Tidy

I've been having a bit of a clear-out this week, partly in despair at the enormous tottering mountains of magazines, paperwork and books in every corner of the house, but mostly in a desperate effort to make the annual pre-Christmas house-cleaning less arduous in a few weeks.

It started more or less by accident yesterday, when I was sorting out laundry. I ought to draw a critical path analysis diagram to illustrate the path of progress I took.

Step 1:  Sort out a load of laundry and put it in the washing machine.  Decide to tidy up my Heap of Shame in the corner.

Step 2:  Pick up assorted items of clothing on the floor, sort through and either hang up or place in laundry basket.  Stand back and admire empty spot where Heap of Shame previously lived.  Decide to hoover the bedroom.

Step 3:  Fetch hoover, realise that Mr WithaY's Heap of Shame threatens to overwhelm his half of the bedroom.  Suggest* he sorts it out.

Step 4:  Decide to clean window frames of black filth and mould while he sorts out the Heap.   Fetch cleaning wipes from the bathroom.  Clean bathroom sink, bath and shower with cleaning wipes, as they're all a bit grubby now you look at them.

Step 5:  Return to bedroom.  Clean all black filth from window frames.  Decide to dust window ledges, as they are grey and fluffy rather than white and shiny.

Step 6:  Fetch duster from study.  Find furniture polish cleaning wipes in box with duster.  Realise desk is very grubby.  Clean with furniture polish wipes.  Move dressmakers form out of study onto landing to be put back in the loft later.

Step 7:  Mr WithaY, taking a break from sorting his Heap, scrambles up into the loft to put the dressmakers form away.  Both stand back and admire the empty spot in the study where it used to be.

Step 8:    Return to bedroom.  Dust window ledges.  Realise every other flat surface in the bedroom is also grey and fluffy. Dust everything else.  Raise huge clouds of dust.  Re-dust window ledges as a result.  Finally, with Mr WithaY's Heap of Shame cleared, hoover the bedroom floor.

Step 9:  Hoover the landing, study, spare bedroom (in a cursory manner, then shut the door on it), and finally the bathroom.  Oh, and then the top half of the stairs.

As you see, this endless displacement activity type of cleaning goes on in an indefinite loop, until you run out of cleaning wipes or the hoover needs emptying.  In this example, it ended with Mr WithaY making us a cup of tea, thus cunningly breaking the cycle.

This morning I was planning to get all the ironing done. My ironing routine is simple, but effective.  I put the TV in the bedroom on, find something fairly unchallenging to watch (Frasier, Star Trek, Big Bang Theory, as examples) and then stand there for an hour or two, turning a basket full of scrumpled tatty-looking rags into several neat piles of pressed folded clothes.  It's deeply satisfying, in a low-grade way.

I was thwarted by the weather.  (First world problems klaxon here.)

The satellite link to the upstairs TV is badly affected by the weather. If it rains, even a little bit, the signal breaks up and the programme becomes unwatchable.  Clearly, I cannot be expected to iron without the amusing exploits of American actors to keep me occupied, so I have to put the iron back down with an exasperated sigh, and go and do something else.  And here we are.

One thing I could do is go and sort out Mr WithaY's dressing table.  I was browsing through a gift catalogue which arrived with a weekend newspaper, trying to find something that wasn't related to golf or coffee** and I spotted a Gentleman's Tidy.  Something like this, but made in faux leather rather than wood.

I seriously considered ordering it as a Christmas present, and then I thought a bit harder about what tends to occupy Mr WithaY's dressing table.

Among the usual litter of aftershave bottles, toiletries, cufflink boxes and a clothes brush, yesterday there were:

Several pairs of clean pants, neatly folded and waiting to be put away in a drawer
A plastic fork
A huge heap of old receipts and scraps of paper, none of them necessary for tax purposes
A coin sorter (almost empty)
Several coins
String
Cord (not the same as string)
A book about neolithic cooking
Hazelnuts, foraged and then forgotten about, in the manner of an absent-minded squirrel

I don't think there is a Gentleman's Tidy in existence which is designed to cope with that little lot.

Back to the drawing board.

Also, how do they sort out their laundry on Star Trek, eh?  I've seen evidence of a bar, a barber and beauty parlour, several places to eat, even showers, but never any laundry facilities.  I like to imagine that deep in the bowels of the Starship Enterprise is a dry-cleaners, manned by a grouchy Ferengi.








*Shout down stairs "Can you please come and move all your clothes, it's a pigsty up here."

**Slim pickings, I can tell you.

Basket case

It's amazing what can cause stress, isn't it? For me, it used to be the whole getting up for work and travelling halfway across the country for work thing.  Not now.

Now it's all about bookcases.

Bookcases.

Thousands* of them.

In my house.

It's all part of the final push to get Father in Law WithaY's house sold - the contracts are exchanged this Friday - so we have been clearing the last things out.  Our friend with a van** came over last night and he and Mr WithaY went back and forth to Dorset a couple of times to bring everything back.  The last time we were down there, I thought we'd pretty much cleared everything out, but it seems I was wrong.  Oh, how very wrong.

It took two trips, one with a van AND a LandRover, the other with just the van, and now my house looks like Steptoe and Son live here.

In the style of Hello Magazine, allow me to show you around my gracious home.

As you enter the house, you are met by an original arrangement of furniture in the hallway.

Bookcases.  Here, let us walk around them and admire them more fully.

They certainly add to the overall cosy feel of the place, I think.

Step into the sitting room and admire our library.  In a trailblazing and somewhat daring move, we aren't using the bookcases to store the books.  No, we prefer to use boxes.  On the floor.

Why yes, that IS a book about King Tutankhamun on the top there.  Every home should have one.  In fact, I will sell you this one if you want it.  Hell, you can have it for free.

Back into the hall, squeeze past the bookcases and step into the kitchen.  I'd offer you a seat at the dining table, but as you see, we are currently hosting a modern art installation. It's called Too Much Bleach and Four Tea Services.  I'm not certain what the artist is trying to say with it.

Can you see what is lurking on the bottom left corner of the table?  It's a rather teasing shot there, but I won't keep you in suspense longer than I have to.

It's a Wurzels album!  On vinyl!  In Mono! 
And it has sleeve notes.  Forgive the terrible photograph, my hands were shaking.

I can't decide whether to bury it at dead of night under a rowan tree, put it on eBay or have it framed forever.

Turning away from the art installation, we see the eclectic mix of kitchenware across every work surface.

Handy.

And of course, big jugs are always nice to look at***.

Back into the hallway - another glimpse of those bookcases - and let's peek into Mr WithaY's study.  Mmmm.  The perfect relaxing little corner to sit and study, or listen to music****.

I have spent much of today hiding upstairs, ineffectually tidying up my own study, which I am turning into a sewing room.  So far all I have managed to do is shove my sewing table into the corner, with a nasty CRACK as one of the legs got stuck on the carpet (the table's, not mine) and slide my new computer desk into place. 

I keep telling myself it's all temporary.  This too will pass.  And all that stuff.

Until then, I will be in here, where there aren't dozens of bookcases, bizarre records and boxes of frankly mental belongings in every corner.  Well, there are, but at least they are all mine, and I know why they're there. 

*Not thousands.  But more than I am comfortable with.

**Hello Ed!

***Apologies, big boob porn seekers

****Or play Portal 2 or Call of Duty. 

Countdown

I have only one more day of work left.  Well, one more day - Monday - in the office, and then I am on leave until the end of the month, when my employment with Her Majesty ends officially.

Yesterday I was almost entirely lazy, dealing with a couple of minor issues via email, and spending the rest of my time electronically filing stuff where other people will be able to find it after I've gone.  At about half past three, I logged off, shut down my laptop, and then packed it back in its case, ready to be returned to the office on Monday.

I may have heaved a deep, satisfied sigh as I did so. 

After that, while waiting for my gorgeous guitar teacher to arrive, I tidied and rearranged my study, which feels much bigger now that the work ephemera is gone.  I've chucked out* all the work-related papers I had kicking around, and the draft copies of legislation that I used to have to refer to.  And hey, there's loads of space on the shelves all of a sudden.

I've also packed my Rickenbacker into its case and stashed it under the bed, freeing up a large gap in here.  I will, of course, soon fill that gap with other stuff, but just for today I am enjoying the sense of light and air that has been manifest in here since I put my laptop away.

Today I also cleaned under our bed.  Brrrr.  That's a task you face with a steely determination and a recently-emptied hoover, I can tell you. 

The things I found included: 

• A box full of scarves, bags and evening gloves
• A yoga mat
• A box of assorted hair implements - velcro rollers, clips, hairdryer attachements for hairdryers I don't own
• A pair of funky sandals I had forgotten I owned, probably bought the last time we were in America
• Three rucksacks of varying sizes, all grey and fluffy with dust

Mr WithaY's scuba gear was also under there, but I am terrified of his air tanks so I never touch those.  He moved them all out so I could hoover.

It's all been cleaned, sorted and replaced or removed, and there is also room for my posh guitar and stand under there now.  Marvellous.

Tonight, to celebrate, we have some friends coming over for dinner.  It was supposed to be a casual supper but, as is our wont, it has escalated into something resembling a Fifteenth Century Venetian banquet.   With port.

Other news:  My iPhone is buggered.  I need to replace it but a new handset will cost me over £100.  Is it worth biting the bullet and getting an iPhone 4?  Suggestions welcome.







*Burned.  I'm not leaving work stuff in the bins where just anyone could find it and sell it to the tabloids.

Dress sense

In a serendipitous manner, Belgian Waffle recently posted about sartorial mistakes.  Purchasing errors, really.  She asked her readers to let her know about their own such errors, which got me thinking.

It so happened that I spent a good deal of yesterday up to my oxters* in clothes, what with all the ironing that has built up.  When the weather is good, I get the all washing done, and it dries on the line really quickly.  This is great.  Except that it then turns from "washing" to "ironing" whereupon it lurks accusingly in the basket, eyeing me with big, reproachful eyes.  Yeah, eyes made of buttons**.

I cracked, finally, and yesterday, as the weather had turned a bit cooler, I decided to Do The Ironing.  Fortunately, several reruns of Star Trek DS9 were on TV, so I had a couple of hours of sci-fi nerdiness to keep me entertained while I slaved like a Victorian skivvy.

Once you've ironed everything to within an inch of its life, you have to put it away.  This leads to a whole new set of issues.  My wardrobe*** is large, and usually pretty well-organised, but of course, with the change in the weather and the impending end of formal employment, I need to rearrange everything.  I dicked about with hangers, moving "work" stuff back and forth, putting summer clothes closer to the front, and so on, until I'd had enough, and thought  "Ahhh, bugger it." 

Everything was taken out, and laid on the bed.  Lord I have a lot of black clothes.  If I were a witch, I'd be laughing.

Cackling.

I decided to get rid of the last remaining suit in my wardrobe.  The others were all put in the charity recycling collection skip thingy a while back, as they were too big.  This one, being a skirt suit, was less baggy, and at least I didn't run the risk of my trousers falling off, but it looked boxy and unflattering. Plus, I've had it for at least 10 years, possibly more, and despite it still looking smart and un-worn-out, I can't see myself wearing it in the near future.  Into the bag it went.

As did several cardigans (too big, too boring, too work-like), a few t-shirts which I never wear, and a couple of dull skirts I bought in ill-advised shopping sprees and then wore maybe once, probably while visiting at Christmas.  Gone, gone, gone.

I still have far too many pairs of black trousers, and at least 8 long black skirts which are really only suitable for office wear, or maybe to a formal-ish party with a really pretty top and nice shoes.  They might be going to join their friends in the skip later in the year. 

On the plus side, I found three pairs of sandals which I'd forgotten I had, lurking at the bottom of the wardrobe. I bought them in America last summer so they are already worn in, which means I can use them this summer without giving myself Medieval peasant feet for the first fortnight.

The point of all this rambling is that I don't have many clothes which I actively regret buying.  There are a few things I have bought on a whim - usually in a sale, usually at Long Tall Sally - and then never wore, but I seldom think "I wish I hadn't bought that." 

I do regret getting rid of a few things over the years. Not things that were loved to rags amd just wore out, but things I decided to sell or swap or give to charity, and now wish I hadn't.  In fact, there are some clothes that I still look for from time to time, before remembering that I don't own them any more. 

Top of the list is definitely my first leather jacket.  It was a birthday present from an ex-boyfriend when I was 18 or 19, and I loved it.  It was very 1980s, as it had long tassles along both sleeves and across the shoulders.  It was made for me by a bike shop in Brighton, so the tassels were specially commissioned - they were 8 inches long, and I adored them. 

Once I started riding motorcycles, rather than just perching decoratively on the pillion, I had to trim them to prevent them from interfering with the controls, but they were still pretty - they went in a diagonal line from elbow to wrist, from 8 inches long at the elbow to about 3 inches long at the cuff, and looked excellent.

A few years later, a very talented artistic friend painted a Celtic design across the shoulders in shades of blues, greens and purples, and it was stunning.  The same friend also painted a Green Man on the back of Mr WithaY's leather jacket, which, if I can find a picture of, I will post on here.

Anyway, time passed and I got much fatter than I had been at 19 and eventually my beautiful jacket didn't fit me any more.  I bought a "proper" bike jacket with padding and kevlar and bulletproofing and ninja protection and my tassely painted jacket languished at the back of a cupboard. 

Years later, another friend (hello Fiona!) who is a dressmaking GENIUS accepted the painted jacket as part payment for some fabulous item of clothing she made for me - a ballgown or a seventeenth century corset or something - so it went to a good home.  I assume it emigrated to Canada with them when they went.  I am too fat for it, without a doubt, but I still miss it.

Another garment I pine for is my kaftan. Yes, yes, I know.

It was a floor length dress, with dozens of small fabric buttons and rouleau loops all down the front from throat to navel, and long sleeves that had faux historical pointed bits, meaning that when you held your arms out you looked like a pre-Raphaelite lady.  In a kaftan.  It was made of ultra soft Indian cotton, printed all over with a small paisley-esque design in shades of red, amber, gold, brown and black.  I adored it. 

I bought it in a second-hand shop in the Lanes in Brighton, for something ridiculous like £3.50.  Nowadays it would be classed as a "vintage" dress, and would probably cost about fifty times that much.

I loved it, and whenever I wore it - almost constantly in my first year at college, as I recall - I felt like someone slightly exotic and offbeat.  I looked, as my family will attest, like a girl with very little dress sense and a lot of colourful second hand clothes, but that's neither here nor there.

My mate Martin, now a respected and media-friendly archaeologist**** told me that the first time he saw me - Freshers Week at college, when I was a first year and he was a worldy-wise second year - he said to his mate "Oooh, she's statuesque." 

I was almost certainly wearing my kaftan, and probably several Indian silk scarves artfully draped and tied all over me.   We still talk about it now, more than 20 years later.  Gah.

I might have to recreate that look when I am not having to look smart for work.

Heh. 






*Just for you, badgerdaddy

**Neil Gaiman has a lot to answer for

***Mr WithaY's clothes are left in neat heaps on the bed for him to stash away as he pleases.  He lacks my anal "everything has a place to be" mindset.

****He's on Time Team a lot.  Media darling.

Missed!

Dinotopia has been on all week, on Channel 5 at 0900, and I missed it! Gah!

Have to wait till next Christmas now.

So. What did Santa bring you? Were you good? Did you get coal in your stocking? Mind you, nowadays a stocking full of coal is not a gift to be sniffed at.

It's been bloody freezing here for days. We've had ice on the cars and the shed roof that hasn't melted for ages, and the birds are using their bath as a freestyle dance rink.

Mr WithaY has it on good authority (some people in the pub) that we are due a hot summer. I will be waiting for that with great excitement. Winter seems to have been going on since about May last year. Apparently it's going to snow on Monday. Perfect. Just in time for everyone* going back to work, and the trains trying to remember how to run. I think I will take my overnight bag just in case.

This weekend we have mostly been sorting out Father in Law WithaY's kitchen cupboards. He moved into the nursing home on Christmas Eve, and is slowly (and rather painfully) settling in. He has a lovely big room, and we are gradually bringing in pictures, books and small items of furniture from his house so it feels more like home.

But, and it is a big but**, he is finding it hard to deal with the fact that all the other residents are old, frail and in a couple of cases, bonkers. And who can blame him? Still, he looks clean, fed, warm and safe, which is a huge improvement on how things were a month or so ago.

And when all is said and done, he has only been there a few days. The fact that we can get to see him three or four times a week is certainly a bonus, as he is fretting about his house and so on, and we can reassure him that stuff is getting sorted.

But going back to the kitchen cupboards. Oh my.

Oh my oh my oh my. The things we found.

My favourites were (in no particular order):

1) Three inches of flat cider in the bottom of a large plastic cider bottle from four years ago.

2) A wide variety of jars of spices, none more recent than 1995, some coagulated into hard-as-concrete lumps which had to be coaxed out of the jars with the aid of a long steel skewer.

3) Six pecan nuts (shelled) in a screw-top glass jar.

4) A box of Tate&Lyle "Fairrie" Small Cube Sugar, in a pre-decimal box. I have been searching the Tate&Lyle website to try and establish an age for it. I may post a photo to see if anyone out there can give me an approximate date of maufacture. It must be from the 1970s, possibly earlier.

5) A giant glass jar of what I thought were green lentils, but which, on closer examination, turned out to be red lentils covered in thick green mould and dust. Opening the jar was like a scene from a low budget sci-fi movie where the mad scientist unleashes the deadly gas cloud on the world. The bottom two inches of solid lentil/mould compound had to be soaked in hot water, until the coaxing skewer was deployed.

Other news: Back to work on Monday. Am quite looking forward to it. It will be nice to get back to some semblance of normality again.

Plans for tomorrow include taking down all the Christmas decorations, including Mr WithaY's Blair Witch creation in the hallway. We are also going grocery shopping for the first time since December 22nd, as we have finally eaten our way through all the festive food. Except the dates, which I found in a drawer yesterday.



*me
**much like my own

Printer error

Was watching The New Adventures of Superman the other night. One of the episodes where Nazis try to take over the world. There was some kind of a complex plot involving cryogenic freezing, political skulduggery and a bomb, but I wasn't giving it my full attention.

Until this struck me...

Whenever an evil organisation attempts a coup involving the overthrow of the media (especially the Daily Planet), they always have a huge supply of posters, billboard hoarding thingies, pre-recorded videos of themselves gloating and dishing out orders, and those huge building-sized fabric wall hangings, ready to be unfurled at the drop of a hat.

All nicely printed up with their evil logo, in this instance, swastikas.

Why don't the printers just call the police and foil the plot? Tea and medals all round.

They get a rush order in for ten thousand huge banners saying "All Hail the New Evil Regime, Death to All Who Oppose Us, Especially Superman, The Bastard" or something similar, but they never blow the whistle.

Presumably an evil mastermind turns up at the print shop with a badly-sketched image on the back of a fag packet, demands they design a decent one, tells them how many posters etc he wants, and by when ("My Evil Plan comes to fruition on Wednesday, so by 11am would be great, thanks"), and the printers just take the money and get on with it.

What are they thinking? Tch.

Other news: The WithaY house is uncannily tidy. Mr WithaY has been slowly but surely sifting through several years worth of crap in his study, and we can now see the floor again. Just as well because our mate Big Les is sleeping in there on Saturday night.

Kevin the Decorator has played an absolute blinder and the downstairs loo is stripped, pipe-removed, scrubbed, wood-clad and painted, and looks the biz. He is coming back tomorrow to fit new under-stair shelves, and it will then be finished.

I am going to move one of my stained glass panels from upstairs to cover the window in there (for privacy as otherwise it's a clear view out into the garden...and back in of course), and it is all ready.

Our American guests are actually turning up on Friday, not Thursday as we originally thought. They leave Boston on Thursday, but don't get here till Friday. I hope they're not too horribly jet lagged. Still, the spare room is lovingly prepared for them. I plumped the pillows up specially.*

We're off to Salisbury tomorrow to get some Big Town shopping and hopefully also get to the pictures to see Stardust.

I re-read it on the train the other week whilst trying to get to London. It is a lovely, lovely story. If you haven't read it, do so. And then read American Gods. Go on. You'll thank me one day.

Shamefully, I realised that I love that Take That song from the film. Gah. How embarrassing. I like a Take That song.

But (hasty attempt to re-establish some feeble rock chick credentials) I can now play "Teenage Kicks" on the geeetar, and it sounds bloody marvellous.



*Not a euphamism. Tch.