This Weekend (14) ...

Another weekend of domesticity. I'll try and make "painting walls" into a ten point weekend summary, in the usual manner ...

1) Thursday night, quiz night. The quiz master decided that life would be more interesting if Team Biscuit was split in two. The boys became Team Hobnob and the girls were Team Iced Gem. The boys came last and the girls came third. Perhaps our usual winning form can be put down to the gender mix.

2) Friday morning. A few errands, the caff for breakfast, picked up the sodding car from the garage (it having failed its sodding MOT last week), a few more errands, and home. Jobs done.

3) Last weekend I inadvertently peeled some wall paper off my bedroom wall. Well, you know how it is. There was a corner. I picked at it. So I guess I'm committed to decorating it now! I cleared everything movable out of my bedroom into the spare room, leaving a wee corridor of space from the door to the bed, thus making up my snug sleeping quarters for the next few nights. But as I finished clearing the room, spreading dust sheets and assembling tools and materials, the doorbell rang. A friend dropping 'round for a cuppa and a good yarn. Just in the nick of time!! I nearly had to pick up a paintbrush!

4) All delaying tactics used up, I had to get going. A bit of unscrewing, a bit of filling, a bit of sanding, a bit of dismantling.

5) Friday night saw a gang of us at the kitchen table of the fabulous Concetta from over at Glittering Shards, each with our own creative project. Around the table seven lovely ladies sketched, stitched, designed, cut, struck, threaded, and gossipped. Bliss. And we decided to do it again in two weeks time at Amelia's house.

6) Saturday. Hot paintbrush action. All day.

7) Amongst all the clearing out and arranging of things I've done recently, I found a counted cross-stitch, half done, from years ago. On a whim, I picked it up last night, and spent the evening watching Ferris Bueller's Day Off, whilst sewing the face of a small teddy who will, when finished, depict " Septembear". Maybe it'll be a gift for a friend who is expecting. Maybe it'll just spend the next ten years in a bag, in a box, in a cupboard, still unfinished. But for now, I'm enjoying the gentle process of stitching for stitching's sake.

8) Sunday. Hot painting action. All morning. Until ...

9) Amelia has an exhibition starting this Tuesday at Spout; a community gallery space in Furzedown. This afternoon I helped her get her show set up and ready for the public. If you'd like to drop by and see Amelia and her work, she'll be at 74 Moyser Road, SW16 for the next two weeks. I'm sure she'd love to see you!

10) And now it's Sunday evening. The skirting boards, window and door frames in my bedroom have been glossed. The fireplace has been undercoated and top coated. The ceiling has been whitewashed. Three walls have been painted "Pacific Breeze" (that's a slightly bluey white to you), and one is to become Teal Tension in due course. I'm on the sofa with a embroidered bears next to me and plans to hit the John Lewis fabric department tomorrow to look for teal curtain material. But for now, I think it's bed time. G'night.

This Weekend (13) ...

Unlucky for some!

So this weekend had a bit of a fuzzy start, what with not being at work last week, but why don't I pick it up on Thursday evening, like I usually do?

1) Pub quiz. There were meant to be six of us in our award winning team, but, for one reason and another, there were only two. In the music round we knew no answers, and were so busy sniggering at our crappness that we forgot to go back and write our guesses in the blanks on page one. Consequence ... second worst team. Ha! At least we weren't worst I suppose.

2) Friday morning, I hopped out of bed, as I did every morning last week, at an unembarrassing 8am, showered, dressed, toast and jam and lots of coffee in the back garden, then to work.

3) I met the lovely Gillian down the road for a tour of E&A Wates. I wasn't really sure what to expect, so it was a lovely surprise to discover that it was a fascinating morning. Behind the shop - a fabulously kitsch, chrome-fronted store, with some amazing (and expensive) furniture, is a workshop where they repair just about any furniture. We were talked through the art of veneering, wood turning, French polishing, upholstering, and it wasn't remotely dry. And what perfect timing! I came home enthused, and ready for a bit more DIY! (Although I did feel a bit guilty that, having been talked to about furniture restoration, I was going home to paint my own furniture. Pah well!)

4) Amelia popped 'round and we sat together in the garden with tea and Amaretti biscuits to write a press release for her forthcoming show. If you'd like to come along, you'll be able to read more about it here, in due course.

5) The Ikea flat-pack wall unit that I bought came in three boxes and said, in big letters, and in diagrams, on the side of the largest, that building it was a job for two men. I thought I'd get the bits out and see how far I could get on my own. When I'd built the frame and got the thing upright an into the alcove, with a hole cut out the back for the power socket, I decided there was probably no need to call in reinforcements to watch me screw the doors on. Am DIY woman! Grr!!

6) Saturday morning. More decorating. Are you spotting a theme? But things were starting to take shape, so it was all very cathartic.

7) I'm slightly ashamed to tell you what I did on Saturday afternoon. But not THAT ashamed. I went to see Eclipse. Now I know that I'm not really the target demographic, but sod it! The four of us went to an afternoon showing, in a screen full of teenaged girls. Oh well ... who needs pride, dignity, self respect, etc etc etc, when they have a semi-naked wolf-boy twitching his pecks on the screen? Not me!

8) My neighbour recently qualified as a plumber and has set up business with a friend. I've been putting off decorating my bedroom for ages because I couldn't work out how to work around a badly placed radiator. But today the two new plumbers came 'round and spent a day painstakingly lifting floorboards and running copper pipes and draining boilers. Bless them, it took hours! And apparently something still needs to be done tomorrow. But the radiator is now in a nice, easily worked around kind of a place, and what do you know? I've inadvertently started decorating another room, just as I was finishing the last one. Rats!!

9) So whilst the boys were grafting upstairs, I was grafting downstairs. The new wall unit got filled with books and games and almost all of my jewellery making kit. The stereo got set up and the wires run into the back of the unit, a lamp got rewired, table tops were varnished, desks were undercoated (twice) and the curtains were finally hemmed and pressed and hung. The room now looks, if not complete, then at least together. Just a top coat on the desk to go, and a few pictures and trinkets, and it'll be done. Hooray! My dining room is tantalisingly close to being too damned nice to eat in!

10) And now here I am. End of my week off. Back in the office in nine measly hours, and NOT in the mood for it! I'm already plotting another week off later in the summer to do the same happy home based pottering again. Meanwhile though, Footloose is on the telly. Marvellous! The tale of a community being brought together by rock and roll and dancing. They don't make 'em like they used to!

This Weekend (12) ...

I WAS SOBER!
Hoorah!

But I was also a bit poorly.
Boo.

Just hayfever, I think, which I am suffering from in a "Biblical Plague" kind of a way this year, so I'm dosed up on, I think, four different types of tablet which give the world a pleasing blurry fugginess.

Anyway, the weekend panned out like this ...

1) Before my usual appointment at the pub quiz this week, I had to go to a meeting regarding the Artist's Open House event that we're hosting in October. Nothing amazes me like the ability of artists to stray from the point. At 8pm, having been there for an hour and a half, and having debated whether the event should be called "Open House" or "Open Studio" for around an hour, one of my committee co-members rocked back on his chair and asked if we should break for a cup of tea. I wept quietly in the corner. But I also managed to bagsy a walking tour, and a techy "press the red button now" type tour for my patch, so it was worth the effort.

2) Pub quiz. Diminished team, but we didn't embarrass ourselves. A question for you all, however (no prizes for getting it right this week): Only three Mr Men have teeth. Name any one of them ...

3) On Friday morning, I felt like poo. Poooooo! And with 100 jobs to do this week, I felt that I'd be cheating to not keep going anyway. But I sat down on the sofa to think about what to do first, and woke up an hour and a half later, feeling much better.

4) Which meant that on Friday afternoon I could order my new bedroom carpet, buy a power drill, buy a new wall unit for my dining room, go to Sainsburys and return a mistakenly purchased bra to Marks and Spencer. Rock and roll!

5) On Saturday my parents came to visit. Before they arrived, I had time to have some cakes baked and iced, so I could give the illusion of being a domestic goddess. But they came, they brought plants, we planted them, Dad broke stuff (it's a habit he can't shake when he's at my house), we ate, walked on the Common and I waved them goodbye. A nice compact, bijou kind of a visit. Perfect!

6) Today was the seventh birthday of my neighbour's son. I bought him a little Lego game which he was disproportionately pleased with. As a six year old, seven was all he could think about, but I was struck by what a very little boy he still is. When I was seven I thought I was quite the grown up. I wonder if that's a Girl vs Boy thing or a Big Sister vs Only Child thing, or a Me vs Him thing. I can also remember that, for my seventh birthday party, I wore some slouchy pink dungarees and thought I looked ace. So probably I wasn't half the grown up I thought I was. Probably I was a very little girl still. Odd how you remember things though, no?

7) Whilst I was baking some (more) cakes to take to a friend's house this afternoon, my phone pinged a message from an unknown number. "Tooting, is this your no. still?" "Yes it is! Who's this?" It was someone I had a very lovely date with about five years ago, and never heard from again. I've no idea why he's chosen now to look me up, but we've had a pleasant afternoon exchanging messages, so I chose not to ask him, and enjoy the chat.

8) There was some football on the telly. 'Nuff said.

9) I spent a very lovely afternoon loafing in my friend's back garden, enjoying the sun and the company and lots of food and some food and a bit more food and chatting the unspecified chat of friends. I told them about the flock of parakeets that are currently living around here, and they looked at me as if I were mad. Ten minutes later, a flash of green shot across the garden. "See," I said. They nodded.

10) I have thirty followers! Whoop de doo! I'm going to have a little party RIGHT NOW!

This Weekend (9) ...

... was a long one! (Oh, err, missus!)

Of course, because this is England, it was grey and drizzly and not as warm as it could be, but that doesn't mean that it wasn't marvellous. I mean. A long weekend IS a long weekend. And here's what happened.

1) I was on time for the pub quiz! On time! That's note worthy in itself, but I suspect that anyone not used to my poor time keeping won't be wowed by that. The thing is that not only was I on time, but I was also useful. I was not a spare wheel who played the role of "nodding dog" at the end of the table whilst other people supplied the right answers, as I am most weeks, but I was a useful, question answering, information supplying team member. As such I can confirm that Mr Tickle is orange, post boxes in Spain are yellow, and that the punchline to the Joke Of The Week is "The stakes are too high!" (Chuckle chuckle).

2) The Lovely Gillian couldn't make the quiz (which is not good news, obviously) because she and her husband, The Equally Lovely Garry are fostering a weeny baby girl (which is good news). A baby (a proper weeny crinkly squeaky baby, I mean. Not one of these part-baked small people, but a small, one-week-old baby) must, if you are a foster carer, be the gold at the end of the rainbow, and I am just thrilled for them. I've not yet had the chance to go around for a cuddle (the baby and Gillian), but when I go, I'll obviously be smitten (with the baby and Gillian).

3) Whilst normally, on Friday, I set the alarm for a decent time and hop (fall) out of bed bright and early (slowly and resentfully) this week I decided that I needed a snooze, so I allowed myself the luxury of a lie in. I was woken by a text message from Amelia, wondering if I fancied Doing Lunch. well if that isn't the whole point of not working on a Friday, I don't know what is! So I hot footed to Sainsbury's and bought a multitude of fabulous nice things, and we decided to just graze on cheese, bread and tomatoes in the garden, with copious amounts of coke. And. We. Were. Happy!

4) There were a few things that I tried to do on Friday afternoon, but none really came off, so, tapping in on a bit of found time, I cleared out my bedroom, pulling everything out of all my cupboards and drawers, throwing away holey socks and grey pants, and putting chunky jumpers away for the summer. My room is now as ordered as it can be, given that I don't actually have any bedroom furniture still, and I know where everything is. A miracle!!

5) Saturday was the greyest of grey days. I am going on a swanky day out in a couple of weeks time (more to follow) for which I need a new frock, so I decided I'd hit Kingston and shop, shop, shop. By the time I got off from the bus stop to the town centre, the rain had socked up my jeans to the knees, and down my hair, sticking it to my forehead. Hard, under the circumstances, to think "GLAMOUR." I tried on a heap of things, but struggled to see myself promenading, champagne in hand, in any of them, so in the end bought some pick and mix and a lottery ticket and came home. Oh well. Maybe next time.

6) Amelia's smallest, the fabulous G, made a request for a sleepover at my house some time ago, and arrangement which would offer him and me a bit of playing time, and his mother a bit of quality time with her fella, Curtis. I collected him and we came home to watch DVDs and eat biscuits. (Coraline was ok, but Planet 51 was ace). In the kitchen, whilst cooking his tea, G let out a small fart, and looked at me in a challenging way. "Aren't you going to say "excuse me"?" "Curtis never does."

7) Eurovision. The annual battle of wills. I say I won't watch it ever year. It's truly dreadful. But then I click on, just for a minute, and end up watching to the end. Poor old England. Poor old us. Last position. Again. Poor old us.

8) Sunday lunchtime on a bank holiday weekend is, surely, the most luxurious time in the world. I met with some friends for lunch at a pub in Wimbledon to watch the football, have a drink and enjoy a long lunch. One thing lead to another. And I got home at 11pm. Pah well. It's a long weekend. What's a girl to do?

9) So I had a slow start to today. A nice big stodgy breakfast and a long chat with my mother on the blower. And then a nice walk to The Rookery, a secret (not very secret) garden at the top of Streatham Common with a friend, before retiring to the pub and setting the world to rights. I'm sure that Bank Holidays are meant to be about more wholesome pursuits than quenching a hangover with Merlot, but it works for me.

10) And now, as I type this, I watch Glee. I know it's trashy, and teeny, and all, but it's becoming my dirty little secret. Why was there no Glee club when I was at school? Bugger that! Why isn't there a Glee club in Tooting now?! Perhaps it can be my new project.

This weekend (6) ...

It's been a wee while since I did a "this weekend" post. Partly the demise of the dino-puter, partly the fact that there has been one thing more interesting to write about than lots of small things together, and partly because I was paranoid about being stuck in a rut. But I've decided that I rather like the format, so I think that I'll pick it up again and flog it a while longer!

So. This weekend ...

1) Thursday night, as regular readers will know, is quiz night at The Furzedown, where Team Biscuit regularly attends, and often fares well. A new quirk in the scoring means that the gap between first and second is now often wider - the too-complicated-to-explain "risky round" rules making the difference between good luck and good judgement. This week we came second. My role ... very much making up the numbers!

2) After the quiz, back to the lovely Gillian's house to watch the election results come rolling in. I have been repeatedly angered in the run up to this election, not by the propaganda of the political parties, but by the mind tricks and bullying of the voting public. Friends and neighbours - people I'd have counted amongst the more open minded and free thinking people I know - have foisted their political views on the world around them with such belligerence that I have, on many occasions, had to hold my tongue in the face of ignorance, arrogance, and down right lying. I was brought up to believe that everyone was entitled to their own views on religion and politics, and yet to some, the definition of democracy seems to have been altered along the way to "do what you want, as long as you do it my way." Thankfully, the group clustered around BBC1 on the night of the 6th, and the morning of the 7th, was a cheerful and upbeat one. Political allegiances didn't come up in conversation, but comments like, "I think he's a bit creepy," and, "she shouldn't have worn that skirt," abounded.

3) After a veeeeery late night on Thursday, I had foolishly booked a 9am hair appointment for Friday. Yuk! But, on so little sleep, it was thoroughly lovely to be pampered by Crazy Martin. He knows the format now. He asks what I want, I shrug and grin at him, and he sets to with colours and foils and scissors, and creates something a bit different every time. I am now very short (and therefore straight) on one side, and longer and curly on the other, and am peppered with scarlet highlights. Ohh la la!! As I left, he called after me, "next time, we go blond!" and I laughed nervously.

4) My German (not Swiss, it transpires) houseguest is now here, and enjoying all that London has to offer. But on Friday evening, neither of us had the energy for a big night out, so we settled instead for dinner at one of my favourite restaurants. Tooting is possibly the most unlikely place on the planet for a good, authentic Japanese restaurant, but there it is. I've not had an excuse to go there for ages, and it was deeeeeeeelicious! Thoroughly stuffed with sushi, noodles, fried tofu, and chicken, we chatted about all sorts, and had a thoroughly lovely evening.

5) Saturday morning saw me leap (fall) out of bed bright and (hideously) early to head to my parent's place in Kent. A friend has given me a new route which I tried for the first time. Escaping the maze that is South London can be torture, but the new route avoids all the pinch points, and feels like a well kept secret as I head south-east, without getting snarled up once. A small pleasure, but somehow also a massive one!

6) First job on arrival ... get mother to the garage to pick up her New Car! Let me hear you say "Oooooooh!" She has been driving the same Corsa for nine years, and threatening to buy a new one for three. Two weeks ago it blew up on the dual carriageway and forced the issue. She is now the proud owner of a not-quite-new Polo, and is very much in love with it. Repeatedly over the weekend, she used phrases like, "I have to pop to the supermarket for a few things tomorrow ... in my New Car!" and, "what's that blue thing on the drive? Oh, it's my New Car!" I am extremely jealous, but any suggestion I made that I "borrow" it fell on deaf ears.

7) The weather all weekend is thoroughly dreadful. Cold, windy and rainy, as you might expect from a weekend in November. The heating went on, along with spare socks, cardigans, and the telly. My brother and his lovely girl were also visiting this weekend, and it was quite lovely to be limited by the weather to spending time with them, even if we were just loafing.

8) I popped to the corner shop to pick up a few things for Sunday lunch (in the New Car!) and found a sign above the eggs, supplied by a local farmer, declaring that they are all guaranteed double yolkers. "How do you know?" I asked the lady at the counter. "Beats me," she replies, "but he says they've never laid a single yolker yet." So I bought half a dozen and am looking forward to bright yellow scrambled eggs for my tea tomorrow.

9) One of the curses of the death of the dino-puter was that it was the home of my iTunes. I had thought that I would have to admit defeat and reload my music, album by album all over again. But a chance look on line found a fabulous programme designed to transfer music from iPod to computer, and my library is now right here, along with a few new additions. So I drove home from Kent singing, top volume, with my new Glee soundtrack, sometimes singing the lead, and sometimes the harmonies, but always, of course, picturing myself centre back in my own show-choir! When WILL I grow up!

10) So now here I am, in bed, writing a post. I don't know why I've never thought of this before. I thought that sitting in front of Swiss (German) Chick and typing up a lengthy post would be more than a little antisocial, so we chatted for an hour or so and I retired to bed. I'm doing this more often though - propped up in bed, cuppa tea at my side, snuggled under a duvet in my jarmas, this is, surely, the bestest place in the world to correspond! And now ... to sleep. G'night!

Quiz Night

All the questions asked, all that remains is for our quiz master, Matt the Hat, to reveal the answers.

"So! According to the Italian government, which European country is the most cultured?"

He looks to his audience to throw in answers.

"Italy!"

"France!"

"Greece!"

"No, no, no," says Matt the Hat. "The answer is ... Britain."

One team is incredulous. "Fuck off!" says their spokesman.

I think, maybe, the Italian government should have carried out a more thorough questionnaire before leaping to any hasty conclusions.

Super Nova

Today, I received a text message from my friend Bally. It read simply, "Ahh, memories," and came with this photo.

Ain't she a beauty?

This is a photo of the back view of a Vauxhall Nova Saloon. Oh yes!

When I passed my driving test, my Mum had a black Nova, just like this one. A21 PKR. Occasionally called "Parker," but really just called "the car". It was too simple a car to warrant anything as fancy as a name. It had two doors, and drop-down seats to get in the back seats, where the windows didn't open. It had a medium wave radio, so you couldn't listen to the charts, but you could listen to French cricket commentary. It had a one litre engine. Well, almost. 993 cc's raw horse power. C'mon!

After a while, we traded it in for a maroon one, JUST like the lovely little number in the photo. The NEW Nova (as it is still referred) had a 1.2l engine though. I know. Wild. And we bought a cassette player for it in Argos. We knew how to live the crazy life, my mother and I!

Like most late-teenagers, I was one of a group of friends, genetically incapable of going anywhere in anything less than a small tribe. If we went anywhere, we went mob-handed. Invariably it would require us to take two cars, and both cars would be packed full.

Two of our favourite venues were on the other side of hills. This was never a problem when we were going. Down hill, three six foot tall lads in the back, with a tail wind, that car would really shift! Coming home though, was troublesome.

The Hook and Hatchet pub, in a village pleasingly called Hucking, was remote. Really remote. The Hook and Hatchet is in a place where, when it's dark, it's REALLY dark. The Hook and Hatchet is in a place where you don't want to break down. Leaving the Hook and Hatchet with a car full meant that there just wasn't enough time to build up a head of steam to get up the hill, so instead, I would stop at the bottom of the hill to let out all my passengers, drive up the hill slowly in first gear, high revs, faint smell of burning, then stop at the top to let them all back in again.

Henry's Table was more trouble. It's on the other side of Detling Hill, which is about two miles of twisting dual carriageway steepness. It's scary, man! On one occasion, coming home from the weekly Henry's Table pub quiz, I had to drive two passengers up the hill, leave them in the Happy Eater car park at the top of the hill, go back down to get the other two and collect the loiterers on the way past to head home.

Aw, that little car! I wonder where it is now. (Scrap heap? Bottom of the Medway? Stock Car Heaven?) It was, if we're honest, not a good car. But thinking about it has brought back lots of happy memories.

Thanks Bally! Now I wonder if I can snap a brown mini to send you?

This weekend (2) ...

1) We won the pub quiz. Our answers all felt rather more like guesses than a presentation of knowledge, but we pulled it off!

2) I was told that I didn't fit in with a group of artists because I'm too professional. It was (a) the first time I've been told I was too professional and (b) the first time I've considered being too professional to be an insult!

3) After her bath, when I was combing her hair, I teased my goddaughter, telling her that she was the second most beautiful person in the room after me.  She cocked her head on one side, looked at me thoughtfully and said, "well, maybe if you put some makeup on ...".

4) I lost at Monopoly to a real life millionaire with hotels on all the yellows and reds.

5) I went to a birthday party which featured wellington boots ...

... and deep puddles.

6) I flirted with an Italian.  In English.  

7) I went to Brighton to watch a friend run in the Brighton half marathon, in the pouring, driving, icy rain. My heart goes out to the 8000 pour souls idiots who ran 13 miles in such foul weather.

8) We played a game.  Would you rather give up bacon or sausages, meat or cheese, ketchup or brown sauce, cakes or doughnuts?  Answers by four people aged 33, 32, 6 and 4 were debated and well presented.  Until the six year old floored us with the question; would you rather have no central heating, or an elephant in your house.  And no-one had an answer.

9) The oven timer was set so that, when we got home, the house smelled of roast lamb and garlic.

10) I had lots of jobs and errands to do when I got home, but dash, dash, dashed, and got it all done in a little over an hour.  If only my life was always so efficient.