HAPPILY MUNDANE BUT SPIC AND SPAN...

This past week we have gone into nesting mode. (That wasn't a royal we, it was a Lola and I we.) I have my new magical toe warming winter duvet which makes it very hard to leave my lovely bed, and which Lola gingerly picks her way across as if through deep snow. It's THAT fluffy.

Duckie is with Uncle Stevie for her yearly M.O.T, a new roof, new chrome bumper, and oh God all the things I've been putting off for about two years. I'm so glad I have my new duvet to hide under when I find out how much this is all going to cost. I miss Duckie though, even when she's away for two days. I walk down the street thinking, "Why isn't everyone smiling and waving at me?" At least she gets to visit her other Figaro friends. We (that's a we as in Duckie and I) were very impressed by this resprayed black one (the work of clever Uncle Stevie) Duckie's nuzzling up to here.
Actually if we moved to another country we would have to factor in the cost of flying Uncle Stevie over for Duckie related maintenance because no one else, ESPECIALLY NOT THOSE IDIOTS AT NISSAN can be trusted with her.

I don't mind staying at home when the view from the window looks like this.

I could look at that red tree all day. It really is extraordinary, I can't remember the name of it.
Yup, we have hunkered down, I am very excited by the prospect of Jane Eyre on BBC one this evening and wish I had a patchwork quilt on the go or perhaps some knitting to do while watching it. I am not going to make a quilt because I will never, ever finish it. It will be my life's work, I imagine finishing the last square just before I die, then some house clearance person will come along and use it to wrap all my valuables in, then throw it away. What a lovely thought?! Maybe I'll make a patchwork cushion to start off with.

I was going to make Lola a sock monkey to replace her icky catnip filled sock which was covered in drool and looked frankly, highly distasteful. I ended up buying one and performed a simple surgical procedure to insert the catnip into his stomach.
Lola shows her love for Monkey by sitting on him.








I've sewn on lost buttons, re-upholstered my dining chairs, and cleared out all the cupboards. It's as if I'm getting everything spic and span in preparation for something, though I don't yet know what that something is. I'm pleased to say my consumerism turnaround seems to be more than a passing phase. I seem to want fewer things, but I want the things I do buy to be lasting treasures. My new obsession is with (discreet!) monogramming, headed paper and ooh, the one that really gets me excited: personalised rubber stamps. There's just something about it. My grandparents, and in the past my parents had initials inside everything, and I remember the regular Saturday trips to the stationers to pick up a new box of our headed paper and envelopes. So maybe it's just nostalgia, I'm hankering for something real, in ink, stamped I dunno, on something, anything(!) as a reaction to this life of emails, downloads, text messages and impermanence.