 

Southwold is the classiest little town on the east coast and as soon as we arrived we turned heads. I think that a Nigerian, a mixed British Nigerian and a white American woman dressed in traditional clothing was quite a surprise. We had only walked a hundred metres when three women stopped us to say we looked beautiful. That became the theme for the whole afternoon, every few minutes people approached us, smiling, chatty and paying us compliments. 

We walked the along the prom, or rather we promenaded, stopped in a café for ice cream, 

and strolled to the end of the pier, a must do, just to look back. 

A very sociable afternoon. So, if you want to get into conversations with strangers, then get into some unusual clothes, it’s a great ice breaker, makes you feel incredibly good about yourself and enormous fun.