Yay for me!

At 4.30pm today I powered my laptop down, put it neatly away in the cupboard (deliberately left unlocked in the hope that somebody will steal it & I can have a new one...), and went home.  Yay!  Needless to say the trip wasn't particularly quick, and when I finally lumbered into Newport, the newsagent had already shut.  I was a bit peeved, I have to say, that nobody consulted me about this change to their hours.  The newsagent was always really reliable, 6.30am to 7.00pm.  It changed hands this year, to new people who I think may be struggling a bit with the reality of running a busy shop, and the hours entailed in a newsagent, and so... bam.  Bugger.  


Anyway, I missed out on the opportunity to spend more money on things I don't really need, because, since I'm working again, I've resubscribed to House & Garden & Homes & Antiques, which are a very guilty pleasure... and I certainly don't need any more magazines.  I already have them in boxes on the living room floor, because all the bookcases are full.


Did I mention about my clearing out spurt the other day?  I've been slowly identifying things I don't need anymore (define need, could you?), and those things have been working their way out of the confusing maze of stuff that is our house, and into the various charity bins, op-shops, junk piles, council clean-ups and garbage bins that surround me.  Last Sunday (no, not the one I spent asleep, the one before that) I went through my wardrobe & pulled out all my work skirts.  I never wear skirts to work anymore.  I have several pairs of black trousers, none of which fit me properly anymore, [since I started Upholstery school, and lost that very unattractive 10 kilos that was making me look like Rosie O'Donnell... but I digress (for a change)], and they were just hanging in the wardrobe in the spare room, taking up room.  


Why in the spare room, I hear you ask, Gentle Readers... well.  Most of them are too long to hang in the normal wardrobe, which has four hanging sections, two top & two bottom, two for me & two for Mr Golightly.  Well, actually, one for Mr Golightly, two for me & one full of stuff, some of which features heavily in this tale.


Anyway, I stripped down to the fundamentals, and tried every one of those poor neglected skirts on.  Most of them still fitted me, but I looked at myself, with my wonky knee, my flat feet and my sandfly bite scars, and just went... ick.  So, all the straight, knee length 'office' skirts, some of which had matching jackets, went into the 'give away' bag.  Some of the matching jackets followed, including the awful maroon & beige boucle one I bought in a fit of madness one day, which was a crop style, with tight fitting sleeves, and made me look like... 


  this.  Except for a few things - I'm not a blonde, I have no tan & I don't wear white shoes.  And I'm also not quite that fat.  Apart from that, the resemblance is quite scary.


Anyway, that went.  Also, and I do regret this a little bit, a beautiful Anthea Crawford silk slub skirt in lilac, with a really discrete yellow, green & darker purple... but I hadn't worn it for over two years, and I wasn't going to.  I know it in my logic brain, but my much larger sentimental brain is still going "I loved that little lemming".  Sorry, Red Dwarf moment.


I threw out silk blouses I'd made, linen ones I bought with cap sleeves (way too irritating), some cotton shirts I'd had for more than 10 years which were never going to see the light of day again, and even some trousers (too small, too big, too flared, too straight, too long, too short).  It was quite cathartic.  Then I started on the shoes.  Mostly clumpy ones designed to take orthotics, in the days before they realised that you could still wear nice shoes and support your fallen arches...


And then, Gentle Readers, I started on Mr Golightly's side of the wardrobe.  Phew.  I need to go & have dinner now, before I reveal all.  Let's just say it was very scary.  


Ciao!

Now this is just silly...

Sunday night it was too hot to sleep properly, tonight I've got the fire on.  I love spring.


Progress update on the chair:

Progress on the exhaustion?  Coming along nicely, thank you.  I haven't made it to Upholstery school this week - my need for sleep having extended to spending most of Sunday asleep, coming home from work & going straight to bed on Monday & getting up only when Mr Golightly came home, and then going to bed at 9.30pm yesterday - and I'm hitting the sack right now, even though I'm halfway through watching an episode of Sanctuary... 

Ciao!

Where do you go to my lovely...

Tell me, loyal Gentle Readers, have we had that one before?  I think we may have.  I like to recycle my titles every now and again, just to see who's keeping watch.


Anyway, I'm posting this one today for all the blogs that are no more... when I started out reading other people's stuff, I was completely in awe by how funny, and clever, and creative they all were.  I got inspiration for crafty projects, links to other interesting blogs and even made some new friends and an enemy or two, but hey, it's all good.


And now, some of my favourites are no more.  I feel like I've lost old friends, or that one of my favourite authors has died much too young (RIP Sara Douglass), and I don't like it.


What're the options?  Well, I do go through from time to time and remove the interminably cheery ones, the ones that always make me want to puke with their nauseating 'everything is lovely in my world' vibe, and the ones where the person writing it is just posed over the razor blade waiting for Australia to lose the Rugby so they've got an excuse to slash their wrists.  


I got rid of 'diary of a nutjob housewife' before she bored me to tears with her tales of woe and how they couldn't afford to eat anything except hot dogs but they could afford a subscription to Fox... and I miss Felicity from All Toile and No Reward, and I wish she'd come back.  Or somebody would tell me what's going on!  I miss Gerald Gee, who used to put lovely 1930's music on his blog, but he's gone to the great Artists Studio in the sky and he won't be coming back.  I miss Baino and her eloquent endless supply of 'useless as ...' sayings.  I miss Sara from Streaks on the China, although I know she reads this from time to time, and is kind enough to comment, but I liked her writing and I miss it.


So... where does that leave me?  Out looking for new blogs to read and enjoy.  If you have any suggestions, I'd be happy to hear 'em.  I quite like House on Hill Road but I think she might be a bit too foody/quilty/kids-y for me.


And in news of the other kind, I took some nice pics of My Lovely Ma's garden whilst in Perth (Oh, I'm back, btw, did you notice?), and spent most of yesterday asleep.  Jetlag will do that for you.

And now, back to my knitting. Ciao!

Chairs, Chairs, Chairs

Red, yellow, black or white, with a little bit of moonlight...anybody recognise that song?  It was a one-hit wonder from about 1978 or 1979, by a band whose name has gone, long gone, from the pit that is my memory...


Anyway, I am in WA, Gentle Readers, that's Western Australia, visiting my lovely Ma and Hank for the first time since June, and covering their bargain buy, which I may have posted pics of earlier.  If not, here goes.  (Look away now if ugly upholstery frightens you...)

Mum attacked the chairs with hot water and sugar soap and they were... filthy:

But after a good scrub, a coat of varnish or two, and some new upholstery, they look pretty good, imho.

My Ma professes herself to be ... quite pleased.


Me too!


Ciao!