Steel Kitten

The West Usk lighthouse

We were pottering around this evening, doing the evening chores as usual, when we got a surpise phonecall from Martin's cousin Stephen: "Turn over to Channel 5 quick." And when we did we were surpised to see the place where we got engaged - The West Usk Lighthouse in Newport.

The Hotel Inspector has been called in to advise the owners, Frank and Danielle, on how to go about giving the place a refurb and get more money in. In a way it was lovely to see the place again but we had mixed feelings about the refurb.

On the one hand we sort of agreed with the decluttering thing - the place was jam-packed with bric-a-brac when we stayed there three years ago. Saying that though, everywhere you looked there was something interesting. Even when you're sat on the loo it didn't stop. I vividly remember looking at the toilet roll dispenser and finding a old Victorian man sat on a bike and when you pulled the toilet roll the front wheel went round!

But the decor we felt...well..suited the place. Sort of. It was an eccentric quirky place and I think that says a lot about the people who go and stay there as well! We didn't agree with the Hotel Inspector in many respects. And later on when we watched the undercover mystery shopper pay it a visit in a second prgramme on the Fiver channel he certainly didn't agree with her either. He loved the place!! And he completely blew that travel expert out of the water on the cleanliness front. The mystery shopper stayed in the lighthouse before the travel expert visited and went round with a pair of white gloves running his fingers over every part of the room, even behind the toilet bowl. They came up spotless. No wonder Danielle was so upset with his comments. I would have been too.

  

By the way, we loved the darlek the moment we clapped eyes on him and took full opportunity to give him a thorough inspection when Frank wasn't around ;-))) I'd love to be able to tell you what was inside and what it was made of, but I fear the darlek would lose it's mistique so my lips remain sealed.

Frank had a friend who was involved in the original series who ended up with it in his garage. Unfortunately, his four year old son used to freak whenever he saw it so eventually Frank was asked to take it for him.

The dalek has certainly earned its keep. We were told that the local council wanted to build a roadway and get rid of the lighthouse at one point, and the darlek was instrumental in getting the attention of the national press and helping the local community successfully fight the plans.

I would hate to think the lighthouse could turn into a Premier Inn type establishment and lose it's originality and character. I hope Frank and Danielle don't take it too far.

If you'd like to see the programme, it's repeated on 5th August. I don't yet know whether that's on channel 5 or Fiver and at what time but it's well worth a peak.

A lovely day sewing

It's been a nice couple of weeks. Although I've been doing silly work hours again (yes I know, I shouldn't after the last bout of chronic fatigue but I don't like to turn work down) and to relax I've been delving back into my patchwork.

It's all been prompted by visiting the patchwork shop I mentioned in my last post. There was no way I was going to get out of the shop without buying something so I decided on three packs of prepared fabrics with a mind to doing some interesting Christmas presents for people.

Of all of them, I think the strawberries set is my favourite and I'm not sure I can part with that. Interestingly, when I turned out my studio cupboard, I found I had so much fabric stashed that it would be criminal for me to start using the new stuff.

So on Sunday I spent a lovely day in my studio whipping up a new bag for myself from two bits of IKEA fabric I bought a few years ago - one pink paisley and an identical patterned blue paisley. Martin was out at a flying event so I had a chance to get some quality time to myself and relax a bit. In the background I was watching the DVD "How Green Is My Valley", a 1970s drama about a Welsh mining family and time just flew by. I must have spent about five hours sewing and watching the DVD. I didn't manage to finish the bag completely and just have the strap to sew on and a button closure.

Now, I'd like to show you how the handbag is coming along, but unfortunately someone has decided that really it's not a handbag. It's her new bed.

Thanks Sophie..

Time to unwind a bit

So I was sitting here this morning, drinking tea, writing, working and generally being very industrious as I have been for many weeks, if not months, now and I suddenly felt very tired. Not sleepy tired, but more weary tired. Brain tired. I haven't really recharged my batteries for some time and have been operating almost on automatic pilot. 

It was only when I finally sat down for the first time in months and read Alicia Paulson's blog last night that I realised I've neglected my hobbies for a long time now - and much to my detriment. My hobby room has descended into chaos and has suitcases and other crap that should be in the loft strewn all over it. I can barely move in there. And when I saw Alicia's fantastic Tanglewood bags my mind hit upon an idea - this weekend I'm going to sort out some patchwork fabric and make myself a bag.

I'm not going to do Alicia's pattern - I don't have the intermediate sewing skills needed - but I am going to have a good look through this book for inspiration. 

I've had it for about three years now and haven't yet made anything out of it, so I figure this weekend is the time to start. I like style of Alicia's bag, although I know that all my bags seem to suffer on the bottom so I would perhaps put leather instead of fabric there to toughen it up a bit. It just so happens I have leather patches in my stash, courtesy of a lovely lady at M&S who gave me some leather samples when I expressed an interest in one of their sofas. I love M&S!

So on Saturday Martin is taking me to Weedon to visit a patchwork shop called The Bramble Patch. My father went a few days ago and absolutely raved about it, as well as trying to buy just about every quilt hanging on the wall, and I'm sure I can find some interesting fabric there to add to my existing stash. 

Yesterday, I also threw caution to the wind and ordered three books for myself to feed my soul a bit:

The Gentle Art of Domesticity by Jane Brocket, whose wonderful Yarnstorm has been a source pleasure for me for a couple of years now. This book has actually turned up in the last few minutes of typing and is sitting next to me waiting to be flicked through with a cup of tea.

Sock and Glove by Miyako Kanamori

200 Crochet Blocks for Blankets, Throws and Afghans

If this lot doesn't inspire me to spend my little free time doing something more interesting and soul-inspiring than cleaning, nothing will. 

730

Two years ago today - a whole 730 days ago - Martin and I married in a quaint Norman church on a baking hot day in July. Martin was very traditional and wanted the church and the flowers and the 65 guests and the dress and the reception and the three course meal and the whole shebang. Me? I would have made do with a pagan hand-fasting and a pint of scrumpy over sausage and mash at the local pub. As he was the one who cared much, much more about how it was done, we went with his way. And we both enjoyed it. 

Every day has been a good one so far. There's never been a bad one. Come to think of it, there's never been a bad one in the four years we've been together. We don't argue. We get  'snippy' sometimes, but usually one of us steps in straight away and says "what are you really being snippy about" and the other one stops and feels guilty and then rushes to explain what's really on their mind and why they're annoyed. Don't you find that? That sometimes you're annoyed about something, but instead you pounce on something your partner has done and make a big deal about it? Even though you know that's not really what's bothering you and they've not really done anything. 

We don't play that game. 

Also, both of us practice being kind rather than right. Being right all the time causes bad feeling. Like you're always rubbing someone's face in it. Being able to give that up, that need to appease your demanding little ego and be right all the time, is very liberating and gives you a huge boost of confidence. Sometimes when we're playing the "I'm right, you're wrong" game, one of us will say "Actually, you know what? You have a point there. You're right" and the other one will say "No I'm not. You're just being kind and you know it. I'm wrong!" and then we both dissolve into fits of laughter.

It doesn't matter who is right and who is wrong. Just so long as we're facing in the same direction and pulling together.

One of our readings on the day was a fabulous passage taken from " A Gift From The Sea" by Anne Morrow Lindbergh and it sums it all up for us:

Love does not consist in gazing at each other. But in looking outward together in the same direction. For in fact, man and woman are not only looking outward in the same direction, they are working outward. Here one forms ties, roots, a firm base....Here one makes oneself part of the community of men, of human society. 

Here the bonds of marriage are formed. For marriage, which is always spoken of as a bond, becomes actually, in this stage, many bonds, many strands, of different texture and strength, making up a web that is taut and firm. 

The web is fashioned of love. Yes, but many kinds of love: romantic love first, then a slow-growing devotion and, playing through these, a constantly rippling companionship. It is made of loyalties, and interdependencies, and shared experiences. It is woven of memories of meetings and conflicts; of triumphs and disappointments. It is a web of communication, a common language, and the acceptance of lack of language too, a knowledge of likes and dislikes, of habits and reactions, both physical and mental. 

It is a web of instincts and intuitions, and known and unknown exchanges. The web of marriage is made by proximity, in the day to day living side by side, looking outward and working outward in the same direction. It is woven in space and, in time, of the substance of life itself.

Toasted

A significant feature of my life to date has been the sheer number of times I've spent hitting the deck and damaging parts of myself. Yet again, I've managed to invest quality time on the floor admiring the features of a road surface, this time outside IKEA in Milton Keynes this afternoon. 

I do this with monotonous regularity. I think it's something to do with weak ankles and a tendency to walk slightly on the outside of my feet. The end result is still the same. Me + pavement = one. If I'm lucky I may fall sideways into a bush, which has happened a couple of times and broken my fall, although on one of those occasions I had problems getting back out of it again. Thank God it was laurel and not rosa rugosa.

I was racing around today because I had a ton of work to get through and a ton of chores as well. There were cheques to bank, uPVC sealant to buy, anniversary cards to find and two big boxes to take back to IKEA to exchange. Martin met me from a client's office and we zoomed at top speed like crazed weasels, crossing everything off our list as quickly as we could so we could get back and I could get to my crazy inbox. 

That was until IKEA scuppered me. 

We were leaving the store, me at top speed in small shoes, Martin at Warp Factor Nine when I met with the pavement with a sickening crunch. Or rather my right knee and wrist met with the pavement with a sickening crunch. For a split second I think Martin was going so fast he was dragging me. I have absolutely no idea whether I tripped or whether my little legs couldn't keep up with the sheer momentum that was Martin in Postman mode and just buckled, but the result was the same. Toasted. Flat out like a kipper in a pan. In public. 

For a while I really didn't know where I was. I didn't hit my head on the ground - unlike on a previous occasion when I fell off a bus and nutted the floor with the back of my head and then couldn't remember how I got home - but you would have thought I had from my behaviour. I was that confused about my sudden descent and had no memory of it that I couldn't talk for a full two minutes afterwards, which frightened the life out of Martin and a very kind lady who was trying to help me and turned out to be a nurse.  It was only when she started talking about going to see a GP that I realised I ought to say something. Like "I have to get back, I have work to do."

After Martin had assured her I was fine, then demonstrated I was by cracking a dirty joke and making me laugh, I was bundled into a car to come home. But of course, I hadn't yet bought Martin a card for our wedding anniversary tomorrow so I insisted on stopping at Tesco and dragging myself in a village-of-the-damned fashion round the aisles, dragging one leg, until I had.

By the time I came home I was knackered and for some reason i was nearly an hour and three quarters later than I should have been. Now I swear the time between tripping and being out in the car was about five minutes (Martin will confirm) and I didn't do anything else on my list besides the card, SO WHERE DID THAT TIME GO? That was my life that disappeared this afternoon and I have no recollection of it. 

So I sit here still thinking about that time with a fat puffy knee, aching wrist and little finger that's taken on a life of its own and keeps quivering.  

30 Days of Favourite Books: Day 13 - Pulling Your Own Strings by Wayne Dyer

Wayne Dyer originally wrote this self help book in 1979 and most of it still holds as true today as it did then. It's all about not allowing others to force you into doing what they want - thereby essentially turning you into a resentful victim - and instead learning to live your life free from guilt and manipulation no matter what tactics are used on you.

I have the original 1970s edition and first read it back in 2000 when I was living in the states. It's surprising how much of my current personality and life I owe to the one year I was there, because it was in a local book shop that I discovered self-help books and started on the journey of understanding myself and changing to achieve my goals in life. This book was pivotal to that journey and without it I would not be the strong person I am now.

The main message of the book is this:

“You are being victimized whenever you find yourself out of control of your life. If you are not pulling the strings, then you are being manipulated by someone or something else.”

Common examples include 

a) people trying to shame you with past behaviours and what you "should have" done instead of what you did do, because Victimisers like to keep you focused on your past behaviour to ensure you won't get what you need now or an action which is needed won't be taken 

b) being blackmailed to attend family events that you can't stand, like Great Aunt Maud's yearly Turkey Curry Party on Boxing Day, 

c) being made to do something at work you don't want to, like organising a staff outing 

d) accepting flakey or irrational behaviour from someone because you don't want to hurt their feelings.

We can all recall instances in our lives when people try and make us do what they want us to do. My personal favourite was when a man I'd had dinner with once rang me up and laid out a detailed plan for us to spend an entire weekend together without asking what my plans were or whether I was remotely interested in dating him a second time. 

If I recall, he told me when I was going to be getting up the following morning, what train I'd be catching to visit him, where i was going to be sleeping, the places we were going to visit and even where we'd be stopping for lunch and dinner on both days and what we'd be eating. I couldn't get a word in edgeways. The phrase 'control freak' sprang to mind. 

He was fairly enraged when I turned him down and he cited all the time and effort he's spent putting this plan together and how selfish I was to not appreciate this and agree to his plan. Then he started on a concerted effort to change my mind by pointing out all the other women who would have jumped at the chance to do this with him and how I was the one he'd picked to do this with. And how I'd regret it for the rest of my life because he'd planned a weekend that would 'blow every other weekend I'd ever had out of the water'. 

Guilt loaded on guilt followed and thankfully the doorbell rang so I could get away from him. I was very careful not to pick up the phone for several weeks after that and turned my answerphone off so he couldn't leave a message. I've no idea what happened to him and quite frankly don't care either. But it's a classic example of someone trying to pull your strings, not really caring what your plans or feelings on the matter are. All that matters is you fall in with their plans. 

This book can help free you from all of that. It teaches you to recognise when people are doing it by the phrases they use and the behaviour they display. But most of all, it teaches you to recognise victimisation behaviours that YOU indulge in without realising, such as trying to prove yourself all the time. 

I must confess, I've been guilty of this in the past and do still indulge in this behaviour. Wayne talks about how trying to make other people recognise your worth all the time in fact serves to erode your own self confidence and self esteem, not to mention reputation in other people's eyes. Wayne's advice on escaping this is to be quietly effective:

“Practice being quietly effective by postponing announcements about your achievements. Time yourself on one-, two-, or three hour delays, and then ask yourself if you still have to tell someone. This is particularly useful for handling news that will make you appear superior to the person you are informing. The delay system works because after waiting for several hours, or even days, you no longer feel the urgency to portray yourself as a winner, and once the news does come out (if it does), you will seem like what you are becoming - a person who takes achievements calmly and modestly in stride.”

I love this book and think it should be mandatory reading at schools. I still pull this out every now and then when people try and pull my strings to remind me not to fall for it, that I'm on this planet to achieve my own goals and dreams and not others. They must be responsible for their own. 

For example, I'm frequently considered selfish and ungrateful because I don't 'return' an silently 'expected' favour - and by that I mean someone does something for me without me asking and without telling me they intend to do it and they expect a favour or lavish praise in return. I don't take part in that game because I have no control over what these people are going to do next and don't want to be obligated, but I will thank them for doing something if I am genuinely grateful for them doing it. 

If you want to do something for someone, just do it happily, whole-heartedly and without expecting anything back. A classic example in my life would be some years ago when someone chose to make a charity donation on my behalf without my permission and then asked me for the money later. If I had been faced with the collector myself, I would not have supported that charity and refused to donate, but the choice was taken away from me by someone who subsequently tried to make me feel guilty about the whole thing. They couldn't turn down the charity collector because they felt they would be labelled a bad person to do so - and then projected that onto me. I support the charities I feel most strongly touch me and my beliefs - and not somebody else's. 

I am entitled to live my life free from guilt and manipulation and I do just that. If we all did, we would be so much happier every single day.

We're wireless...

....and I may never get anything done ever again.

Without a wireless internet connection, Martin and I had to politely share the computer in the living room. When one person was on it, the other had to go and do something else. 

If I was working in the evening and needed to do some research, I would have to try and get onto the computer in between Martin's surfing, which usually meant a fast pincer attack when he went to the loo. During the day when I was working, he would have to ask if he could go on the computer to check his emails. Or ditto above when I went to the loo. 

In short, we had to share and interact.

One visit to PC World and £69.99 later and now that has changed. At the moment, I'm in the kitchen, surfing shabby chic blogs and cooking dinner at the same time (peppered steak with chips) and he is in the living room selling things on ebay.

I fear we may never interact again or worse, because I can access the internet on two other computers we have around the house, will never get anything done.

But it does mean this blog may be updated a bit more frequently.

Hail wireless internet!

A sick day

Poor Martin.

It's not often he's ill. A cold every now and then that he manages to shrug off. A bit of a headache he takes a pill for and carries on.

But last night was something altogether different. 

I didn't get in from a client's office until 8pm, after yet another train delay due to a trespasser on the line. This is a slightly nicer way of saying "There's a Jumper at Watford". I don't know what it is about one particular spot at watford that attracts people trying to kill themselves but they choose it several times a week - and the train to Northampton runs straight under that spot. Anyway, late night so late dinner.

I'd eaten quite a big late lunch during the day and was still full, but Martin decided to have a Seafood Pizza for speed. Now I wasn't quite sure about these when we bought them - I don't believe you can get away with throwing just anything seafood-related on a pizza, so I traditionally stick to tuna and anchovies if I'm pushed towards eating pizza of the sea-dwellers variety. 

So when I clapped eyes on the mussels, squid and other seafood lovlies covering this pizza - not to mention copious amounts of garlic - my stomach gave a squeak of fear and my brain gave the instruction "avoid".

Martin's stomach was also squeaking in fear, but only later after he'd eaten it and spent the better part of Wednesday night/Thursday morning throwing it back up. He was not a happy camper. 

Fruits del la Mer? 

I think not. 

He's recovered now thankfully and spent most of yesterday asleep. But I can say with some certainty I will be ignoring Gordon Brown's stern lecture about not throwing food away and chucking out the other Seafood Pizza that came in the twinpack.

And if Gordon has a problem with that, he can come round here and discuss it with me over dinner. I'm cooking Seafood Pizza Gordon, but you know what? I had a heavy lunch so I won't be joining you.....

For the first time ever

Today I did something I swore I would never do on this blog.

I deleted a post.

Right between the 1st and 13th of July was a whole post - that's gone forever.

Sometimes when you write you're in an odd frame of mind, annoyed by something fleetingly that's made such an impression you're desperate to cast it in black and white, so you end up writing odd things that may only reflect you for that split moment in time. Yet once you put it on a blog, it's there forever and becomes a much bigger part of you than you ever wanted it to.  You don't know me (well some of you don't!) so you form an image of me based on what I write, which is only a fraction - a tiny percentage - of who I actually am. 

So I want to make sure what I write reflects the real me, and not just a brief snapshot in time of an irate twit waving her arms around and ranting immoderately about politics and war. 

So that post has gone.

Make cake, not war.

The best pavlova

One free afternoon.....

Too many eggs (that very odd tiny one we don't talk about because we are too scared to cut it open and find out what's inside)

The raspberry bushes were overflowing with fruit and there was whipping cream in fridge.... 

A sudden high-speed frenzy in the kitchen with egg whites.....

No baking tray so improvisation with an upturned preserving pan...

Two hours later the final result: the best pavlova...

And two salivating adults that couldn't wait until after dinner....