Sunday, January 25, 2009
Ski-ing...
I am getting the impression from my Facebook news feed that everyone in the entire world is going or has gone ski-ing except me.
Friday, January 23, 2009
More body issues...
Unfortunately since I've bought underwear that actually fits, some of my clothes fit differently and don't look good, and this, unfortunately, includes all of my formalwear. Bearing in mind that I have no money and common sense suggests purchase of new dress and/or new underwear is unwise, and also that there will be dancing, should I:
a) concoct some cunning arrangement involving double-sided tape and resign myself to having to keep adjusting my clothes all of tomorrow evening and realise that once I'm on the outside of my complementary 1/2 bottle of wine I won't really care;
b) wear something rather frumpy;
c) scour the south-east for new underwear or clothing, expense be damned?
Tbh, if this is the shape of things to come, the last option might not be such a bad idea as at some point in my life I will need to reconcile my underwear and evening wardrobe, but I should wait until at least next month. Also I cannot face the prospect of purchasing under pressure, as I spent more of last week in shopping centres than I would like and want to spend tomorrow on the allotment.
I have been wondering why I so frequently blog about this. I think it must be because I no longer live with other women and Nik's response to any angst over this is, categorically, that he thinks I'm gorgeous so it doesn't matter. This is quite sweet, but not particularly nuanced, leaving me with the impression that he thinks it's all silly, and I don't think he's fully appreciated that, really, dressing up has more to do with female bonding and/or bitchiness than being attractive to men (and that's over and above just liking playing around with colours and fabrics and celebrating your body for your own sake).
a) concoct some cunning arrangement involving double-sided tape and resign myself to having to keep adjusting my clothes all of tomorrow evening and realise that once I'm on the outside of my complementary 1/2 bottle of wine I won't really care;
b) wear something rather frumpy;
c) scour the south-east for new underwear or clothing, expense be damned?
Tbh, if this is the shape of things to come, the last option might not be such a bad idea as at some point in my life I will need to reconcile my underwear and evening wardrobe, but I should wait until at least next month. Also I cannot face the prospect of purchasing under pressure, as I spent more of last week in shopping centres than I would like and want to spend tomorrow on the allotment.
I have been wondering why I so frequently blog about this. I think it must be because I no longer live with other women and Nik's response to any angst over this is, categorically, that he thinks I'm gorgeous so it doesn't matter. This is quite sweet, but not particularly nuanced, leaving me with the impression that he thinks it's all silly, and I don't think he's fully appreciated that, really, dressing up has more to do with female bonding and/or bitchiness than being attractive to men (and that's over and above just liking playing around with colours and fabrics and celebrating your body for your own sake).
Sunday, January 18, 2009
Worrying insights into my subconscious
This week I have impulse bought two wedding planning books - 'The Offbeat Bride' and 'The Anti-Bride Guide'* - and 'The Edible Woman'. Freud, eat your heart out...
Also three pairs of boots and one pair of shoes (I returned one of the pairs of boots) and I am still lusting after a pair of purple suede shoes. I lusted after a pair of purple shoes a while ago (they still had them, I nearly splurged). Maybe I should just buy some and realise they don't go with anything and that'll be that. I think all my difficulties buying clothes are totally reversed with shoes - I can go into almost any shoe-shop and try on almost any size 5 shoes and be reasonably assured they'll fit. Doesn't mean they won't be inherently impractical and painful or poorly made, but buying shoes is a joy that buying clothes just isn't.
I've been making progress on sewing this week, though. Livvy rigged up my sewing machine properly in exchange for tea (roll on the economic revolution) and it now works like a dream and I've made more progress on my suit in the past week than I had in the previous year! And I've made curtains and our house looks like a normal house now. Wooo.
(Ooh, my new comfysexy boots would look fab with my suit wot I'm making. Had not considered this.)
Exciting as-yet-unmentionable plans are shaping up nicely - god willing I should soon be able to shape them into something concrete. One slightly depressing up-side of being engaged is that, with the exception of the Happy Few, everyone seems to have totally lost interest in my dissatisfaction with where I live or my professional life (indeed, in anything about me as a unique thinking person rather than a thing to be dressed in white taffeta) and only talks to me about cake and photographs, so hopefully I can slip my rather drastic plans under the radar and then present them as a fait accompli, avoiding much of the anxiety-inducing wrangling over not offending people. And, because everyone assumes that engaged women are all raving lunatics, they will simply assume I am a raving lunatic and not be offended or say anything in case I strangle them with ribbons. Huzzah.
I am going to learn Italian and take up swimming on Wednesdays. Please nag me and hold me to these.
* From the blurb on the back: 'Possible signs you may be an anti-bride: Budget for wedding is less than future down-payment on home; Never gave a thought to china patterns in your life (until now); Recent meeting with caterer made you want to elope.' Oh dear god yes....
Also three pairs of boots and one pair of shoes (I returned one of the pairs of boots) and I am still lusting after a pair of purple suede shoes. I lusted after a pair of purple shoes a while ago (they still had them, I nearly splurged). Maybe I should just buy some and realise they don't go with anything and that'll be that. I think all my difficulties buying clothes are totally reversed with shoes - I can go into almost any shoe-shop and try on almost any size 5 shoes and be reasonably assured they'll fit. Doesn't mean they won't be inherently impractical and painful or poorly made, but buying shoes is a joy that buying clothes just isn't.
I've been making progress on sewing this week, though. Livvy rigged up my sewing machine properly in exchange for tea (roll on the economic revolution) and it now works like a dream and I've made more progress on my suit in the past week than I had in the previous year! And I've made curtains and our house looks like a normal house now. Wooo.
(Ooh, my new comfysexy boots would look fab with my suit wot I'm making. Had not considered this.)
Exciting as-yet-unmentionable plans are shaping up nicely - god willing I should soon be able to shape them into something concrete. One slightly depressing up-side of being engaged is that, with the exception of the Happy Few, everyone seems to have totally lost interest in my dissatisfaction with where I live or my professional life (indeed, in anything about me as a unique thinking person rather than a thing to be dressed in white taffeta) and only talks to me about cake and photographs, so hopefully I can slip my rather drastic plans under the radar and then present them as a fait accompli, avoiding much of the anxiety-inducing wrangling over not offending people. And, because everyone assumes that engaged women are all raving lunatics, they will simply assume I am a raving lunatic and not be offended or say anything in case I strangle them with ribbons. Huzzah.
I am going to learn Italian and take up swimming on Wednesdays. Please nag me and hold me to these.
* From the blurb on the back: 'Possible signs you may be an anti-bride: Budget for wedding is less than future down-payment on home; Never gave a thought to china patterns in your life (until now); Recent meeting with caterer made you want to elope.' Oh dear god yes....
Friday, January 02, 2009
"It was the best of times, it was the worst of times."
I thought I would take respite from tax return HELL by writing up my annual triangular winetasting tour of Britain (aka Christmas). It seems to have gone on for a very long time this year and also, oddly, to be only five minutes ago that we left. Before we left, there was a week of carol concerts and services (during which I sated my choral withdrawal by squawking the descants as discreetly as I could), combined with much partying and frantic dalek-knitting. I also seemed to spend most of my free time travelling to London and back, which provided much opportunity for dalek-knitting and also confirmed my suspicions that it would be a more sensible place to live. I concealed my excessive drunkenness until I left the work Christmas party and stayed up until 4 a.m. after Livvy and Sarah's party talking about Deep Things with Livvy and giggling a lot, while Sarah babysat the drunken gatecrashers.
After a premature birthday celebration for Nik with his family, we set off up north, again via home because he'd left the Christmas cakes behind and there was no way we were eating them all on our own until June. Last year we had to go back and set the heating to come on for an hour at night so the pipes didn't burst, but one year we will be able to go from Surrey to Northumberland without a detour.
My parents, thanks to having been flooded back in September, are currently in a rented house which is Much Fun. It is enormous and old - it has a cellar, a cupboard where you could smoke things, many, many outbuildings and a moat (of sorts). Nik and I were having many fantasies about living somewhere similarly exciting. I made it into town to do something sociable and had brief drinks with Sarah and Thomas before a wonderful meal at the Grainger Rooms. The following day we had another wonderful meal at the pub in my village (which is now no longer in walking distance and we had to pile six of us into one car) - I find it deeply unsettling to think that this tiny village in the middle of nowhere is now a beacon of culinary excellence, but it is, so there. All you need is a pretentious arty cinema and there is no need to live in a town! It was astonishingly cheap as well - my dad and I can't decide if this is wonderful, as it brings good food to the masses and proves that it needn't be expensive, or foolish, as you could easily charge twice as much and you'll never make any money selling a fab 3-course meal for £15 a head...
Nik became the same age as me again, which is always reassuring, cooked a spectacular Swedish banquet (minus the traditional cabbage) on Christmas Eve, which impressed my parents greatly, and has apparently retracted everything he said about weddings being pointless and unnecessary. *grins*
On Christmas day, my dad, possibly feeling the need to compete with this wonderful, competent 'new man', cooked beef Wellington, which was excellent (though there was a lot more attention-seeking stress) and we are petitioning him to instate it as an annual tradition, finances permitting. He and Nik went shooting on Boxing Day, and came back with a pheasant, a proud fiance and a new cocktail. The 'Backworth Shandy', my friends, is a Northumbrian concoction, consisting of sloe gin and sparkling wine. It is positively lethal and utterly delicious. Some southern ponces apparently call it a 'Sloe Royale'.
Then we came back down south, where it was much colder, and drank more obscene quantities of bubbly with Nik's family and he proudly told everyone that we were engaged... AND, he shot a PHEASANT!!! *rolls eyes* Granny turned 80 and there was more fizz. I fear permanent damage to my stomach lining.
And then we got home and some thieving scumbags had broken into our house and left mud all over our carpets and stolen Nik's family jewellery, among other things, and I now feel somewhat deflated.
After a premature birthday celebration for Nik with his family, we set off up north, again via home because he'd left the Christmas cakes behind and there was no way we were eating them all on our own until June. Last year we had to go back and set the heating to come on for an hour at night so the pipes didn't burst, but one year we will be able to go from Surrey to Northumberland without a detour.
My parents, thanks to having been flooded back in September, are currently in a rented house which is Much Fun. It is enormous and old - it has a cellar, a cupboard where you could smoke things, many, many outbuildings and a moat (of sorts). Nik and I were having many fantasies about living somewhere similarly exciting. I made it into town to do something sociable and had brief drinks with Sarah and Thomas before a wonderful meal at the Grainger Rooms. The following day we had another wonderful meal at the pub in my village (which is now no longer in walking distance and we had to pile six of us into one car) - I find it deeply unsettling to think that this tiny village in the middle of nowhere is now a beacon of culinary excellence, but it is, so there. All you need is a pretentious arty cinema and there is no need to live in a town! It was astonishingly cheap as well - my dad and I can't decide if this is wonderful, as it brings good food to the masses and proves that it needn't be expensive, or foolish, as you could easily charge twice as much and you'll never make any money selling a fab 3-course meal for £15 a head...
Nik became the same age as me again, which is always reassuring, cooked a spectacular Swedish banquet (minus the traditional cabbage) on Christmas Eve, which impressed my parents greatly, and has apparently retracted everything he said about weddings being pointless and unnecessary. *grins*
On Christmas day, my dad, possibly feeling the need to compete with this wonderful, competent 'new man', cooked beef Wellington, which was excellent (though there was a lot more attention-seeking stress) and we are petitioning him to instate it as an annual tradition, finances permitting. He and Nik went shooting on Boxing Day, and came back with a pheasant, a proud fiance and a new cocktail. The 'Backworth Shandy', my friends, is a Northumbrian concoction, consisting of sloe gin and sparkling wine. It is positively lethal and utterly delicious. Some southern ponces apparently call it a 'Sloe Royale'.
Then we came back down south, where it was much colder, and drank more obscene quantities of bubbly with Nik's family and he proudly told everyone that we were engaged... AND, he shot a PHEASANT!!! *rolls eyes* Granny turned 80 and there was more fizz. I fear permanent damage to my stomach lining.
And then we got home and some thieving scumbags had broken into our house and left mud all over our carpets and stolen Nik's family jewellery, among other things, and I now feel somewhat deflated.
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