I discovered today by accident that NGO X now has a blogging policy. It states that you should tell your manager if you "already have a personal blog, website or social network page which indicates in any way that you work for [NGO X]".
Bugger. Here I have been carefully self-regulating all these years, but now we have OfBlog. I think I'm caught out by that "in any way". You would not need to be Inspector Morse to work out who I am and where I am a 0.6FTE.
The policy goes on to say, in essence and inter alia, that I must not say anything "potentially offensive" on my blog about anyone else who works for NGO X. Even if in-my-personal-view-and-not-that-of-my-employer it happens to be bang on.
Theoretically, I've done that. As in, there is someone who might theoretically get to joella and theoretically recognise herself and theoretically be offended. So I need to pare. I think they'll let me get away with saying that the lightbulbs in the New Building gave me a headache, but I should probably cleanse certain other references before I present myself for inspection.
I have a feeling that edited-and-republished posts appear as new in certain RSS readers, so bear with me if you get a lot of sanitised old stuff popping up.
Part of me thinks it's fair enough, another part knows that there ain't no justice.
joella
Thursday, February 28, 2008
Wednesday, February 27, 2008
Quaking in my pyjamas
I haven't been sleeping well recently. I put this down to Lent -- I decided to give up drinking at home. I've since modified this to giving up drinking at home unless we've got company, which isn't really on a par with fasting in the wild, but it's still sufficiently ascetic to make me feel pleased with myself. Oh hang on, it's not about that is it? Arse.
Anyway, a side-effect is sporadic insomnia. My anticipatory anxiety remains undulled, no matter how much camomile tea I drink, and all the things that might go wrong with my world creep around my head, releasing occasional squirts of adrenaline which send me downstairs to check the doors, self-censor blog entries, make sure I'm not overdrawn. If I have a plumbing job the next day, my imagination floods houses and falls out of lofts. Which is all very tiring.
On Monday night I took half a Temazepam from my secret stash. This is left over from the Dark Days, when I would drink enough to get to sleep but *still* wake up in the night full of rage and helplessness. Anticipating the inconsistent was pointless, but that never stopped me trying. But Temazepam is wonderful. You go to sleep without a care in the world, and, even better, you wake up in a benign universe. I guess some people feel like this all the time. They are probably morning people.
I don't do this very often though, as a benzodiazepine habit is the last thing I need. And engaging with one's anxiety is an important way of managing it. So I went to bed last night clean and serene, read a few pages of the new Screwfix catalogue. I turned the light off and lay there for a while thinking of power tools and listening to the darkness, and finally began to drift off.
And then the mirror leaning up against the chimney breast started banging. It felt like the roof rippled. I sat bolt upright, and M woke up with a start. What was that?
I think it was someone running across the roof, I said. Or an earthquake.
He went back to sleep, in the 'nothing we can do about it now' sort of way that he has. I lay there for another half an hour, waiting to be burgled or for the house to fall down around me.
I thought the former was more likely, but it turned out to be the latter. I've never felt an earthquake before. Now I've got something else to keep me awake at night. Maybe I'll go to the pub tonight.
joella
Anyway, a side-effect is sporadic insomnia. My anticipatory anxiety remains undulled, no matter how much camomile tea I drink, and all the things that might go wrong with my world creep around my head, releasing occasional squirts of adrenaline which send me downstairs to check the doors, self-censor blog entries, make sure I'm not overdrawn. If I have a plumbing job the next day, my imagination floods houses and falls out of lofts. Which is all very tiring.
On Monday night I took half a Temazepam from my secret stash. This is left over from the Dark Days, when I would drink enough to get to sleep but *still* wake up in the night full of rage and helplessness. Anticipating the inconsistent was pointless, but that never stopped me trying. But Temazepam is wonderful. You go to sleep without a care in the world, and, even better, you wake up in a benign universe. I guess some people feel like this all the time. They are probably morning people.
I don't do this very often though, as a benzodiazepine habit is the last thing I need. And engaging with one's anxiety is an important way of managing it. So I went to bed last night clean and serene, read a few pages of the new Screwfix catalogue. I turned the light off and lay there for a while thinking of power tools and listening to the darkness, and finally began to drift off.
And then the mirror leaning up against the chimney breast started banging. It felt like the roof rippled. I sat bolt upright, and M woke up with a start. What was that?
I think it was someone running across the roof, I said. Or an earthquake.
He went back to sleep, in the 'nothing we can do about it now' sort of way that he has. I lay there for another half an hour, waiting to be burgled or for the house to fall down around me.
I thought the former was more likely, but it turned out to be the latter. I've never felt an earthquake before. Now I've got something else to keep me awake at night. Maybe I'll go to the pub tonight.
joella
Sunday, February 24, 2008
Growing up
In a perfect world, no one would have step-children. Or, to look at it the other way, step-parents. It's a side-effect relationship, and it's almost always a side-effect of something the step-children wish hadn't happened and the step-parents wouldn't have chosen.
But these things happen in the real world, and I've had step-children for getting on a decade now. They've never lived with us, so they probably wouldn't define themselves as such, but that's how I see them.
It's been up and down, with generally more up than down, so I can't really complain. I know people who've had it a lot worse. As they get older, and as I get older, it gets easier. There are times when it's a lot of fun. Two out of three of them are now older than I was when I got together with their father, and I figure that must help.
But this is still one of the few areas of my life where I am deliberately non-confrontational -- anyone who's a step-parent knows that they are skating on thin ice, and the water underneath is very cold. Recently, and with one of them in particular, I sense warmer undercurrents of acknowledgement. I appreciate these a lot, but I suspect they might still disappear in a blinding flash and a puff of green smoke if the wind changed. See how I write about it in rubbish mixed metaphors? Mind you, it's only recently I've dared write about it at all.
However. M's eldest is about to turn 30. I was in several minds (there are few situations that can generate more than two, but this is one of them) about whether I should go to his party -- we're invited, but so, obviously, is his mother, and there is pretty much no one I would less like to encounter in a social situation.
So I was vacillating, but you can't say these things. But when we saw him today he suggested, unprompted, that we arrive after 8 if we wanted to avoid scary X (he doesn't call her that, I hasten to add).
Wow, I thought, that is a grown up thing to do. I guess I should celebrate the arrival of my step-children into adulthood, and get over some of the things they did and said before they got there.
joella
But these things happen in the real world, and I've had step-children for getting on a decade now. They've never lived with us, so they probably wouldn't define themselves as such, but that's how I see them.
It's been up and down, with generally more up than down, so I can't really complain. I know people who've had it a lot worse. As they get older, and as I get older, it gets easier. There are times when it's a lot of fun. Two out of three of them are now older than I was when I got together with their father, and I figure that must help.
But this is still one of the few areas of my life where I am deliberately non-confrontational -- anyone who's a step-parent knows that they are skating on thin ice, and the water underneath is very cold. Recently, and with one of them in particular, I sense warmer undercurrents of acknowledgement. I appreciate these a lot, but I suspect they might still disappear in a blinding flash and a puff of green smoke if the wind changed. See how I write about it in rubbish mixed metaphors? Mind you, it's only recently I've dared write about it at all.
However. M's eldest is about to turn 30. I was in several minds (there are few situations that can generate more than two, but this is one of them) about whether I should go to his party -- we're invited, but so, obviously, is his mother, and there is pretty much no one I would less like to encounter in a social situation.
So I was vacillating, but you can't say these things. But when we saw him today he suggested, unprompted, that we arrive after 8 if we wanted to avoid scary X (he doesn't call her that, I hasten to add).
Wow, I thought, that is a grown up thing to do. I guess I should celebrate the arrival of my step-children into adulthood, and get over some of the things they did and said before they got there.
joella
Saturday, February 23, 2008
Cherry Lips
I got a little bag of goodies from my sister for Christmas. It was mostly Fairtrade stuff for the kitchen, and very nice too, but the real gem was glowing red at the bottom of the bag. It was a packet of Cherry Lips.
I've never been a sweet lover, but I adore Cherry Lips. I haven't seen them for years, since the Chocolate House in Lytham, where I used to buy them, turned into a discount perfumery or something equally pointless. They are part of my adolescence, hard and red and perfumed and impractical. They jam your jaws together, get stuck in your teeth and taste like soap. A bag of them lasts for months, as evidenced by the fact that I'm only about halfway through this lot and we're nearly out of winter.
It's like chewing on a little bit of the 1980s. It's the Ashes to Ashes soundtrack in my mouth. Weird.
joella
I've never been a sweet lover, but I adore Cherry Lips. I haven't seen them for years, since the Chocolate House in Lytham, where I used to buy them, turned into a discount perfumery or something equally pointless. They are part of my adolescence, hard and red and perfumed and impractical. They jam your jaws together, get stuck in your teeth and taste like soap. A bag of them lasts for months, as evidenced by the fact that I'm only about halfway through this lot and we're nearly out of winter.
It's like chewing on a little bit of the 1980s. It's the Ashes to Ashes soundtrack in my mouth. Weird.
joella
Thursday, February 21, 2008
Emerging, blinking
Right, said BJ the on-site plumbing assessor, I can see you've got your safety boots and kneepads on, but do you have a first aid kit with you? Oh yes! I replied, nodding vigorously like the dog in the Churchill adverts.
My first aid kit contains: tampons, hand cream, Lemsip, lip balm, and plasters (the bright blue waterproof kind: if I cut myself I like people to notice), but luckily he didn't actually ask to see it.
Shall we go upstairs? I said.
I was being assessed on the refit of the bathroom in the house of Plumbing S. Theoretically, we were doing it together, but in practice, once we'd got the old one out the plumbing was mine and the sawing up of floorboards and extra pair of hands was hers. It was more stressful than I expected: there were some unexpected surprises (not of the good kind, there are never good surprises in plumbing), and the basin had to be re-piped in mains as they drink it in the night. Don't drink tank-fed water, people, unless you know your tank complies with current regulations. This one hasn't been touched since oooh, the mid 70s? Think dead bat. Think fungus.
The deal was that she got her bathroom fitted for the cost of new copper so I could remake more pipework than you would normally bother with (to be assessable the pipework had to be taken back to one hot and one cold pipe entering the room) and agreeing to take lots of 'evidence' photos of me (here's Jo tightening an isolation valve! Here she is with her blowtorch! Here she is drilling a hole with ear defenders on!). I got J the plumber to come and give me reassurance (he is technically overseeing all this anyway), and do the cutting into the mains bit, I was too scared even though I shouldn't have been.
Plumbing S was anxious, which made me more anxious. I don't think she thought we could do it. But we could. Nonetheless, I was still bricking it when BJ the assessor turned up on Tuesday morning. What if he spotted that my fire extinguisher was for the wrong kind of fire? What if he saw that we'd notched away a bit of one of the floorboards to make up for the fact that the WC feed was a bit proud of one of the joists? What if you're not allowed to use flexi tap connectors? What if he checked the bath with a spirit level and saw it was just over the line?
He stood in the middle of the room, looked around, and asked me a couple of questions about continuity bonding and back-siphoning. Then he said, well, this looks great. You can be very pleased with this. He sounded, if anything, mildly surprised, but in a happy to be surprised sort of way. And he went off downstairs to do his paperwork while we carried on fitting the toilet.
There was no stopping me after that, and it was all done by the end of the day (well, all the plumbing, there's still tons of other stuff to do), freeing me up for a lovely evening in the lovely Cricketers with some lovely men.
I'm still tired, though. Takes it out of you, this plumbing lark.
joella
My first aid kit contains: tampons, hand cream, Lemsip, lip balm, and plasters (the bright blue waterproof kind: if I cut myself I like people to notice), but luckily he didn't actually ask to see it.
Shall we go upstairs? I said.
I was being assessed on the refit of the bathroom in the house of Plumbing S. Theoretically, we were doing it together, but in practice, once we'd got the old one out the plumbing was mine and the sawing up of floorboards and extra pair of hands was hers. It was more stressful than I expected: there were some unexpected surprises (not of the good kind, there are never good surprises in plumbing), and the basin had to be re-piped in mains as they drink it in the night. Don't drink tank-fed water, people, unless you know your tank complies with current regulations. This one hasn't been touched since oooh, the mid 70s? Think dead bat. Think fungus.
The deal was that she got her bathroom fitted for the cost of new copper so I could remake more pipework than you would normally bother with (to be assessable the pipework had to be taken back to one hot and one cold pipe entering the room) and agreeing to take lots of 'evidence' photos of me (here's Jo tightening an isolation valve! Here she is with her blowtorch! Here she is drilling a hole with ear defenders on!). I got J the plumber to come and give me reassurance (he is technically overseeing all this anyway), and do the cutting into the mains bit, I was too scared even though I shouldn't have been.
Plumbing S was anxious, which made me more anxious. I don't think she thought we could do it. But we could. Nonetheless, I was still bricking it when BJ the assessor turned up on Tuesday morning. What if he spotted that my fire extinguisher was for the wrong kind of fire? What if he saw that we'd notched away a bit of one of the floorboards to make up for the fact that the WC feed was a bit proud of one of the joists? What if you're not allowed to use flexi tap connectors? What if he checked the bath with a spirit level and saw it was just over the line?
He stood in the middle of the room, looked around, and asked me a couple of questions about continuity bonding and back-siphoning. Then he said, well, this looks great. You can be very pleased with this. He sounded, if anything, mildly surprised, but in a happy to be surprised sort of way. And he went off downstairs to do his paperwork while we carried on fitting the toilet.
There was no stopping me after that, and it was all done by the end of the day (well, all the plumbing, there's still tons of other stuff to do), freeing me up for a lovely evening in the lovely Cricketers with some lovely men.
I'm still tired, though. Takes it out of you, this plumbing lark.
joella
Thursday, February 14, 2008
Camillas in the mist
Oooh, it was spooky walking down Cowley Road last night. I was off to see the Oxford Improvisers performing a take on the Orpheus myth -- something they really should have kept for Valentine's Day, as it was delightfully bleak.
The streetlights were huge in the mist, but their light was swallowed before it hit the ground. It was murky and mysterious at ground level, and people were swallowed by the night as quickly as they appeared.
And then I saw them: stilettoes and bare legs, posh coats and expensive hair, scattered across the pavement in a spindly flock, in their own fog of smoke and perfume and yah and wow. They weren't moving for anyone.
So I turned up my collar, turned up It's Hard to be a Saint in the City, and marched straight through the middle of them.
Not an endangered species, sadly.
joella
The streetlights were huge in the mist, but their light was swallowed before it hit the ground. It was murky and mysterious at ground level, and people were swallowed by the night as quickly as they appeared.
And then I saw them: stilettoes and bare legs, posh coats and expensive hair, scattered across the pavement in a spindly flock, in their own fog of smoke and perfume and yah and wow. They weren't moving for anyone.
So I turned up my collar, turned up It's Hard to be a Saint in the City, and marched straight through the middle of them.
Not an endangered species, sadly.
joella
Monday, February 11, 2008
Bright and not so bright young things
On the one hand, there was the young man who works in Jessops camera shop. My four year old IXUS 400 packed up recently, and while it doesn't have the bin-with-a-line through it mark on it, its replacement does. So I thought I would take it back to the place where I got it and see if they knew what to do with it.
The young man who works in Jessops camera shop said he was sorry, but this branch of Jessops wasn't able to take cameras for recycling. But, he said, he was going to London soon and he knew a shop there that would take them, so he'd take it there for me if I wanted.
I wanted. I thanked him very much indeed, and left the shop feeling warm inside. A little goodwill goes a long way, and his took me very nearly all the way home.
But then on the other hand there are my braying, gormless, charmless student neighbours. Just after they left for Christmas, I found our wheelie bin stuffed with what I presumed was their surplus rubbish, as theirs was overflowing. I took it all out and chucked it into their front garden (for the very good reason that the bin wouldn't be emptied for nearly a fortnight, and where the fuck were we supposed to put *our* rubbish in the meantime?) but did feel slightly guilty in case it wasn't them.
When I got home today, our wheelie bin had two black binliners jammed into it, neither of which was ours. I hauled one of them into the house and we poked gingerly through the detritus, at least 50% of which should have been in a green or blue box rather than the bin anyway, until I found half a bank statement, which proved conclusively that it was indeed Caroline (or one of her charming housemates) who had decided again that our bin was at their disposal.
We wrote them a note, asking them to cease and desist, pointing out that a) they can order a bigger bin if they want one and b) they could always try recycling a bit more, and dumped their bags on their doorstep.
I hate them. I know it's a waste of hatred, but I can't help it. They should have enough A-levels between them to work out what goes in which bin and when it's going to be collected. Guidance is freely available in Simple English and any other language you care to mention.
Meanwhile, I now have Caroline's home address (her house has a name, not a number, naturally), sort code and bank account number. As she dumped it in my bin on my property, I probably didn't break any laws obtaining it. It's very tempting to set up a chunky standing order to Friends of the Earth, a la Jeremy Clarkson. It is so tempting that I'm blogging it to stop me doing it. But if anyone's feeling similarly malevolent, be my guest.
joella
The young man who works in Jessops camera shop said he was sorry, but this branch of Jessops wasn't able to take cameras for recycling. But, he said, he was going to London soon and he knew a shop there that would take them, so he'd take it there for me if I wanted.
I wanted. I thanked him very much indeed, and left the shop feeling warm inside. A little goodwill goes a long way, and his took me very nearly all the way home.
But then on the other hand there are my braying, gormless, charmless student neighbours. Just after they left for Christmas, I found our wheelie bin stuffed with what I presumed was their surplus rubbish, as theirs was overflowing. I took it all out and chucked it into their front garden (for the very good reason that the bin wouldn't be emptied for nearly a fortnight, and where the fuck were we supposed to put *our* rubbish in the meantime?) but did feel slightly guilty in case it wasn't them.
When I got home today, our wheelie bin had two black binliners jammed into it, neither of which was ours. I hauled one of them into the house and we poked gingerly through the detritus, at least 50% of which should have been in a green or blue box rather than the bin anyway, until I found half a bank statement, which proved conclusively that it was indeed Caroline (or one of her charming housemates) who had decided again that our bin was at their disposal.
We wrote them a note, asking them to cease and desist, pointing out that a) they can order a bigger bin if they want one and b) they could always try recycling a bit more, and dumped their bags on their doorstep.
I hate them. I know it's a waste of hatred, but I can't help it. They should have enough A-levels between them to work out what goes in which bin and when it's going to be collected. Guidance is freely available in Simple English and any other language you care to mention.
Meanwhile, I now have Caroline's home address (her house has a name, not a number, naturally), sort code and bank account number. As she dumped it in my bin on my property, I probably didn't break any laws obtaining it. It's very tempting to set up a chunky standing order to Friends of the Earth, a la Jeremy Clarkson. It is so tempting that I'm blogging it to stop me doing it. But if anyone's feeling similarly malevolent, be my guest.
joella
Disaster averted
There was an ominous silence this morning where Woman's Hour should have been. They tried a couple of times and then put on some strange jazz, the kind of thing they probably have to hand in case the Queen dies or to play during the four minute warning. 'Help!' I shouted down to M. 'Women have been taken off the airwaves!'
Yes, he shouted up. We have taken over. Stay in your bedroom and await further instructions.
Luckily, by the time he came up with my fried egg, it was all ok again.
joella
Yes, he shouted up. We have taken over. Stay in your bedroom and await further instructions.
Luckily, by the time he came up with my fried egg, it was all ok again.
joella
Thursday, February 07, 2008
Stories from the country, stories from the sea
When we'd got our bearings in rural Lancashire (ie we'd discovered the Village Pub's Golden Best and the Village Shop's butter pie) we took ourselves out and about. On the sunniest day, we climbed Parlick and got blown along the top for an enjoyable hour or so. We drove up to the Nick of Pendle and got blown around up there for a while too.
The next day M tried to persuade me to go for a bike ride. I got as far as getting all my stuff on and going out to unlock my bike, but then I came back in and said sorry mate, I'm not cycling in horizontal hail. So we went to the seaside, where we walked down the front in the horizontal hail instead. It was a novel experience for M (check out the hair!), but I remember my school days in Blackpool, where schoolmate S and I were once literally blown off our feet outside the Wimpy.
There was an impressive sand drift (how do they get the sand back where it came from?), and we bravely fought our way off the beach and into the Honey Tree restaurant. During our main course, the friendly Hong Kong Chinese waiter came over and said "are you tourists?".
Well, yes, I said. Where are you from? he asked. Oxford, I said. That was a strange moment, feeling less at home in Lancashire than a man from the other side of the world.
After lunch the hail picked up again, so we took refuge in the best second hand bookshop in the North (or possibly anywhere). We raided our respective special interest shelves (mine being the Virago one, naturally), and we got ourselves blown back to the car and away.
And the next day we *did* go cycling in the hail. Well, it only started on the way back, and it was more snow with chips of ice in it than serious hail, but it was still enough to make me cry. However, surviving it gave us licence to spend our final afternoon in the Village Pub. Golden Best is only 3.5%, so you can drink a fair amount of it as your hair steams dry in front of a peat fire.
I can't recommend the Forest of Bowland highly enough, should your tastes run to a thousand shades of green, a thousand shades of brown, and a nice pint of mild in a friendly pub. A part of me (more sizeable after all the butter pies) can't imagine needing anything else. And there I was thinking I was 100% city girl.
Tuesday, February 05, 2008
Eww!
I have just done a Bad Thing by accident. I feel the need to confess. Blame my nun-sprinkled childhood, or blame my anxiety that my Firefox history will be stolen along with my identity and printed on the Guardian Women's Page and everyone will think I went looking. But I didn't.
It came about because I got some money for my birthday from my parents. I spent it on clothes from Gudrun Sjoden, being as how a) I love some of her stuff, b) I can't normally afford it but c) as well as having birthday money, there was a sale on.
I got a wraparound cardigan, which is the most grown up item of clothing I've ever had and which is lovely. I got some trousers, which are itchy and too big and going back. I got some little shoe-boot things, which already look like they were born on my feet, and, on a whim, I got a pair of black-with-greeny-blue-diamonds-on tights.
I bought the tights in L, which is my top-half Gudrun Sjoden size, but, it turns out, not my bottom half size. These tights, from waistband to toe, are about as long as my whole body. I thought they might be specially designed to stretch sideways, so I gave them a go anyway. They look great as long as I am holding a fistful of fabric halfway up each thigh, but basically, there's no getting away from the fact that these tights are getting on for a foot too long.
I'd worn them, so I couldn't send them back, so I figured my options were
a) Sell them on eBay
b) Give them away to a taller person
c) Cut off the tops and turn them into stockings
d) Cut off the bottoms and turn them into leggings
Gudrun Sjoden stuff sells really well on eBay, in fact that is how I came by my favourite summer skirt, but a lot of it is BNWT (probaby as it's all mail order in the UK so easy to buy something that doesn't really work for you but which you don't get round to sending back) and I wasn't sure there was a market for already-worn tights. So I went to have a look.
MISTAKE! You would not *believe* the market for already-worn tights. The more worn the better, if you get my drift. The first ad I saw stated that the tights were 'nearly worn through on the knees' and I thought 'but why would anyone want...'
Oh.
And I've learnt a new bit of jargon, which is obviously to keep eBay happy: these ads are at pains to state that tights are 'gently laundered' before posting. Very gently, I suspect. So gently you would hardly know it.
I won't be selling my used tights on eBay. The fact that they are clean as a whistle (I left them in the machine for the 95 degree maintenance wash in a vain attempt to shrink them) and more Nora Batty than Linda Lovelace wouldn't do much for my feedback.
Back to the list of options then. Anyone know a 6'4" woman?
joella
It came about because I got some money for my birthday from my parents. I spent it on clothes from Gudrun Sjoden, being as how a) I love some of her stuff, b) I can't normally afford it but c) as well as having birthday money, there was a sale on.
I got a wraparound cardigan, which is the most grown up item of clothing I've ever had and which is lovely. I got some trousers, which are itchy and too big and going back. I got some little shoe-boot things, which already look like they were born on my feet, and, on a whim, I got a pair of black-with-greeny-blue-diamonds-on tights.
I bought the tights in L, which is my top-half Gudrun Sjoden size, but, it turns out, not my bottom half size. These tights, from waistband to toe, are about as long as my whole body. I thought they might be specially designed to stretch sideways, so I gave them a go anyway. They look great as long as I am holding a fistful of fabric halfway up each thigh, but basically, there's no getting away from the fact that these tights are getting on for a foot too long.
I'd worn them, so I couldn't send them back, so I figured my options were
a) Sell them on eBay
b) Give them away to a taller person
c) Cut off the tops and turn them into stockings
d) Cut off the bottoms and turn them into leggings
Gudrun Sjoden stuff sells really well on eBay, in fact that is how I came by my favourite summer skirt, but a lot of it is BNWT (probaby as it's all mail order in the UK so easy to buy something that doesn't really work for you but which you don't get round to sending back) and I wasn't sure there was a market for already-worn tights. So I went to have a look.
MISTAKE! You would not *believe* the market for already-worn tights. The more worn the better, if you get my drift. The first ad I saw stated that the tights were 'nearly worn through on the knees' and I thought 'but why would anyone want...'
Oh.
And I've learnt a new bit of jargon, which is obviously to keep eBay happy: these ads are at pains to state that tights are 'gently laundered' before posting. Very gently, I suspect. So gently you would hardly know it.
I won't be selling my used tights on eBay. The fact that they are clean as a whistle (I left them in the machine for the 95 degree maintenance wash in a vain attempt to shrink them) and more Nora Batty than Linda Lovelace wouldn't do much for my feedback.
Back to the list of options then. Anyone know a 6'4" woman?
joella
Sunday, February 03, 2008
Public Footpath
We had a lovely time on holiday in Lancashire. I knew the Forest of Bowland was beautiful, I went there on a school trip or two, but I didn't really know how beautiful, what kind of beautiful.
We got some good tips from Tim and Beth, who came over to help us check out the local pub, which turned out to have a bottle of raspberry Sambuca with our names on it. Who'd have guessed? I was topping up after an indulgent family birthday lunch at the Inn at Whitewell (which I heartily recommend, should you be passing, though it does have a touch of the hunting lodge about it) so didn't take much persuading, but I was impressed at the fortitude of my companions on what was, for them, a school night.
I was woken just after 7am not, as I'd half expected, by one of them falling out of the bunk beds or down the insanely steep stairs, but by a rumbling that shook the whole cottage. My first thought was that Tim must have a seriously noisy electric toothbrush, but it turned out to be next door doing some early morning hoovering. They like to keep things tidy up there. I left a warning in the Visitors Book.
That day didn't amount to much, being mostly spent rehydrating in the miniature bathroom and finishing the sensationistly-named but actually Very Good Emergency Sex And Other Desperate Measures. Once normal service was resumed we visited the churchyards, the War Memorial, the Post Office (who kindly offered to get us the Guardian in), the Village Shop (who already knew where we were staying -- M said 'wow, do you know our names?' and she said 'no, never asked'), the chair factory, and the local cafe, which I have in my mind as the Cobbled Cob, though that can't really be its name. Between the last two, we took our first Public Footpath, which was basically a right of way across a bog.
It's not dry round here is it, said M. Ha! I said. Things can only get wetter.
joella
Saturday, February 02, 2008
Rum flavoured pie burps
I am coming to the end of a week's holiday in Lancashire. It's been right windy and I've had no sniff of web access. But it's also been mighty fine, and more details will follow, ice and snow permitting... joella
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