Calke Abbey Craft Fair

See sometimes exciting things do happen around here. I know. I can't believe it either.

As I mentioned in my Bank Holiday post, my sister and I went along to a Craft Fair at nearby National Trust property, Calke Abbey.

I was unbelievably restrained and resisted the urge to go in and immediately buy up the first things I saw and then spend the rest of the time walking around and sulking that I didn't save my money. I wandered and I noted and then I went back, swooping like a hawk on the items that I considered to be precious.

The wonderful thing about craft fairs is the ability to discover artists you may never have come across - and if I were a crafter I'd be getting my backside down to as many of these fairs as possible. Yeah there was some stuff there that wasn't to my taste, but hidden amongst the creepy looking animals and behind the strong smell of home-made soap there lurked some absolute gems.

These earrings came from Joia Glass Art - Joy was on the stall and was so lovely and friendly, actively encouraging people to touch the art and not be afraid of it. There were some absolutely beautiful pieces, the tealight holders in particular I think would look amazing once lit. I settled on these earrings and as Joy handed them to me she said she hoped I enjoyed wearing them - I have and I have even been complimented on them already.

This lovely card came from Alex McQuade who also had some rather nice linen purses on her stall which almost found their way into my bag (Not because I'm a shoplifter but because I wanted to buy one) and some very pretty corsages. But I settled for a card, because you can never have too many of those - can you?

I don't think I'd be cut out for sleek living you know. See through chairs and white melamine and chrome are all good and well but they just don't say homely to me. Give me a whacking great chunk of wood any day. Enter stage left Wayne Glover, who reclaims wood and makes whacking great big mirrors and frames. Good man.

I snapped up this tealight holder, not for myself, but to have on hand for those times when a birthday sneaks up on you and you're not prepared with a present.

(Let's all pretend that this is true and not that I will actually keep this for myself.)

But my absolute favourite stall by far and away was Louise Wright's stall, which I stood in front of like a bumbling idiot for a very long time, totally paralysed by the fact that I wanted everything that was on the stall. And I really do mean everything.

I wanted the tea towels and I wanted the tote bags and I wanted the cards and I really really wanted a print. Louise's illustrations are just so completely up my street that it was as if she had been drawing just for me. Damn her.

I was so incredibly restrained here that I still have trouble comprehending how it happened. I snapped up the above card - just look at the envelope too - we all love a bit of recycling don't we?

But my attention turned to the prints. Oh the prints. I took so long picking one out that my sister very nearly swiped me over the back of the head. But it was so difficult because there were so freaking many that I couldn't decide. Don't believe me? Visit her Etsy shop for yourself and see.

It was a close call between the one I chose and Tiger Dreams (I know, I don't know how I, of all people, didn't end up with that one) but in the end I just kept getting drawn back again and again and again to Elephant and Penguin and unable to resist he is now mine.

I know. I don't even have a house to hang a picture up in. But one day....one day my friends, when I'm no longer living in my sister's box room I will be able to put my own pictures up and this guy is going to make me so happy when I look at him.

And it is for these above reasons that I shouldn't be allowed to go to craft fairs.

Collecting - BEDM Day 12

I thought long and hard about this post and thought about ways in which I could interpret it.

I could tell you all about my first collection - my super awesome massive shelf of all things crocodile related. I'm telling you. There wasn't a figurine of a crocodile that wasn't in my sweaty mitts and part of that collection and I would take them down and dust them and re-arrange them like the strange little child I was.

I could tell you all about how nothing remains of that collection apart from two very tiny figures that I've never parted with because they were so beautiful and are enough to flood me with the memories of the original collection.

I could tell you all about how I also went through a phase of collecting those god-awful sticky-foot fuzzy bug things that companies used to give away as advertisements. I stuck them all down one side of my wardrobe and I'm not entirely sure when I grew out of them and prized them off.

I could tell you all about how I collected shed-loads of Edward Monkton cards at uni and stuck them up on my walls. I'm pretty sure I still have those somewhere actually.

I could tell you all about how I kind of now collect Royal Family memorabilia - the result of my tea party for the Royal Wedding in 2011 where I started collecting mugs for people to drink out of and found it difficult to stop.

The one mug I do have with me - a buy from Ashbourne made on the bloggers trip to Norbury Manor

I could tell you all about how I love them and that the tackier they are the harder I fall for them (Andrew and Fergie's is a favourite I have to tell you) but that they live in a box in a cupboard because my need for things to be organised and for things to have use means that I really have no idea where to put them.

Because that's what you need for a collection. A space to put it in. And that is the one thing that I don't have at the moment and when I think too hard about that my brain gets a little wappy and the emotions start leaking out my eyes and I make little whimpery noises about not having all my belongings around me and the hardships of trying to nest in a very small space.

And so I won't tell you about those collections.

Because I don't need to.

Because there's one collection that's right under my nose.

Here. This blog.

This blog which is the small, but ever-growing collection of the little events that have happened in my life. The funny anecdotes and the days out. The things that have been made and the trials that I've had making them. The time spent with family and friends and The Person. It's all right here, in one tiny internet space.

And I don't even have to spend any money or ruin the sides of my wardrobe with glue from those advertising bugs.

Bonus.

Why you should read books - BEDM Day 11

"How come you know a lot of words?" is something that's been asked of me before.

I don't know that I even do know a lot of words but the only possible reason I can think that I know more than my fair share is down to the reading that I've been doing all my life.

So much reading.

I was the Virgin Mary in my Sunday School's Nativity Play once. I came out with Jesus under one arm and a book under the other and apparently hesitated whilst deciding whether the baby or the book should go in the crib first.

Books are good innit. They have the words and the sentences and when you read them, you learn the words and you know how to use them in sentences.

I have a shining example of what happens when you do not read that I would like to share with you.

My best friend works for a company that sells things. (I'm being deliberately vague, I don't just not know my friend). They received a comment from an angry customer who had ordered something which hadn't turned up/the wrong thing had been delivered - the details are not important.

In his long and badly written complaint there was little sentence structure, barely any grammar and I suspected that he did not have a great command of the English language. "Hesitate" was spelled "hesetate" for instance.

This suspicion was confirmed to me when I got near to the end of his complaint. He wanted to let this company know just how much trouble they had caused him. He could have played it safe and said "You've caused me a lot of trouble" but no no no. This guy was aiming big. He wanted them to know what an upheaval they'd caused.

You know that word? Upheaval.

He didn't spell it that way.

He didn't even spell it "upheavel".

No. This guy. This guy. Spelled it....

...are you ready?

....

"up evil"

No I am most certainly not kidding. I don't joke about spelling kids.

And just in case you think he meant something else, this is the part of the sentence in which I found this gem - "...the up evil iv had to face"

(Let's not start on the fact that the I is not capitalised or should have an e on the end of it, or indeed is missing an apostrophe - we have bigger problems here folks.)

This is what happens when you don't read books. He had the context completely right, he was using the word in the correct way, he has just clearly never ever ever actually seen the word "upheaval" written down.

The mind boggles.

A post about how I might end up naked on holiday - BEDM Day 10

As I mentioned in my Not Really Resolutions Q1 Round-up I am going on holiday. This is so very exciting in the following ways;

a) I get to see American Girl and Boy for the first time in 3 years.

b) I get to see sun

c) I get to go on holiday

I have not been on a summer holiday in a long time. The last time was when I was 18 after I'd just finished my A-levels and I went away with family. I've never done the girly holiday thing and although there have been a couple of trips to France/Prague in the intervening years these haven't been proper sitting by the pool burning yourself to a crisp type holidays.

I'm not going to lie to you - I'm not going for culture. I'm not going for architecture. I'm going for the motherfreaking sun and to lie and read and go in the sea/pool. That. is. it. Judge away my friends - I can't hear you over the sound of my total relaxation.

I have already started having the anxiety dreams which are par for the course for me when going away anywhere. 

I've had one where American Girl and I were at a weird party in an old men's club during which she decided that she wasn't going to come on holiday with me and was going to stay instead and drink cups of tea and eat biscuits with her new friends. Hateful woman.

And I had one of those really frustrating dreams where you're trying to get somewhere and can't - know the type I mean? This one featured me and The Person trying to get to the airport to catch the plane to Corfu and a myriad of things kept getting in our way whilst all the while the clock ticked down until check-in closed. I woke up in a cold sweat after that one.

I am yet to have the dream where I end up naked but I'm pretty sure it's coming.

In fact, it's probably going to be a reality.

You see, when you haven't been on a summer holiday in 12 years it turns out that you have absolutely no idea what the hell you're supposed to put in your suitcase and more to the point, nothing in your wardrobe that you would be able to put in a suitcase for a summer holiday.

We're only going away for a week so it should be simple but when I start to list the things I need in my head it goes something like this:

- Swimming costume (no bikini for me thank you very much. The skin on my llimbs is white enough without exposing acres of stomach to the world)

- Towel

- Shorts

- Cover up for beach (although the word "cover-up" remains vague in my head - is it a t-shirt? Is it a kaftan? What do the cool kids wear nowadays?)

- *head explodes*

I just don't know what else I'm supposed to pack. This is mainly because I'm refusing to come to terms with the fact that I won't be able to wear jeans because it will be too hot. When I say I live in my jeans I mean I live in my jeans. I don't do skirts/dresses outside of work and I don't own a pair of ever so fashionable capris. In fact, I don't even know if capris are still ever so fashionable. I know that I will have to just suck it up and buy something but my brain needs a bit more time to come to terms with that god-awful truth.

And people are obsessed with maxi-dresses. Still. I do not understand this. Everyone says "Oh my god you'll look great in a maxi-dress, you're so tall."

No. 

No I won't. 

I will look 6 months pregnant and it'll be awkward for everyone when people ask me when my baby's due. Honestly, I've tried and I've tried, I've been taken in by everyone raving about them and I try one in in the vague hope that my body shape will have miraculously changed in the intervening year, but nope. Still pregnant. This body of mine needs structure, it does not need to be enveloped in a shapeless, billowing mass of fabric.

And so I sit and wait. And try to think about buying things. And then wait for the pain in my head to subside.

 

Swimming

Saturday morning saw me completing a ritual which I hadn't undertaken for many many years.

Getting ready to go to the swimming baths.

Putting my swimming costume on with my clothes over it is just a habit - I hated wasting time getting undressed when I got to the swimming baths when I was younger - carefully packing the bag with everything I'll need - towel, underwear (I lost count of how many times this essential was forgotten over the years), shampoo & conditioner, purse with change for the locker. As I packed my bag a feeling slowly began to creep over me - excitement. Going swimming was always exciting.

I love that no matter where you are in England, there's a familarity to the Council-run baths - the hairdryers that don't work, the lockers that look on their last legs, the floors which look a little bit grubby no matter how many times they're washed. You can keep your fancy David Lloyd or DW or Fitness First gyms. I don't need fancy lighting, I don't need a hot tub, I don't even need a sauna - this is where I feel at home.

I haven't been swimming in literally years and I've no idea if I'll even be able to swim for the whole hour I have planned but slowly lowering myself in at the shallow end I know I'm going to enjoy myself.

I opt to stay out of the Lane - I don't know that my speed is up to that yet and instead stay in the half of the pool with the other casual early morning swimmers. The two old biddies who chat as they swim up and down, taking up pretty much half of the pool but totally unconcerned as you swim around them. The really old guy who is in there, complete with nose clip and swimming cap, but looks as if he's going to drown with every stroke he takes. And the others like me - the ones wearing the cossie/trunks they bought for a holiday, without goggles, happy to just pootle up and down at their own speed.

I relax into the regular rhythm of breaststroke. I know I'm breaking all the rules by keeping my head above water and I can feel the screw kick that I never really got under control when I was having swimming lessons but I am content to keep going up and down, up and down, up and down. I love the feeling of being in the water and being buoyed up by it - I always wonder why people would ever go all the way to space to feel weightlessness when you could just pop down the local baths and experience it for a few quid.

It's the noisiest silence there is. Always sounds, always noise echoing off the tiles, and yet you are completely able to be relaxed and focused on what you're doing.

I'm still there when the pool opens up to the public properly. I watch the bored looking teenage lifeguard start the mechanism rolling to pull the cover off the baby pool. As it slowly folds away I look at the water. It is so still. Not a ripple. It feels as if the water is basking in its stillness in preparation for what lies ahead  - there will be no stillness once the Mums and Dads with the little babies are in there and the little ones are having their swimming lessons.

And so I continue to swim, up and down, up and down, going at my own pace, which probably isn't fast enough to be doing anything really at all, but I don't care.

I am at home in the water.

My first job - BEDM Day 8

I got my first job when I was 16. That's probably old by some people's standards.

Dad had left in the summer and as we came up to Christmas Mum explained that things weren't going to be easy money-wise - it was time for me to go out and earn some cash of my own for presents and going out and for all the other things which are essential to being a teenager.

I don't even remember how I applied for the job - a shame because what exactly do you put on a CV when you've never had any work experience before? Either way I obviously passed whatever test they had and I found myself in House of Fraser in the men's department ready to start work.

It was work as a Christmas temp - so Thursday evenings and Saturdays and Sundays were my working days.

I remember feeling incredibly intimidated by those that worked there full time. Imagine working all the days in the week and getting paid for it? It was the first time that had never really crossed my mind - "work" was still a vague concept to me up until that point but here it was in reality.

I mostly remember feeling bored. Feeling really incredibly bored. If I learned one skill it was that of being able to be completely lost in my own thoughts whilst retaining an outer appearance of looking interested and not as if I wanted to curl up in a ball and go to sleep. God knows how many miles I would walk each shift as I paced around whichever clothing brand's section I was on that day - straightening jumpers and putting clothes back in size order. I'm not sure why I was bothering, everyone else was engaged in idle chit chat - but I was 17 and not with the confidence to barrel up to people and start talking to them straight away.

Being a Christmas temp meant Christmas working and one of my shifts was Boxing Day for the sales. I will never forget the total chaos that faced me as I stood, bewildered in the middle of the department, as clothes went flying past my head as bargain hunters rummaged. It was the one day that I was definitely not bored, my shift never passed as quickly as it did on that day as I was employed in the neverending task of trying to keep the displays tidy as the sale-goers tornado raged through the store.

My best day was January 1st 2000. That's right. The very first day of this Millennium saw me at work. And no, nobody came in. I think I served about 5 people that day. It was also the day I finally found a friend. A guy who had been working upstairs in womenswear who was brought down to the Ground Floor for that day. We spent the whole day talking about nonsense and rolling up carrier bags to store under the tills. It was brilliant.

That day I was called upstairs and told that they wouldn't be keeping me on after Temporary Christmas contract expired. I had had no plans to stay anyway so that probably makes it the only time in my life when I was relieved to find out that my job would be ending.

I look back on my few months there and scour my brain for the life lesson that I must have learned. There has to be something surely? It was my first experience of the working world.

But all I can come up with is that it is incredibly important to double check that you've taken the security tag off people's clothes when you run it through the till. They get really mad when you don't do that.

Unconditional love - BEDM Day 7

I can't tell a lie, I'm never really sure what to say to people who say that they've never had a pet before.

There are a myriad of reasons why some people haven't experienced pet ownership - allergies, parents not wanting them, being out of the house all day, living somewhere that doesn't allow them, just not liking animals (those people? Those people I judge) - and they're all valid reasons but I just feel like I wouldn't be able to connect with them on some level.

They just haven't experienced the utter joy and misery of pet ownership and all that comes with it. 

When you have a pet in your life, they are your life to some extent. Most of the conversations that Mum and I have are based around Fred and Lily in some way and when people have dogs the extent to which they take over your life becomes even greater.

Now you know my first love is for cats, but I wouldn't be foolish enough to pretend that they're aloof beings you deign to have you in their life. Dogs on the other hand have an unconditional love which is enough to stop you in your tracks.

Living with Rowan and Rosie has opened my eyes to a new kind of pet ownership. One which doesn't involve gingerly trying to get into bed so as to not disturb the cat on it...

A sight which simultaneously fills my heart with joy and dread...

...and doesn't involve waking up on Saturday morning wearing Blinky as a gauntlet around my arm - the result of some unknown misdemeanour that I committed whilst unconscious.

Take Friday night for instance.

My sister and brother-in-law went out for a dinner about 7.30pm leaving me at home on babysitting duty. In the past this would have involved me and the boy hanging out, playing, watching a film, reading a book to them in bed, but now involves me sitting downstairs, bored out of my mind whilst they boys sit upstairs playing Skyrim.

It turned out that there was a little one to look after though and this baby came in the form of Rosie - the youngest Irish Setter.

She was very unhappy that they had gone out and left her all alone and she spent up until about 9.30pm standing on the sofa, looking out of the window for them. 

It  was a little bit heartbreaking really and definitely in sharp contrast to cats - who, whilst may be a little subdued when their owner leaves home, certainly don't pine away for the evening, waiting for them to come back.

When she eventually gave up looking out of the window for them she wandered over to me. She's not a massively cuddly dog and will happily sleep at your feet, but isn't fussed about being on the sofa with you. On Friday night I think she needed some comfort though and she not only climbed on to the sofa, but went so far as to climb behind me and lie behind me, across the top of the cushions.

Her face was so full of sadness that I had to take this photo...

Apologies for my face

Now I know I'm doing that anthropomorphic thing and that she isn't really looking sad, that's just her face, but....come on....look at it. Couple it with the behaviour and how can you say she's not sad?

That kind of love just doesn't come along often and for that reason I'm glad to have experienced pet ownership.

(I'm not saying cats don't love us - they totally do - they just do it in a very different, less obvious way. Which I'm aware makes me sound like a woman with a mean boyfriend..."He does love me really, I swear it.")