plant

My seeds are up.

It is exciting.

labour and wait*

another ex bush
Originally uploaded by etcher67

I have slain the bush! (Should that be slayed?) It is an ex bush.

Do not mourn the bush, for it was dull and full of black fly and flowered for only ten minutes. Also while I was at the garden centre buying compost and stuff I accidentally bought a blackcurrant bush, which will keep the perchless sparrows very happy. I might even get a blackcurrant myself if I'm very lucky.

I'm quite excited about the blackcurrant bush.

The place where the old bush was is now going to be a vegetable patch. It is a bit small, so I plan to use the principles of square foot gardening, by which I mean I have bought a book about it and shall ignore nearly everything it says except for the bit about planting things closer together than normal. I have even drawn a plan and coloured it in with felt tips; for I am south east London's answer to Monty Don; only with straighter, redder hair.

* This is what gardening is all about, plus it is the name of a quite brilliant shop in East London which I urge you to visit for the sole purpose of buying me EVERYTHING. Thanks.

there there

sh
Originally uploaded by etcher67

I am seasonally confused, so I have (finally) pulled down the large cupboard in the corner of my bathroom. As usual this proved more complicated than I imagined it would be, as the switch for the (long gone) immersion heater still seems to be there. I have no idea whether it's live or not, (probably not: what would it be attached to?) but decided that today was not the day to explore.

I need a builder.

without a dream in my heart

cheese!
Originally uploaded by etcher67

I have made cheese! It was terribly easy, and involved only a pint of whole milk, a stocking and some lemon juice. Next I am going to get some spinach and cook it with the cheese to make Sag Paneer.

It's all gone a bit Country Living around here, what with the cheese making and the gardening. I am currently waiting impatiently for the purple sprouting broccoli plants to arrive in the garden centre, as it is my favourite vegetable of all time, ever (closely followed by buttered cabbage) and now is the time to plant it. Added to this the calendula seeds have come up, which is inordinately exciting. I expect the snails will be thrilled, too. I did some research the other day to find out whether it is possible to eat our native garden snails, as I have an over abundance of them; and I am partial to a snail or six in a French restaurant. However, having read through the process of 'purging' and cooking them, I came to the conclusion that I couldn't go through with it. I hadn't realised I was so squeamish; but for now I think I'll stick with mushrooms and garlic butter, as the taste is broadly similar and you don't have to keep them in a bucket for 5 days before you tuck in.

I really must get some wellies.

two fat fast ones click, click, click

smasher
Originally uploaded by etcher67

My new best friend is called Smasher. Smasher is working on a small project at the moment entitled 'Kill the evil concrete monstrosity'. Smasher is a bit slow, because a) there's a lot of concrete and it's monstrous, b) there is also a lot of soil, which Smasher refuses to move so I have to do it, and c) the concrete is heavy and requires moving out of the way which I also have to do. Project 'Kill the evil concrete monstrosity' involves a lot of sitting down, I am finding. Too bad Smasher doesn't have a life of his own, although that might lead to a 'Magician's Apprentice' scenario which would be just plain scary.

Smasher also has his eyes on other areas, such as Facebook and this blog, but so far I have managed to convince him that they are virtual and therefore unsmashable.

the good, the bad, the ugly

Well, it's only taken eleven months....

got my arms got my legs got my fingers got my head

It's the end of term! I can make a list of 4378 things which must be done right now, immediately, and then ignore it*. I can lie in the bath and think 'Maybe I'll go to Devon. Maybe I'll go tonight'. I can forget what breakfast radio sounds like. I can stay up past 10. I can read more books. Eat less saturated fat. Play more ukulele. Speak to friends. Ride my bike. Go dancing. Sleep.

In the meantime I plan to look at the rain and wait for the carpet fitter.


* Including: not writing an article for the TES, not getting someone in to do my bathroom, not painting the front wall or windows, not not sorting out the concrete garden monstrosity and not buying any furniture for my almost finished bedroom.

ask the audience

boards
Originally uploaded by etcher67

Since the last post has been so useful in galvanising my opinion I offer you, dear reader, another conundrum. I am currently on the horns of an indecision: should I sand my bedroom floor, or should I carpet?

In favour of sanding: It will look nice, artistic, trendy and stuff. It will be cheaper. It is (probably) more environmentally friendly.
Against sanding: The floorboards are a bit uneven, one or two are cracked, and some twat has attacked them in a couple of places with a disc saw (see pic). The gaps are a bit big in places so it might be drafty in the winter. I have to sand it myself and I recently read something describing this job as 'a weekend of hell'. I am not really in favour of weekends of hell, as my weeks are hellish enough to be going on with at the moment.

In favour of carpet: Someone else will get bruised knees fitting it. Softy lovely for my toesies.
Against carpet: Expensive. Not remotely bohemian. Irritating when I (inevitably) drop something on it which stains. Carpeting means making a decision about which particular beige carpet to have.

I have spent the last fortnight vacillating and really thought I had finally decided on carpet, until today some bad fairy left a copy of 'Real Homes' in the staffroom, which featured lots of pictures of bedrooms with nice sanded and sometimes painted floor. They looked good, undeniably good. The violent shock of interesting reading matter in the staffroom aside, this publication has thrown me back into indecision.

So. What do you think?

PS Yep, that's 'nearly blue' on the walls. Looks nice, dunnit?
PPS Don't even think about suggesting laminate. I'm not always cheerful, you know.

where on the stair?

I am slumped on the sofa with P watching Friday night TV through half-closed eyes when something appears from the hole where the radiator pipe used to be. I have just enough time to shout 'Mouse!' and it disappears. After a short conversation designed to reassure me that a) the mice are not out to get me b) I am not unhygenic c) It isn't my fault, I get the mousetrap and load it with bird seed. The trap sits next to the pipe-hole for a week, untouched. I decide that the mouse was just scoping out the premises, and has found a better place to stay.

We are standing in the kitchen making a cake for my upcoming Birthday Event With a Zero At The End when I catch a movement in my peripheral vision. Something has leapt from somewhere and landed on the small step into the kitchen that everyone trips on. My id takes over and I scream as I watch a very fat looking mouse scuttle along the edge of the kitchen door and round into the cupboard under the stairs. This mouse looks entirely at home. Damn. I move the mousetrap from the radiator pipe hole, re-bait it with peanut butter (one needs a little variety) and put it in the cupboard under the stairs. This morning it remains untouched.

Next door have just got a cat, and I am blaming the Bluebell effect for my influx. Do not disabuse me.

nanny goats

Look! Look! Mr Witness has immortalised me in scrabble. I am officially thrilled and more cheered up that one would have thought possible. This says worrying things about my ego, I am well aware.

In other news, my walls are three-quarters plastered (just some jiggery-pokery with a radiator to deal with) and as a consequence my entire house is covered in a thin layer of plaster dust. It isn't desperately pleasant but the flat and hopefully slightly more robust walls more than compensate. It may soon be time to go to the DIY shop and gather great armfuls of paint swatches.

I am trying to decide what to do about my camera. I could claim it on the house insurance, which probably means a new camera, but also means paying an excess and a possible rise in my insurance payments next year. Alternatively I could post it (to flipping Colchester of all places) for repair, paying slightly more than the excess but with the very minor chance that they won't charge me at all. Little Friend Susan pointed out that the second is the more environmentally responsible option. It still smarts that less than a week into owning the thing I'm going to have to spend nearly £100 on it, so currently I am mainly leaving it on my computer desk and sulking.

don't look down cos it's far to fall

This morning I received a letter, and one of the things on the list of 'Things to not quite get around to during my holiday' suddenly shot to the 'Emergency! Deal with now or lose loads of sleep!' section. I hate it when that happens.

Remortgage. Heavens; how grown-up. I prefer cake and bike rides. However as my mortgage provider wants me to furnish them with an extra hundred plus quid a month and charge me an eye-watering 7.39% on my loan, it seemed like a good time to read the thirty-page document on remortgaging which I've had kicking around the dining table for a couple of weeks; and to learn acronyms such as SVR (standard variable rate) and BoEBR (Bank of England base rate: are you asleep yet?).

So I've rung my lender and asked for a redemption statement (sadly little to do with my sinful life), and I've called a mellifluously-voiced broker named Damian who promised to ring me back at 4ish and tell me how I can keep my hard-earned for necklaces and meals out. He hasn't rung, of course. They never do. I'll hassle him tomorrow.

Then I rang the plasterer for good measure, and got up a ladder to steam scraps of wallpaper from my ceiling. It's all go here. Nothing would get done around here were it not for my talent with the diversionary tactic.

I reckon I've earned the right to go to the Ukulele shop though, eh? While I can still afford it, like.

i've told him once or twice to stop playing cards and shooting dice

I give up. I shall write a blog post about things what I have done. At least I am reliably inconsistent.

Here are the things:

1. I have begun stage two of 'slay the bushes' in preparation for the moving of the compost bin. There would be photos if my camera was working.
2. I have mown the lawn; something I have been getting around to for about a month now.
3. I have made a new bit of fence out of bamboo and cup hooks (no, really).
4. I have re potted the palm thing.
5. I have put up a new and excitingly wobbly bit of trellis.
6. I have weeded the front garden a bit.
7. I have put up the bird feeder and am anxiously awaiting great flocks of birds. Where are the birds? Send birds now! (I know, I know).


Ukulele update:

I now have the actual callouses at the end of my fingers where they make the chords. I am able to play 'In the Jailhouse Now' slowly and exceptionally badly (including yodelling). I am dealing rather well with the fact that P can pick up the Uke and make it sound like an actual instrument instead of something used for torturing small children and musical types. I think the 'D' chord (or is it D7) is the hardest of the four-and-a-half that I know. Plans for world Ukulele domination seem a way off yet.

In unrelated news I have plans for a Simnel cake, it being Easter and all that.

Oh, and last night I went to see Bryan Talbot talk about his new book (er graphic novel er comic er thing) 'Alice in Sunderland'. It was most enjoyable. So was the second brandy.

coming clean

I am busy wearing grooves into my fingers with a newly acquired ukulele. One of the many excellent things about this instrument is that it is possible to play it (I use the term loosely) whilst lying on the sofa, a position of which I am very fond. I also discovered only this evening that it is possible to fall asleep whilst laying on the sofa holding an Ukulele.

However (I am pretty sure one should never begin a sentence with however but I am going to throw grammatical convention to the wind) I have interrupted my important groove-wearing and sleeping in order to impart breaking roof news. Mr Damp Man has just been around and applied his instrument in my front bedroom thoroughly, and although his careful poking revealed that my damp place is even wider than initially anticipated, his final conclusion was that 'you have already cured the problem'.

Mr Damp Man will, therefore, always have a very special place in my heart. He also said some very technical stuff about the wet and the inches, which being a girl I understood completely but cannot be bothered to inflict upon innocent passers-by. You should thank me for this, as it was less than interesting, I assure you.

Also, I am in a very Excellent mood as I am going on holiday on Saturday. I am not entirely sure how I shall survive the intervening days but I am fairly sure that laying down on the sofa wearing grooves into my fingertips will feature.

the blues they sent to meet me

When I wasn't having a lovely time at the seaside this weekend, I was mostly up a ladder stripping the plaster off my bedroom walls in a blister-inducing rage.

I found some more damp, in the top front left hand corner of the room.. I am at a bit of a loss, as the guttering, the soffit and the fascia have been done, the flashing has been done, and I've lain flat on my face in the loft with a torch pointing at a lovely dry mouse nest (empty).

Where can this damp be coming from? The right hand side is now as dry as dry can be. The ceiling is dry, the front wall appears dry, but the place where the wall meets the ceiling on the left hand side is damp. I am very puzzled, and ever so slightly fed up (I'd be much more fed up were I to allow myself to think about it too much, and am therefore assiduously avoiding this). It's possible I suppose that next door's flashing is leaking, and there are some very eroded-looking bricks on the front of the house which I suppose could be the cause of the damp. I have spent a lot of time looking out of my bedroom windows at the rooves of my neighbours, and wondering if their houses are leaky like mine too. They'd better be, I'm a nice girl and I didn't do anything to deserve this trial. All I want is a bedroom with nice flat walls and no wet corners. This can't be so unusual a thing in a terraced house, can it?

This post is mostly all about not ringing the roofer or going next door to speak to the neighbours.

Frankly, I liked it better at the seaside.

Edit: I have rung the roofer. He is coming over tomorrow with his ladders. He is very cheerful. Bastard.

work it*

I admit defeat. I need a builder. I have become a DIY disaster.

The survey when I bought this house said something innocuous (or so I thought) about old and cracked plasterwork. I thought nothing of it, as small cracks in a 100 year old house don't bother me. My bedroom however was covered in purple textured wallpaper which bothered me a great deal. Some time over the summer while I was still attempting to recover from the quote to re-fit my bathroom I decided that it'd be better to take on a simpler job that required much less builder-related input. I'd stood and looked at the walls on the room when lit from certain angles and knew that my walls would probably need skimming. I heard pleasantly low figures, and I wasn't worried.

A few weeks later I invited a plasterer round to quote for skimming. He told me that he couldn't really give me a proper quote until the wallpaper was off and the wardrobes down. Fine, I thought, I can do that. So I set to removing my wallpaper.

The first indication that things were not going to be as simple as I had thought (are they ever?) came when a gentle rain of plaster hit my head as I removed the wallpaper. It seemed that the glue was stronger than the plaster. Slightly bigger job, then, I thought. I can manage that. I called a friend with a background in plastering and he advised me that I might as well pull off the loose skim 'if it wants to come down'. Which it definitely did. Regular readers of this blog (both of you) will recall that this little episode resulted in me finding damp in the corner of my bedroom and the ensuing painful saga of finding a roofer to fix the leak. I now have nice new flashing and my bedroom corner is dry. It cost me twice as much as I expected of course, but I did have twice as much roof fixed as I thought I would, too.

Several months later I finally finished removing the wardrobes. They were big, the screws were tight, and I have an attention span of approximately 20 minutes for boring jobs involving tight screws (fnah). Now it is the holiday and my mother has asked the perennial question 'are you having a productive week?' which as any fule know actually means 'have you sorted out your bedroom yet you wastrel, I want to come and stay'. I (of course) admitted that my productivity mainly involved reading nice comics about Iranian girls, and so felt duty bound this morning to go into the room of doom and survey the damage. Usually I keep the door shut - I mean you would, wouldn't you?

I looked at the big huge bits of wardrobe laying on the floor. I looked at the piles of plaster skim laying on the floor. I looked at the dry yet strangely rotten (oh, fuck) previously damp corner, the ceiling which threatens to come down at any second and the holes in the party wall where the hair of Victorian children has failed to keep even the render on, and I decided that this job was bigger than me.

I rang my builder (who hates me, I swear). He told me that he was 'No longer in the business'. I rang npower, because I am the queen of diversionary activity, and then I got out my yellow pages.

I need a builder.

Is it too early for a gin and tonic?


* honestly the tune on my ipod right now - from 'Under Construction'.

the people vs mouse

Cheerful One: 1
Mouse: 0

Sorry mouse.

interlude

Originally uploaded by etcher67.

Blogger's image uploading capacity is broken, apparently. In the meantime I can only blog photos direct from flickr. The fact that I cannot currently upload drawings means that of course I am rather desperate to do so. Which sort of implies I've done some: incorrectly, as it happens.

In the meantime, here is Grandma's cake, in all its marginally undercooked glory. I should like to apologise to her for describing it as slightly dry in a previous post. The memory plays odd tricks. 'Let us then be up and doing, with a heart for any fate'* is my new favourite quote, and connects nicely with the fact that today not only have I baked a cake but also hoovered, changed the sheets, rearranged a bookshelf, made a lampshade and cooked a proper dinner. Again. It must be all the drawing that I'm not doing.

*The rest of the quote 'still achieving, still pursuing, learn to labour and to wait' could be my family motto, really. It's Longfellow, by the way. Do not however be fooled into thinking I know about these things. I just remember words I like and google well.

yellow and small

I sit in the meeting and doodle frantically as though it might help release me. Tunnel vision. Erialc notices and nudges me; 'Going well, then?' she asks. We dissolve into silent schoolgirl giggles at Trouble, who sits opposite us rolling her extravagant eyes and signing. I constantly expect someone to tell us off in staff meetings: we certainly deserve it, but oh, they are dull.

Later on I try to hide downstairs but a stream of people come in and ask me inane questions. When I realise that the ability to be polite has deserted me I grab my coat and leave, come home and spend half an hour hitting the wardrobes with a hammer. A little directed violence. It doesn't help; I end up leaning against the wall in the halflight with the hammer in one hand, despairing at the bloody mess that I have made. Even though it was all a bloody mess in the first place. I excuse myself on the grounds of growing darkness and slide downstairs, guilty at the unfinished business and work-related frustration. Write about it. Does that count as doing something useful with my day? (Not really.)

Thursday tomorrow. Nearly the end of the week. Good.

depravity, no cake

I am the number one google search for 'victorian bordello bedroom decorating pictures'.

I feel as though I've finally achieved something in life :)

put another log on the fire for me

I admit it, I don't understand my new central heating. I spend a lot of time wondering whether it's working properly or not. I've got a new condensing boiler, and it seems to me like it makes too much noise, but perhaps the house is just quiet. I am confuddled by the fact that the radiators have thermostats and the boiler has a thermostat, and I don't understand whether or not they should be working independantly of one another or not, and if so how. Perhaps this is the reason that the boiler fan never seems to go off. Perhaps I am worrying unnecessarily. Perhaps I should just put another jumper on. Or take another off.

What I actually ought to do is ring the blokes who fitted it and ask them again to come round and check it for me. Unfortunately this involves letting on that I do not understand, which I am loathe to do, because I might be a girl, but I don't like admitting it. What I can admit is that this post is all about putting off that phone call yet again. Who knows; maybe central heating engineers read my blog.

In other news: my signing teacher tells me that my signing is improving. I am both proud of and scared by this revelation. I can communicate! This means that soon I shall have to go out and talk with deaf strangers. They may point and laugh. This would be bad.