CURSES, FOILED AGAIN...

This morning I was looking forward to a day of playing hooky, which is one of my favourite things to do. I find almost all experiences are that much sweeter when you're supposed to be doing something else. (Also known as le grand procrastination.) I had plans, big plans, to drive all the way to Charleston in East Sussex, which I told myself was "research" for something which with a little (a lot of) imagination I could consider the "precursor" to what I'm actually supposed to be working on, which is to do with 1960s mod fashion, so obviously it is vitally important that I thoroughly investigate the 1920s artwork of the Bloomsbury Group. I was supposed to be going to Charleston with a friend who lives down that way, when she can get her hubby to babysit her wee ones, but I am very impatient. This is how I always end up watching films twice at the cinema, because I cannot wait for the person I promised I'd watch a certain film with to become available. Schedules: boo, spontaneity: oui. Charleston kept calling to me, knowing that today is the first day of the year it opens to the public. Everywhere I looked this morning I saw Bloomsbury influenced things. I thought how nice it would be on an actual rare sunny day to drive out of London, away from the unrest and into the countryside. Ahhhhhh....



Like an old, responsible person I check the oil, screenwash etc levels of my car. I bring a jacket in case it gets cold. I drive approximately half a mile and become aware of someone whistling and clappping. Bloody pervs, I think. The boy at the bus stop catches my attention and shouts, "You've got a flat tyre mate." Long story short: I make it to a nearby garage (since I have been driving on the flat tyre unaware, I assume it's ok to continue a bit further) where they inform me that both my rear tyres are f**ked and if I'd gone on the motorway they both would have blown. They fit my little comedy spare tyre, which is only temporary and not allowed near a motorway or over 50 mph and I am not sure if I'm really unlucky, as everything I try to do lately gets thwarted somehow*, or incredibly lucky that the boy at the bus stop saw it and told me.

*First my entire inventory of stock for the online vintage shop I had been planning for over a year was destroyed in the mothalypse and had to be thrown away, along with most of my own clothes; then I got really excited about experimenting with my dad's 1970s Canon SLR (for which I have a huge box of lenses and filters) and the winding on mechanism broke halfway through the first roll of film. It's just like that at the moment and I know it will pass. But I don't want to get too excited about anything, or even state "I'm going to do this or that" because, well, a spanner always seems to get lodged firmly in the works.

But I know that today I was really lucky.

{photo: Louise Dahl-Wolfe/Harper's Bazaar}