Giacometti Snowman

ooooh dearie me - its been a month, hasn't it. No, I've not been off to Hugh Fearnley Whittingwotsit's School of Meringue-Making for the past 4 weeks. And it certainly wasn't me who burnt down his kitchen...




A funny month; too many random silly ideas to blog about, a very butterfly existence. But all good.

ANYWAY, seeing as I'm behind by a WHOLE month, what's the odd photo or three that are a week old? This was us tramping through the local churchyard and snapping away at the pretty things we saw...

And the 12 year old made a snowman. Which I thought was a great tribute to Giacometti. Probably on account of its skinny head  - maybe he was too cold by that point to finish it with anything more robust? Alas there is no photo of Jack the Giacometti Snowman - my camera is refusing to talk to the laptop. More mundane techie failures, but onwards and upwards eh.  Spot which one it is...

Wednesday Snowday

We've been hit full in the face by the big frenzy of snow that everyone in the south had over the weekend. Its lovely! Really fluffy and dreamy. And the sky was becoming pink as we went out - gorgeous. Did I remember to take the camera? No...

Went out to see the frozen canal, had a snowball fight with the 11 year old, tried out the new caff up the road.... muffins, mocha, yum, and then went to do a bit of food shopping, with only 6 things on the list. Came out with 6 bags, which was significantly more than one item per bag. That's the second time I've done that since the humungous online food shop last week. Oh well, at least we're not bothering Dominos Pizza anymore.

Some energetic house-rearranging on the go at the moment - gotta do something to burn off those mince pies - so finally a redundant filing cabinet has gone up into the storage-starved bedroom, and is now housing t-shirts and handbags. The makeover of the big filing cupboard is one stage nearer... its a Utility piece I've had for absolutely yonks. Was loosely thinking of silver and white wrapping paper for the interior, as the dining room is heading in a very white, black and grey direction, but think I'll do the inside of the doors with blackboard paint. Before and after pics will be on here soon.

A cheap reconfiguration of the kitchen is also being planned, with minimal purchases (a corner wall unit, worktop, tap, plus the fees of Messrs Plumber & Gas Fitter Ltd) and reuse of what is already there (carcasses, sink, cooker, appliances, vintage sideboards)... not the ideal week to be doing it, so will hold back with the sledgehammer just for now. Although Keef is definitely going to still be on the wall above the cooker...

Finding Things To Do On A Monday Morning

Its so still. Very post-nuclear. From here indoors, it seems very remote that people can possibly be busily doing what they must be busily doing. Am having a not-doing-anything-much morning as I'm meeting everyone from the World of Work for some nosh at lunchtime... until then I'm just noodling about, trying not to eat mince pies.

Have just watched a documentary on the Beatles - black and white, very apt for the landscape we have now. Got to say there's something just so much better about the late 60s than the early 60s - messier, pre-punk...

And during the ad breaks, I stuck the camera into some fested-up corners of Trashsparkle Mansions...

Trashsparkle's Become Obsessed By The Weather

Yes, it is worrying how much time it is possible to spend thinking and talking about everywhere being frozen and slippy. So what's good and what's bad?

The pace is slowed down - how olde worlde to see cars travelling at a sedate 5mph
People have slowed down - you can't go anywhere fast
You have to walk like constipated penguin otherwise you fall over
The pavements are complete ice rinks
The roads - ditto - so not great

You wonder how much the NHS is having to spend treating broken bones and other injuries, compared to how much is being spent by councils on gritting (or being saved by councils not doing so). I am having to hold myself back from bothering the local mp about it...

Snowly Come Dancing

Here I am, up late for the umpth night in a row, with my fingers crossed that the World of Work will be closed tomorrow. Seeing as it'll be Friday, its not really worth dragging us all in, and the students are very sensibly starting to decide to avoid the ice rink that is the outside world.... so, Snow Day? Please? The snow is lovely - if you get to walk on the bits other people haven't. The lovely, deep, crunchy stuff. If you have to stick to the pavements, and try to get somewhere for a certain time, then it ain't...

I love how the week passes so quickly when you have It Takes Two to break it up - Mondays are a respectful look back, at what went wrong enough to see the latest couple to get voted out. Craig pops along, off-duty from his Mr Po-Face look, and acts all giddy. Tuesdays and Wednesdays start getting into the dance steps, and Claudia manages everytime not to fall off her heels while Len tries to teach her to dance, and we start to see how everyone's doing in rehearsals. And then Thursdays! So near to Saturday night! We see the frocks. We get Hilary Alexander, glasses perched on the end of  her nose and being ever so jolly, and coming out with bizarre fashion phrases such as Pamela's "canyon of cleavage". Tonight we saw Kara and Artem skillfully negotiating some tango practice. And then we got Ann - in a bright red jumper, with a Scottie dog on the front. Heavens knows what their effort will be like, but I somehow doubt it will be either American or Smooth.