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Of Shambolic Shopping May 28, 2008

Posted by Jen in : Domestic Doings, Journal , 27 comments

I don’t even know why I thought it a good idea. Last time lovely bf and me ventured to Ikea, we didn’t speak for an entire week.

Now and again though, I get this urge. I think I’m bored with the chickens and fields and wellies. I think I want to be a bit metropolitan. Reader, I don’t know what came over me but yesterday I went to Bluewater. Gawd.

There are several reasons I should not go to such places:

1. I am very crap at driving on motorways. When I learnt to drive in Jersey, there was none of this multiple choice of lane. No lurching, heaving lorries to squish my scaredyness until squeaks pop out of my mouth. If you drive too far or too fast in Jersey, you drop off the edge. Infinitely preferable method of dying to motorways.

2. I don’t like shopping. I am no good at it. I get bored after 20 minutes and decide that I will do the shopping after a jolly good lunch and some fortification of the vino-related type.

3. I am quite easily swayed. Self-control, in my book, is something to do with choosing to wear concrete pants and steel bras.

But, I had a foolproof plan. Ikea first, for the compulsory purchase of bookshelves and shoe racks. Then Bluewater, where I would single-mindedly hunt down a new pair of glasses as my lenses have mysteriously become so scratched that I can barely see. And no, it’s not like when I picked my Clarks school shoes apart with a compass point because I’d wanted some from FreemanHardyWillis. I honestly don’t know how they became scraped just as I’d gone off them. No, really.

Lovely bf had somehow been persuaded that this would be tolerable, if not fun.

‘Maybe we should just go to Bluewater,’ I ventured en route. ‘We can order the furniture online.’

Lovely bf mumbled something at the hard shoulder. It sounded a bit like ‘oh, for fuck’s sake’ but he’d been instructed to wear his happy face and the words weren’t coming out clearly through his gritted teeth.

I’ll cut a long story short. I still can’t see; the joy of specs was shortlived. Lunch at Loch Fyne was good though. Somehow or other, I came home with a fruit bowl and an SLR camera, having become a little overexcited about an idea for a book: a photo and haiku to mark every day for a year. Lovely bf was a trifle disappointed with his purchase of some headache tablets.

Four hours of driving, four hundred quid and eight hours of my life later I was broke and still blind. Oh dear. Perhaps I need more practice?

Of Determined Doingness May 15, 2008

Posted by Jen in : Domestic Doings, Journal , 25 comments

I remember reading somewhere that ‘having it all’ means ‘doing it all’. It sounded tough, in a kamikaze 1980s shoulder pads sort of way. All of a sudden, though, I seem to have adopted this red-lipstick and high heels approach. I want it all and I want it now.

Hmmm. I think I’m having a mini-mid-life crisis. I don’t like being 39. I blame the ‘life begins at 40′ thing: I somehow feel that the next 355 days or so are the end of an era somehow. Not in a bad way; just life being marked. A defining thing.

I want it all. I really do. Predictably, I’m on yet another ‘get thin’ regime. I’ve been running nearly every day and lovely bf hasn’t sniggered even once while trying to winch me out of bed the following day when my muscles and joints are seizing up. Needless to say, he doesn’t quite get the mid-life thing. I’m not sure it’s entirely fair that he’s only just turned 32. Perhaps I should trade him in for a doddery old duffer and then I’d be all spritely by comparison?

I haven’t done even an eeny weeny bit of editing; when the new sofas for the conservatory come, that will be the place to edit. No, really. I mean it. Honest Guv.

Yes, dear reader, living in The Cul de Sac means that I now have a conservatory from which to watch my life hobble past. It’s a beast of a room and will be separated into two areas: a chill-out zone with huge great big sofas for sprawling editing and the other end containing a new dining table at which we will hold dinner parties in a most middle class sort of way. It’s getting to me, The Cul de Sac. I’ve even bought new clothes. From Boden. Shhhhhh… you see what I mean? It’s all creeping insidiously into me; I even conformed and put the recycling bins out in a co-ordinated fashion on Tuesday. I didn’t mean to. But every other house had their bins lined up like soldiers by their beds. I couldn’t help myself.

Good Lord. 7am now, time for a run before I wriggle into my flippy skirt or hotchpotch top. Bloody hell. How on earth am I supposed to be a writer when I carry on like that, eh?

Of Mundane Mumblings May 8, 2008

Posted by Jen in : Domestic Doings, Journal , 20 comments

Dear Blog,

I’ve been neglecting you. You sat there, despondent, empty, waiting for my input and there was none. Zilch. Bugger all.

Soz.

I’ve been busy, Blog. I’ve cluttered up the new house with things I’ll never need and can’t find the essentials. My lady’s bathroom accoutrements are missing; I now go by the name of Olga and have been asked sweetly by lovely bf whether I will be taking up shot putting.

I have ripped brambles out of the garden with my bare hands and resemble a murder with cuts and bruises everywhere.

I have tried to catch up with my photography course. Mission, should you wish to accept it: Message in a Bottle.

‘Yes, I really feel you’ve found your level in academia,’ smiles lovely bf as I stumble about madly, clutching camera and half-empty wine bottle.

I’ve also had another birthday and have that sinking feeling that, during this last year of my 30s, I should be achieve something in the next 360 days.

But still, the sun’s shining and the swallows are a-swooping. What better day to start my shot putting career. I’ve got the frowning and grunting part mastered so far…


Of Uppity Updates April 30, 2008

Posted by Jen in : Domestic Doings , 25 comments

Here I am, all polished and shiny as I settle into middle class suburbia. Gawd. I have been wearing my cross face rather a lot since Saturday, practising my range of swear words and generally being quite scary.

This morning, however, I woke up full of beans. Well, not actually ‘full of beans’, because I don’t really care for bean-related foodstuffs but you know what I mean.

I wandered down the stairs at 5.45, thinking about Extra-Strong Tetleys and perhaps a pre-work jaunt with the faithful canine. In the kitchen, a mountain of gross, greasy dishes peered lazily at me and I said a few more swear words. I said them quietly, of course. I live in a cul de sac now, you know.

So. Broken down dishwasher. Bugger. But things could be worse, I thought. Oh, hang on. I didn’t think it, I manifested it. Mwah ha ha ha, said the tap. I’ll run, run, as fast as I can. You can’t stop me, I’m the cul de sac tap. The water spurted and spattered. Then the dishes carefully unpacked and put away in the under-sink cupboard began to float away as H2o burst from every available pin prick of piping.

‘Gosh,’ I thought in a middle class sort of way. ‘How terribly inconvenient.’

I didn’t really think that. I thought something that rhymes with (bourgeois) frolics and begins with a ‘b’. I even said it out loud with my mouth. Quietly though, just in case.

I emailed Landlord. At 6am. When he called me back at 7 I grabbed at the biro to scribble down the emergency plumbing number. The biro I grabbed was having some sort of fit, oozing a tar-like substance all over my hands. No, I’ve no idea how I got it all over my face either.  But the black and white minstrels look is still very popular in the more rural parts of Sussex so that’s good.

Yes, it’s all going swimmingly, thanks very much for asking.

 


Of Continuing Comical Karma April 19, 2008

Posted by Jen in : Domestic Doings, Journal , 37 comments

They say, don’t they, that things happen for a reason. Eight weeks ago, we were told that our landlady had decided to sell the house we live in. No problemo, I thought jauntily, I now have a proper job earning a splendid number of Great British pounds. I shall procure a lifetime of debt in the form of a mortgage and purchase a humble hovel in which to house my offspring.

Apparently, however, due to apparent crunchiness of credit and my unwillingness to live in a chicken shed, this was something of a non-starter.

I pestered every letting agent in Sussex and could I find a house? Could I ‘eck. On Friday, however, our luck changed. And, um, all change is good. Isn’t it?

Of all the houses, in all the many countrified places within striking distance of the boys’ school, we have agreed to hand over the paltry sum of £1300 a month to live in a cul de sac. Gulp. Lovely bf has already been instructed to purchase some pastel-coloured sweaters and to get his sideburns trimmed. This is serious middle-class suburban stuff. We do not do that sort of thing. We stride about, mumbling madly, covered in mud and like to Not Really Talk to People.

It gets better. In The Novel, I have a character called Rajni. Rajni is based very heavily on someone I used to be very friendly with. In fact, she was very much my bestest friend when I came to live here. We shopped, lunched, drank, did playground gossip, dinner parties, the lot until she tore whole heaps of friendships apart with the winning cocktail of resentment, poison and Merlot coursing through her veins.

Reader, in my new teeny tiny suburban strangulation of residential ruin, the woman horrid enough to have inspired The Novel will live directly opposite me. I will be able to see into her living room and her into mine.

And I think the next door neighbours might be Christians.

And we have to move next week and haven’t yet booked any hairy, sweating removal men to transfer our dismal lives from our sprawling rural lair to this stamp-sized suburban sorrow.

So. Working full-time in brain-squishifying job. Moving house with one week to organise. Two children to look after. The Novel to edit. I shall be wearing my cross face quite a lot over the next ten days. I shall be saying swear words aplenty at work; I will not be able to shout at ‘home’ in the cul de sac. The neighbours will Think Things and give each other Knowing Looks.

And, inspired by Nez and Lucy, I’ve just signed up for a photography course with the Open University as part of my degree which also starts next week. To add to the jollification, I’m hormonal and have a great big spot on my snozzle.

I’m trying to be pleasant. I really am. But arses. Oh bugger. I hope the new neighbours can’t hear…

Of Domestic Despair September 27, 2007

Posted by Jen in : Domestic Doings, Journal , 13 comments

I frightened the dog this morning. He seems to have a strange idea of what is and what is not acceptable. I wasn’t doing anything terrible.

‘Come on, you big fat bastard,’ I was shouting. At Henry. The hoover.

Sigh.

I have yet another estate agent prancing round the house. I have been up since 5.30 and so far have: hoovered whole house (with thin end to make hoover swirls), picked up array of clothing from various floors, washed and hung out a load of washing, breakfasted children, made packed lunches, shouted at Number 2 son X 3 to put a key in his bag so that he can get in after school while I am with Number 1 son at orthodontist getting his mouth cranked open. I am now trying to arrange my features into a semblance of pleasantness for the strange man stomping up and down my clean stairs in his grubby, plasticky, slip-on shoes.

I registered with a temp agency yesterday. I can’t wait to get a job. Being at home is far too tiring.

I have, however, broken the 60% barrier on the novel. Will write a few more words once the asphyxiation caused by the estate agent’s aftershave has worn off…

Grumpy? Hormonal? Me?


 


Of Trickling Time September 6, 2007

Posted by Jen in : Domestic Doings, Journal , 13 comments

So. No more excuses. The boys waltzed off to school at 8am. I have six hours. Six Great British hours stretching ahead, begging to be filled with words.

Excuses I will not be using:

The dog keeps looking at me with his eyes. He wants to be taken out for emptying purposes.

I cannot take the dog out as I am waiting for the Water People to come. They are planning to dig up my front garden and kitchen to replace water pipes.

The Water People have not come. I have waited for an hour. I have drunk lots of coffee. Very lots, in fact.

If/when the Water People turn up, I will still not be able to walk the dog. I will have to wait because I will need too many wees after all the coffees. I am rather rubbish at weeing in hedges. And the cows might laugh at my bottom. Perhaps I will laugh at their bottoms first, just in case.

I have five hours. The dog is still staring at me in his sinister, smelly way. Sigh.


 

 


On feeling a bit crotchety July 29, 2007

Posted by Jen in : Domestic Doings, Journal , 15 comments

Hey diddly dee, a kitchen of widdle for me…

Ahem. I have a few concerns, Doctor. Let me explain:

Now that I am officially non-working, my self-imposed confinement and daily doings of all things domestically un-goddesslike are possibly not going to provide the stimulation I require to become a sort-of writer. Today’s examples:

I get up early to write. Discover my very own Windermere in the kitchen, created by stinking hound. Swear a bit. Drink tea to make eyes open. Think that I have been up for 40 minutes but still not written any words but am too busy thinking up swear words and mean thoughts about the dog. Clean up puddle of piddle. Feel peckish. Consider whether to have toasted muffin with sardines (fishy fun to fend off mental incapacity) or croissant (happiness inducing and bloody well deserved after aforementioned wee-based mopping but a bit fattening). Eat muffin with squashed fish. Then eat two croissants with kids. Feel fat and consider that I may have to go on Jonathon Ross instead of Porky Parky when I am a bestselling novelist as he has a big settee that will accommodate my mysteriously-increasing arse. Think that getting wedged into Parky’s chrome and leather chair and having to be winched out by firemen will not be a good start to my life as a glam but rather slightly lardy writer.

Hardly sparkling, is it? The kitchen floor is though. Perhaps I will write about that… no? Really??