Progress report

Midway through the week, and I'm making headway.

My dining suite, previously my parent's 1970s, mahogany stained table and beige velour upholstered chairs, is now "chalk white", and upholstered in bright pink, and looks fab. I've mastered the power drill (well, when I say "mastered" I mean "used") and put up a curtain rail and a radiator shelf. Tomorrow I'm making curtains. Making. Curtains. And then I have a wall unit to put up and I think my dining room will be finished. In fact, it will be transformed.

I'm getting a real kick out of doing all of these very tangible things. Every job makes a difference, and, as one friend said, the smell of paint is the smell of progress. I'm feeling very Ideal Home!

But there are loads of other jobs too.

I've had quotes to replace the two double glazed panels that have blown and gone manky inside, and tomorrow I'll pick one and book that in for next week. Not glamorous, is it? What a dull way to spend money. I'll pay a sizable amount of money for someone to take out windows and put in ... windows. Whoop-de-doo. I know it needs doing, and I know that I'll feel better when they're done, but new windows aren't very exciting, are they? I know that, when I invite my friend's 'round to show them the newly finished dining room, they'll oooooh and aaaaah in all the right places, but the phenomenally more expensive windows won't be noticed. At all. By anyone.

Today I paid a man to put a TV aerial on the roof. Again, a fair chunk of money paid out, and I can see a massive difference - there is no antenna balanced on a box behind the telly now, and I've managed to reduce the huge knot of wires and cables in the corner - so money well spent!

But I can't get other people excited about it, can I? "Would you like to pop 'round and see my new tv aerial?" "No." Fair enough.

It's a harsh lesson in the cost of home ownership. The boring and necessary stuff costs more and pleases less.

Or maybe it's another lesson. The things I'm enjoying most are the things I'm doing myself. Maybe it's just a lesson in the thrill of getting your hands dirty!

Anyway, got to dash. Got curtains to pin!

Blind Faith

"She asked me what my five year plan was, and I said 'I don't know.'" Amelia came over for a dirty curry and to set the world to rights on Friday night, and relayed a conversation she'd had with a particularly successful artist friend. She looked slightly wide eyed when she said it.

And with that, I realised that I've never had a plan.

Certainly I plan on a small scale. "Today I MUST push the hoover 'round", or "tomorrow I'm meeting Cat for breakfast", or "next weekend Kelly and Nathan are coming to stay". Even as far away as "my parents are coming for Christmas" (which, I suspect, will be another post, another time).

But the real stuff? The big things? Nothing.

I did a pretty vocational degree. We were all, apart from an astute few, who noticed what what was happening to them, going to be fed out of the education system and into the non-glamorous world of property, conveyor belt style. I went to a series of interviews and had an offer of a job which was conditional on a certain result in my finals. Which I got. So I went there. Not so much a plan, as a solution.

My next job was secured in a bar during the December Christmas Party Rush. The one after that I was head-hunted for, just at a time when I was feeling a smidge disillusioned. And now this job move - the result of a chance conversation at an opportune time. All of my career moves have been based on good luck rather than good management.

As for accommodation, I lived in a house share which was, in retrospect comedically dreadful (again ... for another time, I think) and which came to a mercifully swift end. I had two weeks to find somewhere to live. I walked past an estate agent's window as he was putting a new ad in the window, asked him if I could look at it, took it, and moved in within the week. I lived there for four years. Then one day an email about a flat to rent nearby was accidentally sent to me, so I moved there.

Buying my current home wasn't even something that I entirely planned to do. There was an incident relating to a drunk and slightly pervy landlord outside my front door in the wee-small hours, looking for a bed for the night. It was a one bed flat. I started looking for somewhere to buy the next day.

Even Loulou Workshop wasn't so much planned, as fallen upon. After a particularly miserable couple of weeks (work trouble, boy trouble, ill health, wallowing, self pity, woe, woe ...) a friend suggested that I could work part time and try to bring a little balance to my life. That was on the Sunday. On the Monday I spoke to my boss and asked if I could stop working on Fridays.

Friends can tell you about boyfriends that I've accidentally dumped. I once went for a drink at Kings Cross, and ended up in Lille. Just this weekend I went into the hairdressers for a trim and came out with a whole new look.

So no. I don't have a five year plan. I don't even have a one year plan. To quote a popular American sitcom, I don't even have a "pl". I have got this far though my life reasonably successfully, without ever having any purpose or direction. I bowl from one project to the next. From one opportunity to the next. From one chance happening to the next.

I just can't decide if that's beautifully impulsive, or dangerously reckless.

Unwanted Guests

I've been here, in my first ever house for a couple of months now, and it's pretty amazing. Imagine. Me. A homeowner!

Well. I say "owner". Of course what I mean is "occupier", by account of the mortgage company having rather more of an interest than I do, but let's set the small matter of thirty something years of repayments to one side. Humour me, please. Call me a homeowner.

It took me a few years to get on the old property ladder, largely because I've done it alone. It took me a while to build up enough courage to sign myself up for this huge obligation, with nothing in the way of support. It's a vast undertaking, and is more than a little terrifying, but look at me. I'm a big brave girl. And it's mine, all mine! (Wah ha ha haaaa!)

But here's the thing. I'm not here alone at all. There are other beings living in the house with me, and I can't say I'm any too pleased about it. The other inhabitants are black and hairy and come with more legs than is strictly necessary. The other inhabitants are spiders.

These are not your run-of-the-mill house spiders. Not those ones that are all spindly legs and no action. Not the ones that abseil from the ceiling on invisible threads. Not the ones that are supposed to bring you good luck and money. Noooooo! These babies are VAST!

I found one walking up the stairs the other day, so huge that his legs poked out around the edge of the mug that I caught him under. When I threw him out of the bathroom window, I heard him hit the gravel in the garden (before waving a fist at me and hopping back on his Harley*).

I found another on the wall behind the front door who, whilst I was trying to chase him out, fell on the floor, and landed next to his Dad. Funny how a big spider can suddenly seem small when standing in the shadow of a larger beast. Both were chased out into the street, where they menaced local cats.

Enough is enough. You boys are going to have to go! I don't want anything living here which, at rest, holds its knees higher than its ears. (Not smutty comments please).

It as at this point that I was told of spider scaring research being undertaken by British chemists. The nice men at RSC (Royal Society of Chemistry, not Royal Shakespeare Company) are giving £300 to anyone who can prove that spiders are kept at bay with conkers. Yes ... conkers. Those brown shiny nutty things that drop out of trees at this time of year, for the amusement of small boys. Conkers. There is a theory that they keep spiders away, but no-one knows why. Do they give off bad spider vibes? Do they speak at a pitch audible only to spiders? Do they look like something alarming from the spider's past? It's a mystery.

Some proverbial old wives will have it that a bowl of conkers in a house will keep all spiders away. Others put one conker in the corner of each room. Either way, the theory goes that our eight legged friends will stay well clear.

And so it was that on Monday afternoon, I wandered up to the Common to collect myself a bag full of the good stuff, and have now put a bowl in the corner of the bathroom. I'll let you know how I get on. If all else fails, I figure I've not got a bowl full of missiles which I can throw at anything living here which isn't paying rent.

And who knows ... if I get a photo of a spider being pinned to the wall by a conker, I might earn myself £300!

* The bit about the fist waving and the Harley isn't true. It was a Kawasaki.