Aw Diddums

Mood: Still messing around doing not very much - terrible!
Listening to: Ghost song in my head: 'We Are Homeless' by Ladysmith Black Mambazo and Paul Simon

Some more random notes from the past, found amongst my papers.

The following snippet concerned an interview for a book-binding job I attended. The job was based round some really vicious machinery. All my previous editing work has been based around computer databases and filing cabinets:

Me: They asked if there was anything about the editing work that bore any relation to the job I was applying for - I couldn't really see any similarity so said no!
Mum: Books!

---

Me: Did she manage to put it down?
Mum: She's still shaking upstairs.

---

Me: This is the carnivorous café
My sister (a vegetarian): Café Carnivore - only well behaved vegetarians permitted.

---

Me (having one of my mini rants): That Oxfam book shop is the worst yet. £2.49 for old/new sci-fi paperbacks. £1.49 for thin kid's paperback. £1.99 for filthy tattered pb of no particular interest. They said "we have more in stock" - I'm not surprised! Oh, and £6.99 for a small Concise Oxford Dictionary.

---

Me: If Sharky doesn't play with the Xmas tree it will be a source of amazement to other cat people.
Mum: Yes. (Probably thinking of her cat Cheeky, who can never stay on the ground).

(I don't think he ever played with it - but he loved to gaze).

---

Me (of my sister's cats, one a proud mum and the other a proud aunt): Suki was egging Muppet on - seems they BOTH wanted the kittens to go downstairs with them, and they tried to get me to help.
My sister: They were all halfway down last night.

(I still remember that - those cats made me feel like Third Wife, to be bossed around. "Come ON - and bring that one with you!")

Mood: No better than yesterday and the day before - I should be doing other things
Listening to: 'Homeless, homeless, moonlight sleeping on a midnight lake'...

My sister found 'more neighbour wilting stuff' - this one a video clip of Paul Simon and Ladysmith Black Mambazo. It's 'We Are Homeless', if I remember right. My best friend at university hated it - she said it sounded like someone panicking, and it made her panic too.

Currently I'm trying to sort through boxes and files of paper and notepads from my house. It's a boring job and I really don't want to do it - except that I keep finding some strange things. There was a tiny hand-made book with mostly blank white pages in it. The names of countries were written at the top of the pages in my neatest tiniest handwriting. Not all of the pages are blank... there's an old Chinese stamp, and three old Indian stamps... all in very poor condition, and all quite old. I'm not a stamp collector and never really fancied the idea, so I was completely stumped. What WAS this?

Mum is the stamp collector - she took a look and said they had bits missing and are worthless. She must have chucked them away. I said maybe I made it for one of my... ah!! And suddenly a memory flooded into my brain... only it felt more like a realization than a memory. It HURT. I didn't remember it... it all just felt right. Just the sort of strange thing I would have done around the age of 23... I made it for one of my bears' children.

Good grief.

Even worse, I have just this minute found a blank A4 sheet of paper... blank, that is, except for something written at the top in my handwriting.

"Not heard from you for a while. Are you still alive, or have you been overtaken by the Saargataans and made to lose your memory of who you are and who you know?"

I don't remember it at all - and I don't remember who the Saargataans are. Perhaps it was me they caught up with?

Mood: Fine
Listening to: Horrible tinnitus and house rushings

I've known from a child that Mum could be inconsistent - it was confusing but I eventually learned that most people swither about a lot of things. Possibly the aspect that most confused me was the confidence and determination with which Mum would state a preference which was later changed.

Actually it still confuses me.

For instance, we decided to get a new lino for my hall (house to be rented out). My sister said "why not a carpet?"
"Oh yes, we could get a carpet for a change, it might be more comfortable," I said, but Mum came up with all sorts of reasons why I should stick with lino.

When we discovered lino was not much cheaper, she said a carpet would be the sensible buy. I had only just told her I disliked all the carpets but had seen a nice lino, so I was a bit taken aback. All that had just been brushed aside. I protested that the lino would probably last longer than a cheap pale carpet which had had mud tramped into it by tenants and visitors on wet days.

"Oh yes, you're right," she said.

We went to the warehouse and I turned towards the lino section, thinking I had won the battle... but Mum pointed at a carpet and said "how about this? It doesn't cost much more than the linos and it's a Stainsomethingorover - should be easy to clean."

The shop manager told us we would need underlay as well, which would jack the price up... Suddenly we were looking at the linos again - and lino is what we bought.

Having told this story, I'm beginning to wonder if she's really so contradictory, or it's just something about me that loses the plot every so often - there's such a clear pattern here. Doubtless we are talking loudly about which would last the longest, but ultimately we are being led by price.

Well, on another occasion we went shopping for a double duvet cover for my new double bed (in the house to be rented out). I found one I quite liked - mostly white with panels of pink flowers. They weren't too large or too close together, so it was reasonably tasteful. I showed it to Mum, and she looked as horrorstruck as though I'd offered her a Disney Princess or Hello Kitty duvet set.

"You can't get that... what if a couple looks at the house? A fellow won't want to sleep in it with those pink flowers."

Well, let's see... the double bedroom has a pink carpet, bright floral curtains and a pale pink lightshade. The single bedroom also has a pink carpet; the curtains are cream with a pleasant floral print - I'll point out that Mum found that set. The bathroom has bright floral wallpaper and silver lino... I wasn't sure what difference one more 'girly' item would make, especially as it was mostly white anyway.

We moved on without buying anything.

In the very next place (a charity shop), Mum found a double duvet set for something like £4. It was a strong bubblegum pink all over with large yellow daisies.

"We'll get THIS, shall we?" she said brightly, confident I'd love it.

I just nodded - it seemed the easiest way out.

---

Later on I got another duvet set with matching curtains... fresh creamy white with large wobbly pink flowers on the lower half. The curtains are lighter and longer than my old floral 'cottage garden' curtains. It sounds girly, I know, but looks quite sophisticated. I'll hide the bubblegum pink duvet set at the back of the airing cupboard for spares - the Scaly Tenants can use it if they like...

I'm beginning to wonder if these tenants will ever actually exist, outside of my imagination.

Mood: Fuzzy-headed
Listening to: Tapping of keys

I woke up this morning to find a whole bunch of comments at the wallpaper site, and have been added to someone's list of friends, which means they want to be notified when I post my 'works of art'. Heh - I wonder what I was grumbling about last night.

As for other types of wallpaper...

It's awful working on a house. The more you do, the more needs to be done. If you start out just freshening the hall, the other rooms look dingy in comparison and you end up doing them as well. Then you decide it would be a good idea to have a lock on the inner porch door, and the new door handle exposes a patch of unvarnished wood. Or you put one of those draught-excluding brush strips along the bottom of the kitchen door (to keep the slugs out) and that needs to be painted because it's raw wood. Or maybe we'll just let the slugs varnish it.

And so it goes on.

We were going to keep my hall lino, but one thing led to another, and we ended up chucking it out. We've been looking at carpets and linos, tending towards lino again. We were in the carpet shop yesterday (the one where I left my notepad behind) and I was expecting a lovely time browsing around for some exciting brand new flooring... instead, the selection of carpets was incredibly dull. You could have cream, sand, coffee or chocolate. Or chocolate, coffee, sand or cream. Plain or speckled. Maybe a pinkish mushroom if you're lucky. I got very excited when I spotted a flash of green, but closer inspection revealed it to be a carpet's backing. Sad times when the backing looks better than the carpet.

I didn't say anything to Mum, but she turned round and said exactly what I'd been thinking. "What a boring selection! In fact I would hardly even call it a choice! The thing is.... this is what sells."

I found myself getting angry at the thought... that I would have to buy carpet that I find boring simply because it's what everybody else likes.

"It's the fault of all those property programmes," I said. "They keep drumming into people, almost as a religion, that everything has to be neutral."

What happened to the pale blues and golds? The gentle floral designs? Something nice and modern and muted, but not plain beige?

I did read a couple of housekeeping magazines recently saying that "pattern is back". The wallpaper vendors seem to have understood that - suddenly there's a rash of those black and white floral papers and curtains - but the carpet people are lagging behind the times. Unless it's a case of getting plain carpets to offset the fancy wallpaper - that's possible, I suppose. But they still only have them in various shades of mud.

The choice of lino was much more interesting. But we'll see.

Mood: Happy - just found an After Eight on my desk
Listening to: Ghostly song in my head: 'Wandering Star' by Lee Marvin

My goodness me - Blogigo is back. I was starting to think it (and my blog) had gone forever.

Snide remarks aside, my spirits have a tendency to lift when any search for Blogigo turns into a white vacuum with yellow warning triangles saying "not found". It makes me wonder - hope - that some of the old problems have been ironed out.

This is what I was going to put up on my blog over a day ago:

We had too much stuff in our store cupboards, so I dug out every single tin I could find, and lined them up in order of 'best before' date. Mum's cat Cheeky came and watched me disapprovingly, as though to say "well - are you or are you not going to eat it?"

We had 97 tins, ranging from May 2001 to some time in 2012. (The longer lasting tins were predominantly corned beef and tuna).

Only 7 were out of date, including two tins of golden syrup (ending in years 2001 and 2002), one of Carnation milk, two of chicken tikka, and two - which I suspect came from my house - of peeled plum tomatoes.

In the edible collection, we had 23 tins of cat food, 46 tins of human food, and 21 tins of either/or food (tuna and salmon). Well, that was earlier - we have now eaten the ratatouille, so we're one tin down.

89 tins to go.

Mood: Fizzy
Listening to: 'Don't Slow Down' by UB40

It was sunny and we had my blinds up at my house and were sitting on the Ercol suite, talking... a neighbour passed by, glancing in briefly, and smiled, as though he was glad there were still signs of life here.

Funny how my home still lays claim to me. I go inside and the door shuts. Peace steals over me like treacle. The house seems to be saying "rest and put your feet up. there's nothing you must do; just bask in my stillness as you've always done."

When the others are there and we're painting or cleaning, we get on with the job at hand and talk to each other. Till once I stepped into the front porch to collect the post. As I straightened up, the trees outside swayed in a sudden roar of wind, while light and shadow raced across the grass. Something about it was peaceably familiar and pleasant, almost as though the house had spoken to me - it caught me off guard. I really was at home, not just standing in a house that I was getting ready for someone else.

I've taken to asking the house for its opinion. I got a leaflet through the letterbox about property investment being the best thing to do with money. Mum said it's not as safe as the leaflet claims. I said "where does the expression 'safe as houses' come from?"
Mum frowned and shook her head. "They're not safe."
"Well, I said, "I asked House if property is a good investment, and it said 'of course it is.'" I waited for her to ask "what else would a house say?" but she didn't.
"The tenants could make a terrible mess of everything," said Mum. "You never know what they'll be like."
Silence filled the house.

Well I know. Life is a game - I might land on Go, or I might land on a Terrible Tenant square, or something worse.

Don't slow down, don't touch the ground,
You know what you will find;
That old grey man in tattered clothes
Following behind.

From 'Don't Slow Down' by UB40

Mood: More relaxed than I've been for months
Listening to: Peace

My hall is a bear to clean, and even more of a bear to paint. There are 12 doors in it, with what feels like miles of wall in between. We wallpapered one side of the hall but the painting has been a big job.

The living room seemed very bare without a sofa, but yesterday Mum bagged an Ercol suite at auction. Used but very clean and perfectly good - and it supports your head without you having to smoosh down. The wood matches the varnished wood of the door and window sills, and the pink floral upholstery goes with the pink floral wallpaper.

There was a panic at first - Mum rang the light removals guy (the one who lost my desk key) but he's on holiday! Leaving us with this big bulky suite sitting in an auction hall waiting for transport ASAP. Big Sister fetched some of it, but the two-seater sofa was too big for her car. I was stuck painting the skirting board in the hall at the time, so Mum and Big Sister carried the sofa from the auction hall themselves. Fortunately it's more or less across the road (more like three streets away).

Mum also bagged a roomy bedside cabinet in perfect condition (£13 bid), and a solid nest of wooden occasional tables (£11 bid) - very slightly scuffed, but presentable.

You know something, I don't know why folk buy expensive shoogly flat-pack furniture when there are good quality things in auction halls costing almost nothing. Except if we all go to auctions from now on, these things will be a lot dearer! Fair enough, they should be a little dearer; they can stand it.

The house had been really empty, then we filled it with the suite and the tables, and sat down for tea. Watching me anxiously parking a table near my chair, Mum said in a chiding tone: "Really, Diddums - you have too much furniture!"

I felt as though that suite was already ours when we saw it for the first time. Later in the auction hall I spotted a raisin and a sweetie paper on it.
"How dare people snack on our sofa!"
Mum said the culprits were three old biddies who turn up to every auction and bid on all the linen. They settle themselves in for the duration and munch.

See, they know where to get their bargains.

I'm fond of the bedside cabinet, which runs lightly along on little wheels. I was painting the skirting board when Mum arrived and pushed it down towards me, out of the way of the incoming suite. It sat and looked at me, and I looked back and said "hello."

It has carpeted drawers and its own tray cloth tucked away in the top. Made me smile...

Mood: On its way up again
Listening to: Ghostly song in my head: 'Summer Breeze' by The Isley Brothers

I had a shower and changed my bed linen, lovely and fresh. Passed my bedroom door ten minutes later, and Sharky was sitting plump in the middle, washing his bottom.

Hmf.

Feeling much better today as we bought some lovely crockery for the to-let house. Woolworth had bargains, supposedly porcelain, but they were thick and chunky. Not my cup of tea. I would have obtained a set if there was nothing better, but decided to check a proper china shop first.

The china shop had a 6-piece dinner set, Maxwell and Williams - a reasonably fine white porcelain, able to withstand dishwashers, microwaves and fridges. Elegant, with bigger plates and bowls. As Mum pointed out, it's possible to buy the pieces separately, so I should be able to replace anything that gets broken. She also suggested we keep back two of everything as spares - cracking idea!

Who knows, though, if the tenants break anything, they might do what I did on holiday, and quietly search the shops for replacements. It's a small town and they wouldn't have to cast around much to find the right place.

I'm cheerful because that was a quality choice - like picking a nicer sofa over a cheap one with no headrest. Hopefully we'll get out sofa-hunting again on Sunday - depends on what's going on with the editing work.

Mum still thinks I should buy an "it's NOT FOR YOU" sofa, but I'm hoping for miracles.

Mood: Wishing I had more time
Listening to: Ghostly song in my head: 'Amazing Grace'

On Sunday we entered the car park of one furniture store - and there were only three other cars. I thought to myself "this is what life should always be like, and not just on a Sunday at a furniture store."

The drawback was: being stalked by salesmen. They tried not to look as though they were competing for our business, or were at all concerned about whether we bought anything or not, but they homed in on you no matter which part of the store you were in, sometimes standing in clumps as though discussing weighty matters, always peeping hopefully round each other to see what you were doing. I found myself moving in a kind of zigzag to avoid them.

There was nothing in that store, so we moved on to the next - Harveys. They had a suite I really liked, and we fell into conversation with one of the salesmen there. He said we could take it home that day if we wanted, provided we had suitable transport, and Mum said "of course we have," gesturing at Bluebird, my wheelie bag.

Transport aside, the vexed question was: would we be able to get the 3-seater sofa into my house? We went home and measured up. Turns out it would be very tricky if not impossible - it's eleven inches longer than my own sofa, which has been manoeuvred here, there, and everywhere without problems.

I really thought we could stop the sofa hunt now - I liked that suite and it was a very good price. I want to go out and look at more, because it's time we got my place rented out! The newspaper says there's a long waiting list of people wanting accommodation in this town, and I can feel them leaning impatiently on my shoulder. But right now I'm all tied up with other stuff I can't get away from - life is just too complicated.

There are some very cheap sofas to be had, but I want this to be a comfortable house. Mum pointed out a pair of brown leather sofas in Homebase - both were part of the same deal. I sat down on one, and the headrest only came to my shoulders.

"Noooo," I groaned, escaping from it.

"It's NOT FOR YOU," she said for the millionth time since this whole project began.

I know it's not me who will be sitting on it, but I'm sure we could get a better quality suite for not too much. A comfortable, welcoming sofa might make it a more desirable residence, less likely to be bottom of someone's list. The thought of those two short brown sofas squatting in my pale beige/pink living room is objectionable.

But it shouldn't be this difficult to find a suite that's just right AND fits through the door?

Mood: Pondering
Listening to: Ghostly song in my head: 'Amazing Grace'

Yesterday we were out shopping (looking for furniture for the house I'm renting out), but in one store I stopped by a rack of clothes. A dark blue knitted jacket caught my eye; it had a tattoo-style design on its back and sleeves in bright colours - now that I remember, I looked at the label and it was a designer hoodie from the US of A.

It was a thin, soft garment, quite nice to touch and look at, but it probably wouldn't last long after I'd leaned my elbows on the computing desk for a few days, and had Sharky (and various other cats) visiting it with their fur and their snaggy claws.

Being an uncultured ignoramus standing in the sort of store where you might hope to find bargains, I imagined it wouldn't cost more than a few pounds, or maybe a little more - but when I looked at the price tag, it said "RRP £345 - OUR PRICE £71." It was 100% cashmere.

Thanks, but I could get 18 second hand DVDs for that, or a nice executive chair to make my hours at the computer more comfortable. If spending the RRP value, we could have a nice solid wood sideboard in the hall to store some of our junk - or it would very nearly provide a couple of clearance sofas for my house.

Mum said, "perhaps some maniac will buy the hoodie, then donate it to a charity shop so that you can have it for a few pounds."

Har har.

EDIT: I found these two articles on cashmere - caveat emptor, as with everything else.

The real price of cheap cashmere
All you need to know about cashmere

Mood: More energetic
Listening to: Bedtime peace

I'm blogging as quietly as possible tonight, because Mum has threatened to come upstairs and strangle me if I cough.

She says a full-throated cough is one thing, but the ones that get her are the sharp yaps. I told her that when she came up the other night and barked at me for keeping her awake, she went away again (stamp stamp stamp) and Sharky immediately oiled out of his cozy spot on the sofa and trickled across the floor to comfort me. "There there," he said, gently butting my leg. "If she shouts at you again I'll boot her down the stairs."

I couldn't help smiling.

Tonight's blog post is about finding lost things when you were looking for something else.

I blogged along those lines when I found a brooch after losing a key (and I still haven't found that key - I think the removal men have it in their van! But they say they haven't, and that's that).

Last night I was looking for the scanner's CD, and ended up searching around (rather hopelessly) in the loft. I found a silver box marked 'CDs' which had the printer CD etc (these are all Mum's - I keep my own computer CDs near my computers). Unfortunately the scanner's CD wasn't there. What was there was a Big Issue CD marked 'Scottish Blend' - and it wasn't alone in its sleeve. (Aargh - two CDs together are like nails down a blackboard). Anyway, I carefully retrieved the mystery CD, thinking it might belong to the scanner.

It didn't. It was Disc 2 from my two-disc World Moods set.

This was another thing I really wasn't expecting to find. I assumed years ago that I left it in a CD-player in a holiday cabin in Jedburgh. When I discovered the loss afterwards, I sent an email to Mum and my sister, asking if either of them had it - neither of them replied. We can read all kinds of things into a silence, and at the time I thought it meant "you probably left it in the holiday cabin's CD-player, you great gowk!"

And here it was, sitting in Mum's CD box, sharing a sleeve with a Big Issue CD.
I have no idea how it got there.

Mood: Tired
Listening to: Nothing

The internet told me that 1lb of carrots makes one glass of juice.

It also told me that if I drink too much carrot juice, I will turn orange.
Maybe so - I'm not sure I care.

I was going to buy a juicer for £35 which sounded a real bargain (I carefully compared specifications), but Mum found an unused centrifugal juicer at a coffee morning for £5. I'm half impressed, half annoyed...

"This one doesn't take whole fruits; you have to peel, chop and core the apples and things."
"I think I prefer that anyway."
"Well, maybe you do..."

I know myself quite well; the more peeling and chopping I have to do, the less likely I am to use the juicer. I hate peeling apples just for eating, and a pineapple recently went rotten because I couldn't get in the right mood to prepare it. 1lb of carrots is an awful lot of peeling and chopping (though if they're organic they shouldn't need to be peeled).

The leaflets and books tell me if I juice carrots, the juicers will go orange too, but you can remove that (to some extent) by applying vegetable oil. Hmm - the bottled carrot juice from the supermarket is starting to look cheap at the price.

Mood: Subdued
Listening to: Ghostly song in my head: 'More Than This' by Roxy Music

I've been musing about family habits versus individual habits.

Moving in with Mum, I notice many things we do differently. While growing up in the family home, you go with things the way they are without really thinking about them, then form your own habits when you live on your own.

For instance, Mum leaves her milk out near the kettle - she gets milk from the milkman in single litre cartons, so they don't last long anyway - she's a keen tea-drinker.

I didn't have milk delivered at my house and hated having to go to the shop very often, so I bought big plastic cartons of about 3 litres, and used some of it for hot chocolate or porridge. You can't leave that lot sitting around curdling (especially in my hot bright kitchen), so I got in the habit of putting it straight back in the fridge.

I've grown to like my milk fresh and cold, and so I find myself leaving the 'out milk' to Mum while I get my own from the fridge.

I don't like the way she makes her tea (weak and pale), and she doesn't like the way I make mine (strong and brown). When I try to make weak tea for her, I never get it weak enough, and when she attempts to make strong tea for me, it resembles melted snow.

She's not recovered from her lurgy, and her appetite is very low, so tonight I made her some porridge - not quite as thick as I like it, but it's a while since I made it in a saucepan (I got used to microwaving it in a bowl or mug). I carried some milk, syrup, salt and sugar through, and she said "I don't take syrup on my porridge."

Really? My sister and I have been drizzling syrup on our porridge ever since we were little. Maybe we got the habit from one of our grandmothers. But I removed the offending syrup and returned with the bowlful of steaming hot porridge. She poured on a little milk, and tasted it.

"Is it alright?" I asked, anxiously.
"Well... did you put MILK in it?"
"Er, yes...?" I said, feeling horribly guilty.

She stared at me as though I had suddenly sprouted green antennae.

"I NEVER make porridge with milk."
"It wasn't all milk - it was half milk, half water."
"Hmf," she said, looking not much happier.

Well, I still think baby bear's porridge is perfect - not necessarily tonight (it looked a bit thin), but usually.

Stumping off to bed now. I expect Sharky will already be sleeping in it.

Mood: Overheated and having short rest from tidying
Listening to: Wonderful peace

Trying to Get Outdoors

Sharky is definitely frustrated! He's keen to get out and explore, but we keep stopping him. I found that carrying him out to a deckchair and trying to sit with him doesn't work, as he's so keen to jump off your knee and head straight for the nearest exit point (hedge, driveway, neighbour's wall, etc).

Still rattled by his long disappearance earlier, I bought a pink cat harness so I can take him walks round the garden. I would have got him a blue one, but they only had pink left. Luckily I'm not too allergic to the colour. He allows himself to be strapped in but looks a bit of a martyr, closing his eyes and putting his nose in the air. Mum got a fit of the giggles.

I have to say walking dogs is far more interesting than walking a cat. I was falling asleep on my feet while Sharky sniffed at things and tiptoed delicately about, then stared for ages at places where he wanted to go but I wouldn't let him.

The idea is not to incarcerate him forever, but to get him used to both the garden and the house, and then maybe give him his freedom one bright morning when we're all out in the garden. I've heard too many horror stories of cats taking off shortly after a move.

During one of our perambulations, we found soda cans and bottles popped over the wall into Mum's garden - obviously from the house next door. There are children living there. They've been doing it for years; I think Mum let the parents know in a friendly way that they did tend to put stuff over the wall, including a new jacket once, various play balls and footballs, a soft toy and some yoghurt pots - the parents are friendly and I'm sure they try to put a stop to it, but the boys don't seem to have grown out of the habit. I mentioned to Mum that I found more of these things, and she seemed unsurprised. "From over there? Yes." She looked a little sad.

She's too old to be cleaning up after the neighbours' kids.


Trying to Watch Films

It's Bruce Willis season on ITV2 just now - I deliberately missed Unbreakable as I'm not keen on it, and I already blogged what happened when I tried to watch The Sixth Sense. I decided to watch The Last Boy Scout last night on my mother's TV, as it seemed more likely I would get the subtitles for it.

It was embarrassing, as I rushed around making sure we were all comfortable and had our hot drinks, and then we waited in an anticipatory hush for the film to start... and the subtitles were not making sense.

"Are they lagging behind?" I asked Mum.
"Slightly," she said.

Oh well, if it's just slightly, that's bearable, so I kept watching. When I finally got the hang of where where we were ("Go get his watch!") I realized it was lagging considerably, not just slightly - you didn't get the subtitles till halfway through the next scene.

After about 5 minutes of this, the subtitles disappeared altogether and were replaced with "We apologize but there are no subtitles for this programme." Then after a minute or two, that disappeared as well.

Boo.

We went away and watched The Top 50 Celebrity Animals on Sky Three. (The winner was not an animal). When that was over, I looked to see if the subtitles had reappeared by the end of The Last Boy Scout - no, there was nothing there.

Looks like I'll have to wait a bit longer to see this film - maybe buy the DVD in a charity shop if it turns up.

Mood: All out of energy
Listening to: Nothing right now

I'm terrible at decisions. I could never work out why (putting it down to perfectionism) till I realized recently that I usually know what it is I want to do - I just confuse myself with other aspects, e.g. 'virtue' versus convenience. If I would rather meet someone at a nice comfortable time like 10.30 or 11, I might struggle when I suspect I 'should' be a good and energetic housewife and make it earlier. Or I worry about other people, thinking they hope for a different decision (though I don't know for sure that they do).

My easy-going 'know what I want' side is evenly matched with my 'this is the more virtuous choice to make' side, and as a result I detest even minor decisions such as:

"Where will we meet?"
(Thinks: 'I would like to go in bookshop as it's nearer me, but maybe X wants to go into that other shop at the other end of town....')
"Um..."

"What do you want for lunch?"
(Thinks: 'Just a nice simple lunch at home, but maybe X would like some hot soup or stovies.')
"Er..."

"Where are we going from here?"
(Thinks: 'To the next shop on our shopping list - we're bound to come across one if we keep walking the way we're going, and then we can circle back. But it doesn't sound very organized, does it?')
"Uh..."

Half the time anyway, I say something like "well I need X and Y and they could both come from Z," and the other person says "well... huh.... let's go in this other shop instead." For no apparent reason - but I suppose, having given my own opinion, the other person is just weighing in as well, and hinting that she doesn't feel like walking all that way. So making a decision doesn't mean the other person HAS to go along with it. If I realized that more, it would be easier for me to say what it is that I want to do. I won't be stepping on any toes, just so long as toes refuse to be stepped on.

Furthermore, I have such a healthy respect for the judgement of certain other people that I tend to suspect that their decisions will be correct (in all matters great and small), and my decisions (when different) are wrong. And yet they aren't always.

Some time ago I was looking through rolls of reduced-price wallpaper. There were several different patterns and types, and I picked out three rolls of creamy white vinyl for the hall. The pattern was quite formal; a 'textured' pattern with a shine rather than colour.

Mum at the time was dubious and thought I should pick a soft blue wallpaper, but I said I preferred the creamy white.

For several months the paper was tucked away at the back of a cupboard, not quite forgotten. Occasionally I wondered if I had chosen well or if it was too old-fashioned. "I like it, and that's all that matters," I told myself - but I'm aware that sometimes I take a fancy to something then get it home and discover it's awful. Or I like it at the time, and years later I disturb it at the back of a closet or in a box and wonder what I ever saw in it. Knowing this about myself is probably why I don't always trust my own taste.

The other day we put it up and we were still only rubbing down the first sheet of it when Mum said "this is BEAUTIFUL paper." And it is. It gives the house a grander atmosphere than it used to have. Three rolls of paper got us from one end of the hall to the other - the rest will be bright white paint, bouncing as much light as possible around, and it will look fine.

My sister saw it for the first time today and seemed to like it - it's hard to impress that girl! Reckon my taste isn't always that awful. I like to brighten houses up rather than dim them down. It was a dull little house when I bought it, but we put in some glass doors and got rid of the olive green and chocolate brown furnishings, and suddenly quite a lot of light started pouring through it. That can't be bad.

Mood: Wondering where Sharky has got to - again
Listening to: Tinnitus. Sounds like a solo sax - the Blues?

Still redecorating the house - and still hating paint. Especially paint that sneakily runs up the handle (when you're painting overhead) and drips, and won't wash away in water, and smears around when you try to wipe it off surfaces it wasn't meant to be on. And then you look in the mirror and discover your hair is tinted with Spring Blush.

I'm a neater painter this time around, but still wouldn't win any prizes. I might just about come third in a class of one.

My latest Bryce picture has been rendering for 20 hours and I'm going to have to tell it to stop. I wasn't completely happy with it anyway - it needs tweaking. Twenty hours (and more) is too long to wait for a picture that's going to be tweaked, then rendered all over again.

Paddington Bear Mum was here again, and this time spilt her tea all over the magazine she had just bought. She claims that corner of the room where she's sitting is Disaster Corner, as that's also where she spilt the Lucozade. I should park a healthy plant there to plug the luck leak. Hmm. Disaster Corner isn't so far away from where Thor died - just half a metre.

Last night I was thinking that the best way not to get upset about things is to not think about them. Just live from day to day. Think about the here and now. I was thinking that as I made my bed-cum-sofa, standing right by Disaster Corner.

Today I stopped to watch Sharky trotting off out through the cat flap - normally I would just think "he's going out again," and carry on with stirring my coffee, but today I stopped and looked at him as he moved in his gangly way, disappearing round the corner and 'cla-clat!' was gone. It's nice to enjoy their presence while they're here, but I wonder if that's another form of fearing the future. It could be a way of storing up comfort - "I didn't take him for granted."

Just away to upset my Mac by negating twenty hours of its hard and painstaking work. I should let it have the night off, and try again tomorrow.

Mood: Sleeeeeepy
Listening to: Nothing

Been busy redecorating. Boring, so I won't dwell on it, except to say I'm still not fond of painting or wallpapering. Mum was helping me strip the wallpaper (it was coming off in little bits instead of nice long strips), and we had been chiselling away for about five minutes when she said "I find stripping wallpaper very therapeutic."

"Oh? I think about all the other things I could be doing!" I replied. What I tend to think is what a mess we're making and how it will take ages to put right. My soul shrivels at the idea. But we're not talking about redecorating; it's taken up enough of my precious time already.

The night before last, I dreamed about a friend of Mum's who died. In the dream he kept to himself but believed in giving what he could in return whenever something or somebody benefited him. Even if it was a commercial product, he would promote it in his own modest way without expecting monetary rewards. This dream must be connected to a CD clock he made for me which I took over to Mum's house - I propped it on her mantelpiece and was sitting looking at it. I wasn't really sure why I kept it, considering the necessary decluttering we've been going through - but then it was something he made specially for me - and people don't make things for me all that often!

So there it was - survived the upheaval.

This dream would also be connected to Snoskred's belief that we should not be shy to promote things we really like, commercial or not. Seems to me a sensible concept! It's also a positive one, I notice - it's not about 'naming and shaming' the products or services we don't like.

Having Mum here all day is like having Paddington Bear on a visit. When trying to make wallpaper nice and wet with dripping sponge so that it will come off, discover one is working on same wall as hot busy steamer. And in rest of house: crumbs on sofa, on rug, on table. Pens (and even paperclip) on table suddenly sticky. Book splashed. Bright orange mark on carpet where Padd Mum tried to mop it up with wads of absorbent kitchen wipes but left orange splashes and a general stain. I didn't want to seem worried about it so didn't fuss, but after she went home I used my Vanish stick (one of my own favourite products), rinsed carpet well, and blotted entire thing up with an old French sunbathing towel. Carpet looks as good as new. Even Sharky impressed.

Crumbs brushed up so I can go to bed, book rescued - turned out to be The Blue Lion by Robert Lynd. I had lost it and it turned out to be hiding on lower shelf of table. Only lightly splashed by Lucozade so is still blue. Washed pens in order to write this blog.

More amused than annoyed - just like you couldn't really be annoyed with Paddington Bear.

Mood: Not feeling 'noble' or 'proud'
Listening to: Ghost song in my head: 'The Earth Dies Screaming' by UB40

That computer desk has reduced me to a dishrag.

We moved it to Mum's house in bits, and it took two trips using my sister's bigger car with its back seat down. Two drawers and some storage sections had already gone on ahead, so it really took three trips to transport my desk. Today there were four 'cabinets', various shelves, supports and doors, and then the sturdy desk top itself, which needed a separate trip on its own. I think it was that that did me in - when we were heaving it out to the car, I felt coldness slide up my neck, and thought 'uh oh'.

That wasn't even the end of it, as we then had to heave everything out of the car and haul it all upstairs. Then there was a rushed trip to town to look at carpet, tiles and paint, and to my sister's, to carry a roll of carpet down from her loft. Then I had to walk N's dog. Thankfully the desk was mostly put back together by the time I returned, but there was still a certain amount of shuffling around trying to find the right position for the various units, and mild cursing till we got them to fit. Finally we stuck down the storage sections on the top of the desk with blue-tack.

In the middle of the day I felt sick, but it wore off. I was just about to say I will be resting tomorrow, but then I remembered - I'm walking the dog again!

Still - I found something to pass the time on the blog What's That You Said?

 

Mood: Relieved
Listening to: Ghostly song in my head: "Just an Illusion" by Imagination

Mum's birthday party is over - my parcel didn't arrive till three hours after they left. It worked out OK but I didn't realize how frazzled I was with getting everything squeaky clean (I even changed the sitting room around to make a cosier gathering spot. The way it was before, one person was going to feel a little left out). Anyway, I didn't realize how short-tempered I was till my sister arrived and said a few mild things like "Kristin hasn't heard from you yet about the...", and I snapped her head off.

Then Mum arrived. I sent my evil monster back to its kennel and said "happy birthday!" and made coffee. After that it was a good party - nice and quiet, just the way we like it. The only sad thing being that I had convinced myself the Parcel would arrive during the pressie-opening, and I could hand it straight to Mum, saying "there you are - hot from the postie's paws!"

Well, here it is - I don't want to say what it is yet, just in case Mum glances at my blog and it gives the game away. It's not packed the way I thought - I thought it would have its own bag or box, and that would be inside a sturdier outer box which I could open to remove the invoice, but I think if I open this box, 'IT' will be right inside. There's a sticker on the box saying exactly what it is - I will cover it so it doesn't give the game away too soon.

It also rattles! I was holding it to my ear and listening, and suddenly a jet or something screamed overhead... I could feel the box shuddering in my hands, pounded by the sound waves. Rather the box than my ears! I have a baby monitor set up in my study to help notify me of doorbell and cats squawking around the house, and the LEDs (normally green) shot right up to red. Actually that's not such a big deal as I can make it do that with a sharp clap... ho hum.

Will take the parcel over tomorrow.

Oh - I nearly missed hearing the courier, but the cat told me he was there. I gave him some food as a reward. Went through to the kitchen saying "I'll get you some food. Would you like some food?"
No response.
"What kind of food would you like?"
No response.
"Oh, here's a foil pouch" (taking it out and tearing the top off).
No response.
It says it's beef..."
No response.
"Beef in jelly."
Something jumped to the floor and there was the patter of paws, and he came running eagerly round the corner. Was it the 'jelly' that did it?

Mood: Rushing around madly
Listening to: No time for playing CDs

It's panic stations here - am unexpectedly organizing small family birthday party that was supposed to go somewhere else. Reason? Sent off for a parcel (for the birthday) and it was slow in being processed so now it looks as though it intends to arrive on the actual day. Gah.

Sister thinks I should take a que sera sera approach. If the parcel arrives late (worse, arrives when I'm out), just play it by ear - it will all come right in the end.

Being me, I can't stand the thought of being out on the day I suspect it will come. Part of me is suspicious that it won't ever come back again, or will wing its way straight back to the shop (though it's not supposed to) and then I'll get charged extra for getting it redelivered... or SOMETHING. Something always goes wrong. I don't have the blind faith in humanity and systems that I used to have.

Heck, what's that phrase I keep quoting to myself? 'It will all be the same in a hundred years.' My father said that a lot and I seem to have picked up the baton. That's not much comfort when you want something to be perfect, and everything's conspiring against it - mostly your own lack of organization.

Must dash.