...Written on the back of my hand

Ah, the cold harsh light of the new year shines into the cobwebby filth of my brain, much like the sunshine streaming through the windows and highlighting the cobwebs festooned across the ceilings.

Mr WithaY and I have recovered from the horrible snotfest that began immediately after Christmas, and are getting on with New Year stuff.  In his case, this has been attending an interview (successful, yay) and making more excellent bushcraft stuff.

Look, he made these:

Moccasins, made to an authentic pattern, hand-stitched out of elk skin*.  

They're a lot better than my dire iPhone photography would indicate.  Plus he looks like Will Ferrell in Elf when he wears them.

I've been sorting out my burgeoning dressmaking business, although I think calling it a "business" is optimistic.  But regardless, I've ordered some business cards and fabric labels to sew into stuff I make, which is a start. Oh, and I've registered myself as "self employed" with the fine people at Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs, so I have to pay my own National Insurance for the first time in my working life.  I have no idea how to do that, perhaps a plain brown envelope full of cash through their letterbox once a week?

The other BIG ongoing long-term business plan is still in early stages, but I am quietly optimistic about it.

As part of the whole "enjoying the new way of life" mindset we are actively cultivating, last week we had a big day out in Salisbury.  It's a rare treat these days, and it was fab.

We had lunch at Wagamamas, nom nom nom, picked up some bargains in the sales, and went to the pictures to see the new Sherlock Holmes film.

When I say "bargains" I mean "things we intended to buy anyway but found at a vastly reduced price", not "random things we bought because they were cheap."  In my book, buying something you didn't already know you needed is not bargain shopping, it's wild and crazy impulse buying, a very different animal.

One of the bargains I found was a new pair of trainers/outdoor shoes, which were reduced by £50. Result.  But even better than that, the young man who sold them to me had a Story To Tell.  I noticed he sported the remains of what had clearly been a spectacular black eye.

Me:  That must have been a spectacular black eye.

Nice Young Man:  Yes!  Yes, it really was.  *laughs*  I got it on New Year's Eve.

Me: Oh no!

NYM:  Yes, I was in the wrong place at the wrong time.  Yeah....Bristol...

He stared off into space for a moment like a war veteran remembering the day they lost the company commander and the flag and all their rations.

Me:  Oh dear.  What happened?

NYM:  Well, we were in a pub in the wrong part of town, it turned out.  There were blokes betting in the pub, big stacks of £20 notes all over the table.   (Note - this is illegal in the UK, so clearly a dodgy pub if it was going on in full public view.)   Anyway, one of the blokes must have thought he was being cheated because a huge full-scale bar-room brawl broke out!  One minute we were having a quiet drink, the next minute there's pool balls flying across the room!

Me:  Wow!  What did you do?

NYM:  Legged it.

I took my new shoes and left, greatly cheered by his tale of drunken Bristolian idiots walloping each other.

Other news:  Mr WithaY has traded up and got himself an iPhone.   Yesterday afternoon, I was fortunate enough to be party to the long and infinitely complex "Transferring of the Phone Number" ritual.

When I did it, there was one step - ring O2 and say "please will you transfer my phone number to the new SIM card that is going into my iPhone?"  and it took about 6 minutes in total.

When Mr WithaY did it, it was like watching an ancient and venerated ceremony, the kind  invented by monks living in a remote mountain monastary, where time passes slowly and they like to fill their days keeping busy.

Step 1:  Ring O2 on the landline.  (Important Note:  We have no mobile reception in our house.)  Ask them to transfer the old number to the new SIM card.  Explain why you have called them on the landline, not the mobile.

Step 2:  Provide O2 with the old phone number.

Step 3:  Provide O2 with some verification that the number is actually yours.  They generally ask for the amount of credit you have on your account, which you can obtain from your phone by pressing a combination of keys, including the STAR key.  (Important Note:  The STAR key on Mr WithaY's phone doesn't work. )

Step 4:  Take landline phone and mobile phone into front garden to try and get a signal on the mobile, while trying to make the broken STAR key work to get the outstanding credit balance.

Step 5:  Inform the O2 helpdesk that there is barely any battery left in the mobile now.  (Important Note:  Mr WithaY lost the phone charger several weeks ago, which was one of the reasons he decided to trade up to an iPhone.  That and the broken STAR key.)

Step 6:  Have long, increasingly stressful discussion with the helpful O2 person  to explain that you can't get your outstanding balance figure from your phone because the STAR key doesn't work and you have no signal anyway.  And the battery is about to run out.

Step 7:  O2 person tries a different verification question and asks which numbers you dial the most often on your mobile.  Try to remember, before finally giving them a number.  They then tell you that that number has not been called recently enough to be used as verification.

Step 8:  The O2 supervisor is called in to the conversation.

Step 9:  Send a text to the "frequently called" number to validate your claim that you use it often. This entails another trip into the front garden to try and pick up a mobile signal, clutching two phones, trying to text before the battery dies completely.

Step 10:  Success!  Your number has been transferred.  And it only took an hour and a half.

Step 11:  Have a nice cup of tea and a sit-down.

Step 12:  Spend the rest of the afternoon dicking about with your shiny new iPhone.  Marvellous.

Other, other news:  I am drafting some patterns for Medieval clothing which I have been asked to make.  A jacket and a sleeveless waistcoat-y type jacket (pourpoint?), to be exact.  Anyone with any advice or practical experience on this matter, please feel free to share.









*He didn't shoot the elk.  Turns out you can buy elk hides online.  Who knew?

What chores

So, Salisbury was nice and quiet at half past eight on Saturday morning.

I went into town that early because I had a hair appointment at 0845, and it was fab. Loads of parking spaces, no crowds, no litter...excellent. Of course, most of the shops weren't open, but hey, a small price to pay.

I wandered through the market, which was still being set up, and admired the stalls without having to fight my way though hordes of slack-jawed potato-headed dawdlers, standing and chatting in the middle of the tiny little alleys. Bastards that they are.

It felt like Abroad, seeing the market people shifting their stuff about in the sunshine, making artistic vegetable displays and polishing the piles of batteries, sheepskin slippers and jigsaws.

You can get pretty much anything at Salisbury market.

Anyhoo, hair done*, I launched myself out into the streets to run a few errands. I went to Monsoon and looked at the clothes, and had a quick chat with the nice lady who helped me with my New Job Clothes shopping.

I went to Mark and Spencer and spent a happy 20 minutes picking up tops in Per Una, humming and hawing over them, trying them against myself, finding matching skirts, then putting everything back and not buying anything after a sudden surge of boredom washed over me.

I went to Shoon and exchanged a pair of shoes, after the heel of one of them went white. Very strange. At first I thought I'd stepped in chalk or something, but it didn't come off when I tried to clean it, and I realised that the entire heel, a sort of moulded resin/plastic stuff, had in fact changed colour. It looked a bit like chocolate does when it gets that white bloom on it. Any industrial chemists out there who can offer an explanation?

I'd only had them 6 weeks and they were quite expensive, so I got the shop to change them, which they did cheerfully and with no fuss. So yay for Shoon.

I went to Specsavers and had the nose pieces on my glasses replaced. I tried cleaning them (there's a theme developing here) but they had gone all skanky and discoloured and made me look like I am a filthy pig who never washes her face. So they had to go.

I don't want people knowing stuff like that about me straight off.

Did a bit of shopping, bought loads of inserts for my Filofax, including a street map of London, which will come in handy. I am well aware how sad it is that I like stationery shops as much as I do.

Bought a copy of the Big Issue off a guy who said "Come on darling...to you, one pound fifty and a smile...light up my day." Heh. I am such a sucker for a bit of chat.

As I was driving home I passed a big handmade sign on a fence that said "Happy Retirement Crazy Dave!!" (I think..the name isn't important). I wondered how you retire from being crazy, and go about spending the rest of your life being sane and sensible.

There was a dad and two little boys walking into town, the dad carrying a cake tin shaped like the number 5. Holding his hand was the smaller of the boys (probably the 5-year-old), who was wearing a big hooded coat, carrying a plastic sword. As I got closer I saw that under the hood, he sported a full-face mask, making him look like The Boy In The Iron Mask. The look on his dad's face clearly said He Refused To Leave The House Without It.

And last night we went to a mate's birthday party, which was lovely. We ate the world's largest paella and saw lots of friends. Marvellous.

And now I have to go to Morrison's. Mmm-mmmmm.



*Looks exactly the same as it did before, but has apparently regained bounce and lift due to the layers not being too heavy now.

End of the World (as we know it)

So. Earthquake in Kent, eh? Well, if anywhere was due a good smiting, I'd say Kent had to be up there in the top 10. All that "Garden of England" bragging. And letting the French stick their tunnel RIGHT into us. Gah.

I have had a lovely day out with my girlie mates in Winchester today. We met for lunch, which then evolved into a shoe-buying spree, then a tea-drinking event, and finally a walk through the cathedral green in the sun. Very nice. I blagged a lift back to my bestest mate's house with one of the girls to save me a long walk.

We went to pay for the car parking in one of Winchester's many multi-storey car parks and the machine ate my fiver! Outraged, we pressed the "Help" button and got through to a very cross-sounding Northern bloke. We explained what had happened. He said "Where's your parking ticket?" We told him that the machine had spat it back out.

"Go to the exit" he said. We tried to explain that we hadn't paid the full parking fee, that the machine had eater the fiver but not the rest of the money.

He cut us off with a very brusque "Don't be talking! Go and buzz me at the exit!"

We obeyed, giggling. At the exit we buzzed him again and he opened the barrier and freed us, so we had £1.50 worth of free parking! Hurrah!

I've just watched "Napoleon Dynamite" on DVD. I'd forgotten what a nice film it is.

And now I'm going to have a bath. I can do that here, unlike at my house where the cold tap stopped working and we have yet to find a plumber brave enough to try and fix it. Mr WithaY emailed photos of the busted tap to the plumber who installed the bathroom. He's said he'll come over "next week" to have a look. I love showering but miss a good bath. Sigh. So I plan to make my mate's house smell of lovely Lush stuff - heh.