Saturday 26 July 2014

Kirsty told me to fill my house for free



Obviously Kirsty's advice is old news by the time that I hear it...

'Fill your house for free!', she urges the nation...

Shut up Kirsty!! I was on to a good thing before you started spilling all my secrets!

Kirsty Whateverhernameis from Channel 4, I love you but you're bringing me down, I feel that you are taking all of the treasure away from me, making the scrounging, freewheeling lifestyle of mine suddenly BoHo and 'on-trend' and turning the term 'skip diving' from a frowned upon nasty, nasty business into a medal-placing sport!

I rejoice and despair all in the same breath.

Finally the world agrees with my methods.

But stop pilfering all my resources!!!!!



I glance around my front room.  Our front room.

And I see how little I have spent.

Bought new.... a floating shelf... the small wall-mounted cabinet housing our (ahem) 'borrowed' projector... the sofa from Ikea and the cushions (that my partner thinks we should now substitute for something more grown up....

A charity shop provided the secondhand table and a couple of the chairs...

For free....  a 70’s teak sideboard (from down the road), a bakery tray tv unit holding a fat-back tv that formerly lived in an outdoor toilet... salvaged chairs... a vinyl cabinet (from down the road), the filing cabinet (from one road away), a drop-leaf table (from down the road), the record player (from a few roads away)...



and that is just one room!!

The cost of living that has been a constant source of ire to my girlfriend (now fiancée) is a minimal cost.. from the description you may think we are living in something like a junk shop (just don't check the shed), but the truth is we have a unique home that reflects a passion for things that people think are no longer useful... yet they've saved us a packet... and they've meant we can grow our own style naturally

It has taken time, but in some respects my other half has definitely converted

Kirsty may be trying to sell the 're-use and recycle' idea to the mainstream, but avoiding the twee chiché and with a twist of Ikea chic, we have made a home for ourselves that exists outside the world of leather-corner sofas and 'neutral' colour paint schemes

Thanks Kirsty, but we've already got this covered.

Sunday 20 July 2014

The mystery of the disappearing Cuprinol




I'll admit it sounds like the most boring chapter in the Harry Potter series or perhaps an adventure that Sherlock Holmes and even Scooby Doo willingly passed on.

But the combination of 'home' life and steadfastly fixing my age at 30 finds you suddenly caring about the oddest things.

Those of us that remember the way things were remember when crisp packets held more and Wagon Wheels were bigger, and in a similar entry of world weary dissatisfactions I have now found that cuprinol seems to disappear.

(Anyone uninterested in D.I.Y based rants/observations may want to find something more thrilling to do with their lives right. about.   now.)

Certainly, the tin looks full upon opening, but as you progress trying to preserve your decking, behold, that it disappears before your very eyes.

I'm currently on my 2nd (new) tin this summer, having found the first was empty after only coating the decking 1 and a half times...

The old tin I just finished, it managed the decking twice over and then some, a few additional coats plus yearly applications to the garden furniture and a few touch ups here and there that saw the first tin last around 3 years.

And now, with the newest tin opened I want to cry thinking how much I have just paid for it and finding that it doesn't want to go very far.


Friday 11 July 2014

'When I Was Young'



A rather recent concern of mine is something that is new to me.

As someone that has felt that in my day to day life I have seen what there is to see and had my fair share of experiences, this new feeling is troubling to me on so many levels.

Because I love music, and I listen to a lot of music, but since I turned thirty (for only the second time) just over a week ago I have felt a whole new sensation that leaves me cold.



Older music used to remind me of when I was younger.

suddenly, old music reminds me of when I was young.



yes, the difference in the written form (or even the spoken form if you aren't capable of silent reading) is only slight, but the ramifications for me are overwhelming.


I hear Stardust's Music Sounds Better With You, I hear Usher's You Make Me Wanna, I hear Sixpence None The Richer's Kiss Me (to name just three examples off the top of my head that I have heard today alone) and I think of other times, and other places, and this is nothing new, but now I think of someone else.

I don't know what happened, perhaps making the conscience decision from now on to lie about my age has triggered a wholly unexpected alternate past.

But suddenly, the person I am now feels almost completely disconnected from the person that I used to be...  It used to be a thread that ran from then until now, but now I feel that I am on the other side of the glass, looking back at what once was.

Not only that, but previously, I felt that everything that happened to me was leading me somewhere.  Now I am somewhere, rather lost with no clue where I am going still, but all of that time that has passed, I don't know where it has been...


So, this isn't ageing I don't think.  I think I am aged.

My life is still going somewhere, but the youth that trailed me is barely even in my orbit.

I'm still too young to feel old (I hope), but something changed.  and I don't think it could ever change back to the way it was.


I guess I can't be the first person to feel it, but as a person it is the first time I have felt it for myself.








so.


what happens next? 





.



Thursday 10 July 2014

a lengthy absence.

Oh.  Wow.


Over 6 months have passed.

More than half a year.


In real life, that is a long time.

In blogging life, that is a phenomenally long time.  So much so that I thought I would never come back.  When it's been that long is there really any point? Any momentum, any sort of pace or direction or forward motion has planted itself solidly in the ground.

Regardless, I've always written purely because I love writing, when I get the bug for it it's like an itch that I just have to scratch.  I need to find more time to scratch my itch.


Back when I was on more regular blogging duty, a couple of weeks felt like a long time and I would feel the need to apologise for such rubbishness.  and the I vowed to stop apologising for such rubbishness because it was turning into a whole load of apologising for such rubbishness, but right now is an exception.

Cos I've been rubbish.

At times, life has been rubbish.  Personal circumstances have been spectacularly rubbish at the worst of times, and sometimes not even that great at the best of times.  Life was changing, my job changed, since January I've found myself stuck behind a desk, one place I never thought I'd actually end up, all of these things, the time constraints, the constraints of having too much time to think while you mindlessly process data-entry yet never find time to act upon your 'real' thoughts, they have affected me.

When people say that they 'weren't in a very good place', I think I've been there now, it's true, it's not very good, don't bother going there, don't even pass through, there is nothing to see there.

It hasn't been completely fruitless, reviews and articles and mixtapes have cropped up in a few places, but for a long time it's been hard to feel like myself... I think I may be finding my way back there slowly.

in just this week alone I've managed to knock out a couple of reviews, as well as getting slightly more creative/constructive things done around the house/garden, and I thought a new entry for the blog should be next in line.


And there it is I guess, nothing too special.  But it is just me, writing again. and it feels better than it has for a long time.