Graduation Day - Specially for Stinking

20th June 2009

BA (Hons) Literature


After the ceremony


with the man who can claim a large share of my success. I could not have done it without him.

We. Are. Fam-il-y!

Don't you just love families sometimes? I do. No, really I do.

My daughter's home for the weekend. It's like having a visitor from a different age. I'm loving it.

'Let's kill all the lawyers!'

Did you know that was a Shakespearean quote? It is. Honest. It's from Henry VI part 2 and is spoken during the Cade rebellion. Seems very apt for me just now. Although I have to confess to a sneaking regard for lawyers. And I wouldn't really want them all dead. There are plenty of my acquaintance that have served me rather well and some of whom I am extremely fond.

Even so, it quite pleases me that I have just completed a reading of Shakespeare's histories. You see, I am currently doing my bit for the British legal system and realising that lawyers have been a source of entertainment for many years is adding to my rich and diverse experience. And I am getting a lot of reading done. I may not have heard the chimes at midnight with Justice Shallow, nor killed the lawyers with Cade, but I am enjoying the spectacle.

I have moved onto the Comedies. It seemed best. Today I completed As You Like it and The Comedy of Errors. Tomorrow I begin Love's Labour's Lost. Clever word play, witty one liners, a host of confusion. Just another day in court, really.

Are you still there?

I know, I know. I've been sort of absent, haven't I? Sorry about that. I kind of ran out of funny. It was like my blog bone got broken. One minute I was fine and writing about all manner of nonsense. The next, I had nothing. Zilch. Nada. Zip.

Sometimes my life does that. I have been writing. In fact, you'd have been hard pressed to make me do much else. But it wasn't for general consumption. More for the strong of stomach. If it ever turns into a book, I'll let you know. Right now, my efforts are festering in the cyber equivalent of under the mattress. It seems best. For now.

So, am I back? Not entirely sure. Possibly. Am having a whole re-think blogwise. I have a cunning and crafty friend working on a template for me and I may re-invent the whole kit and caboodle. I've never been fond of 'Diary of a Housewife' as a title, and I'm thinking of something entirely more Shakespearean. Sort of Cyber-Renaissance. Don't mock. It's unkind. Besides, it could work. No. Really. It could.

Meanwhile, I have a guest spot on the Captain's blog. Sometime ago, I set him up so that he could keep his ship's log in the blogosphere. Well, oh my! Did I unleash a monster?! He's a man possessed. There was nothing for it but to join in. So I now have a regular weekly slot on a Monday if you fancy reading more of my witterings. They have to have a watery flavour, obviously. But don't hold that against them.

A Beginner's Guide to Nose Surfing

1. Lose vast amounts of weight ensuring that all night attire plummets to ankles the minute a vertical position is assumed.
2. Insist on wearing aforementioned night attire on grounds of Scrooge like tendencies and the belief that as hardly anyone sees it, replacement is not a priority.
3. Consume two pints of water immediately prior to retiring for the night.
4. Wake at 3am with bladder the size of Asia.
5. Stumble from bed in pitch black without troubling to wake up more than is absolutely necessary.
6. While heading across landing fail to notice that pjs have plummeted.
7. Tangle feet up in offending garment and make a head first dive towards flight of stairs.
8. Keep arms firmly by side as points will be deducted by judges should any flailing occur.
9. Aim to skim each step with nose, eyebrow, forehead and chin. Extra points available for one sided surfing.
10. Keep body pointing head down and negotiate the chicane of the half landing.
11. Use top of head as brake and allow impact to be absorbed by vertebrae and discs.
12. Wake at bottom of stairs.
13. Remember that the artistic interpretation marks will only be awarded in full for a full bodied and noisy cacophony. Additional marks for convincing disorientation.
14. Spend the following day trying to convince all and sundry that nose surfing is indeed the next showcase sport for the 2012 Olympics and that you are not in fact a victim of domestic violence. Despite the facial carpet burns, bruising and stiffness.
    

Charity Shop Chic

Oh my ... I've just looked at my archive counter and I only chalked up 3 posts for the whole of September! This is really not good enough and I apologise. It's not that I've given up on the whole blogging malarkey. I really haven't. I love blogging. I spend my days thinking 'Oooh, that would make an excellent post!' and 'I so must blog that!' but somehow, these pearls of wit, humour and hilarity remain locked in my memory ... *sigh*

I think it's partly been down to having finished my degree. You see, now that I can spend all day every day rummaging through the internet without guilt or impediment I somehow find that I choose not to. Bizarre. I was never so blog prolific as when I had an imminent assignment deadline. However, there have been other things that have got in my way. And you just know it's going to involve that most girly of pass times - shopping.

Oh yes, I am a born again shopper. And like all freshmen to the faith I have the zeal of the newly converted. But first things first. Having reached my goal weight I treated myself to a day with an image consultant. And she was fab. If you are within the vicinity, go and see her now. Well maybe not now as it's quite late. But tomorrow. Do it. You won't regret it.

I did need to do some serious shopping as literally nothing fitted me. But I was on a budget and there in lay my problem. How to replace my wardrobe without having to re-mortgage the house? Cue my day with the image consultant. It cost me money to see her, sure. But she saved me a fortune in the long run. I ended up with the confidence to buy styles and colours that suited in quality designs that I would never normally consider. Armed with this knowledge I hit the charity shops and dress agencies big time. It didn't take long before I began to question whether I would ever buy a full price garment from a 'proper' shop again. I mean where else am I likely to find a Jaegar jumper for £1.50, or a Karen Millen skirt & top for £6 and that's before I mention my piece de resistance. I picked up a white shirt for £15. Quite expensive for a second hand shirt you might think. But when I tell you it was a Chanel shirt that retails at £300+ you might think again.

Don't go thinking that I've become a label junkie, I have not. But I have become a quality junkie. I don't care who makes it but I do want it to look and feel beautiful and to be well made. Never did I think I would be able to afford such lovely clothes, let alone be able to wear them. I love my new wardrobe so much I have no intention of outgrowing it.

I believe I have changed my lifestyle. I eat better. I drink copious quantities of water. I swim half a mile three times a week. I run or do some other aerobic exercise once a week. I attend a pilates class each week despite my initial reservations. Most importantly I think I've learned to like myself. I am happy in my skin for the first time that I can ever recall. I no longer avoid mirrors or shrink from cameras. Those of you who know me will know my life has a tendency to the catastrophic and it's as certain as taxes that crises will always be a feature, but despite the chaos I am happy with my lot. I have let go of a lot of my anxiety knowing that I cannot change things beyond my power. And it feels good. And thanks to my new obsession with charity shops, it looks pretty good too, even if I do say so myself :)

Of missing dogs and a humungous cock up

First things first, I feel I owe you another apology ... I've been neglecting you again. But you see there are only so many hours in the day and so many shops to visit in order to replenish my now shrunk out of wardrobe ... hmmm ... I can feel a post about shopping coming on ... but that is not for today. Today is for other things.

So moving swiftly on I'm going to ask you to swing by the lovely Claire's blog. She's asked me to point people in her direction because she's missing a much loved family dog named Oscar. He probably has swum away from mainland England so overseas visitors can be exempt. The rest of you please drop by and reassure Claire of your thoughts.

Now, onto to life in Chez Housewife. It's all go go go. The Captain has returned from holiday all fired up and ready to flex his DIY muscles. That in itself is not the source of much amusement as he's pretty good in the old handyman department. Just about the only things we call a man in for are bricklaying. He'll turn his hand to carpentry, plumbing, electrics, painting, decorating, plastering and so on and so forth.

This September he has taken on the outside painting of the house. He finished it at the weekend and it's all looking spicker and spanner than a spic and span shiny new thing. Except for the drive. We now have a lot of blue and white paint splodges dotted about the original 1930s drive. Don't go thinking the fact that the drive covering is original makes it worth anything. It's not. 1930s concrete drives are really not worth having. We just haven't go around to replacing it and we like to lower the tone of the neighbourhood by having the scabbiest drive for miles around. So arguably the slopped paint adds a certain something.

But that's not all that's been added to our drive. I'm beginning to wonder if we will start to have hoards of visitors trekking our way to visit our new feature. I believe they frequently flock to sites such as Cerne Abbas to view the giant. And my, he is a big boy, isn't he?



I don't have a giant on my drive though, so maybe I don't need to stock up on tea and biscuits. What I do have is slightly more alarming. You see, having completed the outside of the house, the Captain's attention has been turned inward. We have been thinking for many months about having a change around at home. We're swapping the dining room with the sitting room as we have an open fire in what will become the sitting room that we're keen to make more use of. So being bored of a Monday evening the Captain decided to empty the furniture into the garage. One thing he doesn't do is ask for help. This is fine with me as even allowing for my new found love of exercise, I'm still a couch potato at heart.

So there he is, manhandling the dresser out of the house and into the garage. To do this there is much pivoting and dragging going on. When you were kids, did you ever spend time using stones or flints to draw on the paving slabs? Not chalk, just ordinary stones and the like? Well now you know what our drive is like. And the dresser has had the same effect that a stone would have had when I was little. Only I never drew anything like this. Really I didn't. Stop sniggering!

You see when I left the house on Tuesday morning for a spot of shopping, I was confronted by the outline of a giant erect penis. And it's pointing at my front door. I really should scrub it away but I thought I'd left scrubbing doorsteps behind me when I moved south. The Captain denied that it's a phallus. He says it's my filthy mind. I'm going to upload a photo for you to decide but bear in mind that it's a LOT clearer in reality ...