A Post With A Ridiculous Amount Of Labels

So, yes, a few random things, that are really just the tip of the iceberg of life this week.

Actually, who knows - its been a week when I dreamt I worked with the mother of 3 men (which, in my dream, made them brothers?? Was I getting confused with the Bee Gees???? Was this anything to do with Lulu getting voted off Strictly?) in Wire http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wire_(band). The mother had a  hairdo like Cousin Isobel out of Downton Abbey, but in a more Debbie Harry way.

  
.... Lulu being Mrs Gibb



 Cousin Isobel. Not Lulu. Nor Debbie Harry

**********************************

Among the recession-inspired and genuine 40's graphics around at the moment, I like this poster, on ebay:

******************************

Watched Rolf "National Treasure" Harris being interviewed by Piers Morgan* at the weekend  and thought  when he was young he was the spit of someone around at the moment. Of course, I've now forgotten who that someone was.... anyone see any resemblance???

*I'd love to write the name that Private Eye call him but you might be eating...

********************************

Yesterday I accidentally invented a new method of Cracking The Admin Laziness Problem. Formerly known as the Cupboard of Doom, or Ignore It Until It Ceases To Be Relevant. Yesterday our internet was down... after 15 minutes of headless chicken behaviour (from me, the kids were fine about it) where I didn't really know What To Do Instead Of Wasting Time Online Stalking Caitlin Moran And Grace Dent On Twitter, I had a brainwave. While the sheets were in the washing machine, I blitzed my stagnant pile of rubbish tossed into a wooden wine box on the shelf my intray. 45 minutes, once a week - its the way forward.

Making Myself A Bit Late For Work. For Real.

Ewwwwrrrrggghhh - back to the World of Work today, after 9, or is it, 10 days off. An utterly slack life indeed. No wonder I need to have a job - I obviously lack the willpower to hack it self-employed. Whatever, I was dumbstruck by How Did It Get That Dark Since I Last Got Up That Early? Despite 2 dreams torturing me that I've been Severely Late (9am and 3pm ....) I am still sitting here, stubbornly having a 2nd cup of black tea, with precisely 36 minutes to shower and find something presentable in which to leave the house.

No doubt Work Talk will be of How Dark It Was This Morning, and who the hell is Patrick Crawley from last night's Downton Abbey. I will, of course, be extremely one-up on helpful in the latter conversation, from watching the previous series. Though maybe less knowledgeable about why Mary seems to get romantically entangled with all her male cousins. Heir or not. Isn't that inter-breeding? Is that what the New Era they are talking about, at the end of the First World War, is supposed to eradicate? Matthew's legs are twitching... he may be back in the running. Literally.

M Is For Music, Moon, Mess... And Mooching

Day 4 of The Ridiculous Amount Of Activity here: out with the washing first thing, enjoying the still calmness, the birds cheeping in the surrounding trees, the blue sky and the green leaves... then helping to get the 12 year old off to school, instead of me having to rush about like most weekday mornings the rest of the year.

Music to kickstart the wall-sanding has been the Mamas and Papas, who I love so much I've played them loads this week. How like the B52's the girls' harmonies are on some of the tracks... Now I'm playing Generation Terrorist, the first Manics cd, prompted by a story online this morning about Richey's sister and the missing person's charity.

Did anyone see last night's lunar eclipse? I'm never clued up beforehand, so missed it yet again. My friend posts on facebook when one's due - but I'm usually a day behind catching up on there. Maybe there's some email alert you can sign up to...? Anyhow, the film online of the eclipse looks very wow and ravishing. Had a very strange dream last night about being able to see fish in the sky - like you see stars in the daytime sometimes, these fish were swimming all over the place. It was the bottom of the sea in Australia, that joined into the top of our sky here... sort of an inverted version of how the world's made up.

A bit more sanding and painting of a small bit of wall under the kitchen window, then the room is FINISHED!!! Apart from the floor - hhhmmm - and a missing kickboard for the sink cabinet. I was sure I'd put the old one in the shed somewhere, but rooting through there the other day I just ended up with a big plank of wood falling on my knee. Big purple bruise now.... just right for summer frock attire!

The reason its taken til today to get the kitchen finished is because I keep sloping off to cafes and charity shops with the boyfriend - lots of good finds, I'll put pictures up on Saturday. If I stop and do that now, I'll never get the bloomin' kitchen done ;)

They Are Now Mr and Mrs

Had the most bizarre dream last night. I'd watched Patsy Palmer on Piers Morgan, and in my dream her having 2 premature babies translated into Kate giving birth the night before the wedding - to a 2-months premature baby, without knowing she was pregnant. And still going ahead with the wedding. Thank god it was back to reality this morning.

An abbey full of hats! Millinery masterpieces. Although SamCam chose not to wear one, and had brooches in her hair instead. Her choice of turquoisey outfit looked excellent against the carpet. Elton John didn't do much full-gusto singing did he; he was more of a mumbler. Maybe he didn't want to upstage... And all those royals. Can't believe there are so many. The royals arriving by minibus - wtf - but at least they were economising. William in full regalia, with white gloves 'n' everything. And at last we found out Kate was wearing Sarah Burton at Alexander McQueen and looked fabulous. Not a meringue in sight. Though the poor girl had to haul the weight of that train the full length of the Abbey all by herself...

And when the British dress up, they Really Dress Up....

....ignore that half-painted lounge wall. Still deciding whether to revert to the dark or plough on with the lighter grey.


And we made a pudding for the occasion. Of the wedding, not the decorating. A jelly made the night before.....

And then the 12 year old was impatient to get going with the meringues, cream and trifle sponges

(which are better crispy than soggy so went on top)

Hope you have all had a wonderful royal day!

Morning After The Night Before

Do you get any odd recurring dreams? I get ones where I'm taking my A'levels but have dropped a subject without anyone knowing, so won't pass them and that I've only got a limited time before having to find a job. Then I remember that it is now 30 years down the line and that I do have a job..... Another one is about the people I worked for after leaving uni. For various reasons, including a lack of direction in myself, not being entirely dazzling at the many job interviews I went to, plus it being a time of businesses folding, redundancies, etc, I stayed there for 10 years. Which I'm quite cross about. Its a bloody long time! Anyway, these people pop up nocturnally from time to time, and in these dreams I'm trapped there, doing impossible things and desperately trying to impress them. Despite being happier now than I've ever been, my little subconscious must be whirring away feeling all out of control during the night.

Why can't I just dream about teeth falling out if I've got to have anxiety dreams??? Have woken up a bit "blaaaaahhh" this morning - an important appointment with the 13 year old and his possible new school later this morning. So far so good, he is actually getting himself ready and I'm keeping it all as low-key as possible. Afterwards I'll have a last push to clear the kitchen out - t'is already all bare and unadorned, and without the distraction of the colourful junk the cupboard doors look sickeningly yellow. To the skip with them, come tomorrow!  I will be heaving out the sideboards and discovering Nasty Things Lurking on the floor, which will be dealt with before the workmen come to do their magic tomorrow morning.

To get myself back on track I've been doing Important Money Stuff - just made a phone call to cancel a contract for boiler cover as I've arranged something cheaper. 9 minutes of pointless spiel from a woman who sounded like Jeanette Krankie; I love it when they try to woo you back - sorry love, I decided to go elsewhere when you hiked up my payments, so don't try telling me your company look after your exisiting customers, Mrs-She-Who-Sounds-Like-A-Short-Woman-Dressed-Up-As-A-Schoolboy.

Trouble At The Supermarket

After the awful news about Sian O'Callaghan being abducted and killed by a taxi driver, I had a bizarre dream about my debit card being stolen, and that taxi driver getting hold of it and using the pin number because the bank hadn't cancelled it.... Later that day I went to pay at the supermarket, by card, and the keypad had a wonky button and was putting one of the numbers on twice... Of course, my card got refused and I had to whizz up the road for some good old-fashioned proper cash, and go back and pay for my now-melting Ben'n'Jerrys.

This morning Living Etc arrived, with its usual delicious eye-candy, and some especially lovely homes on pages 66 and 134. Pink cushions and textiles - totally gorgeous, which got me well and truly in magpie-mode for today's trip to The Bigger Town With Better Shops Than Here. Funnily enough, all I ended up with house-wise was some funky Habitat notice board magnets. Though I finally found The Perfume! I am now wearing Sanctuary's Wild Rose and Violet (with sandalwood, silver tea and magnolia). Delish.

Aside from the perfume, a close second as Highlight Of The Day had to be spotting a little boy in Wimpy who was a dead-ringer for the blond Charlie in the first Charlie & The Chocolate Factory film. He was wearing the red polo neck too. Which I imagine was some kind of post-ironic statement by the child's parents. Obviously, I was in Wimpy purely to imbue the 12 year old with social history vis a vis how high street eateries used to be once upon a time.

Diy chez Trashsparkle is having to be pretty quiet at the moment - there is a new baby on one side of us, and a not-very-well old lady on the other. So I have self-imposed a no-drilling-and-not-much-hammering rule. This led on to a decision on what to do with the wall going up to the loftroom. I was planning a montage of old family snaps, but hadn't found any thin black square frames. Am now going to go a moodboard instead, which is a fab excuse to dig out some Liz Taylor postcards...

Au sujet de Liz, I went to bed dog-tired last night but ended up reading the James Christopher photographic biography for an hour, right up to the  4th marriage. I'd bought it years ago because of the fabulous pics, but had never got round to reading it. Rivetting. She was the last of a kind.


* Guardian weekend mag

Dreams, Then Real Life

A strange day.

Stayed up til stupid o'clock, catching up with peeps in blogland and went to bed at 1, falling almost straight into a bizarre helter-skelter of a dream (conspiracy to kill a long-ago ex-boyfriend, and accidentally incriminating myself by leaving an enormous bra at the scene were the gist of it, as well as it featuring the usual strands of trying to run a bath, and trying to phone work but getting the numbers all wrong). Woke up at 5 after hearing some sort of bang, then lay there for ages retracing the stages of the dream... finally went back to sleep just before the alarm beeped me awake again.

The 13 year old hurtled out of his room - he'd been on twitter and had picked up the news about Japan. Say what you will about a boy who's opted not to leave the house or see anyone since October, and who has led to my various run-ins and dealings with an enormous range of the public sector re his lack of education, the reasons wherefore, etc,etc; he's a social media genius, very savvy about the world, and a total delight to be around (most of the time - he's a teenager... you know how it is...). Trouble is, he doesn't like, or understand the need to pretend to like, actual people. And with him refusing mental health appointments and refusing to see the psychologist, a diagnosis of any sort is not on the cards. Hmm, Houston we have a problem...

Totally awful news, on such a massive scale. You really just feel very humbled, and lucky, to live in a part of the world that's relatively safe. Touch wood. And more than anything you just feel helpless at not being able to do much more than to feel truly sorry. I hope the UN can do as much as possible, as quickly as possible, and stop bickering about whether to get mob-handed with Gaddafi.

*******

ps Musically, I know I've been remiss lately in not waffling on about the Pixies and other great bands on the Trashsparkle playlist. At the moment Sparklehorse features very heavily, and, as much as possible, very noisily. RIP Mark Linkous, who died a year ago this month.

Salsa Spaghetti Arms

I know spending Friday night overdosing on rolos never used to be my idea of fun, but hey. I've got old german footage of Echo and The Bunnymen on, and that storm that only Scotland were supposed to get is raging on outside, part 2. Dreams tonight may be random, as they will be sugar-fuelled and broken by the crashing of loose debris on the roof. Last night, unaided by sugar, alcohol or indeed any stimulants at all, I conjured up a wilful hamster, stage-diving into a water dish then rolling in sawdust, plus my mum getting married again, with my cousin particularly enthusiatic in a rainbow-hued flamenco dress.

No idea where either of those came from, given that I'd watched something about Abraham Lincoln earlier. Mind you I couldn't seem to get that into it. Electric 6's fault.

Before that I checked out what was irritating Mary Portas this week: phone shops. Some grey wigs, and lots of striding about like a praying mantis on heels. We learnt that one man with waxed eyebrows plus his body-popping brother equals a lamborghini.

Am praying deeply that parents' evening is not imminent, as the 11 year old has told his design teacher that mum met Lee McQueen where she used to work. Like the leopardskin coat, that might be a detail they aren't ready for round these parts.

Strange Sunday

By jeez, its a strange morning. Just me and The Pixies (the ones with superb bass, not the ones at the end of the garden). The boys are still asleep. Blogland is quiet too. I'm starting to wonder whether I've slipped into some parallel universe during the night, thinking I'm here all alone at 11.06, when in truth nothing of the sort is actually true. Dreaming that I'd been sacked and had to find somewhere to live in Germany and become a nurse, all by Thursday, was a layer of surrealism too far.

Pasta Telegram and Other Dreadful Side Effects of Chocolate

Have been 'festing up the house a bit this week in honour of the non-stop combo of sparkliness and fizz that is Diwali and Fireworks. The sparkly corner I showed in the last post is, finally, now bedecked by a string of multi-coloured lights. Damned gorgeous, although I say so myself.

Have been snaffling up bits and pieces to hide away for presents for the Winter Festival aka Christmas. Not usually this sensible, but it seems wrong to give people things that you've bought in a tearing hurry, at the last minute, getting all hot and grumpy in a shopping mall, boiling over to the point of resentment. Have now decided that if I see something that is "right" I will buy it, there and then. Which gives me carte blanche to go into shops A LOT. Which can be dangerous, but so far I have found 5 Very Suitable Things, and today managed to be Very Sensible in TK Maxx - ok, what's a little Charlie'n'Lola calendar here and there? T'was only £3.99, and it's for the house, not me..... and it will make me happy every day throughout next year. Bargain. And I am secretly 47-going-on-4 years of age...

Last night I rediscovered how utterly weird your dreams get when you eat chocolate in the evening. There I was, in the post office, asking for a bowl of pasta, telling them off for putting brussels sprouts on it, and trying to send it to someone in order to sort out what I was doing at the weekend. Bloody Yorkie bars - I swear they've put something in them.

Am thinking that the post-Halloween versions of Strictly are going to be a bit, well, just not vampy enough. I really think Matt the macho farmer should adopt the guyliner fulltime, and not just for showbiz. He just looked a bit too well-scrubbed without it on Claudia the other night. Come on BBC makeup ladies - the nation needs YOU. But it does not need Alice Cooper to be hidden away, obscured by cavorting Professional Dancers. What is the point of that???