Apologies

Please excuse the neglect of this blog, like all good intentions things don’t always go to plan and after the hell that is moving, I found that the scope isn’ t really there to indulge in the project, so I am going to use the pied a terre as a creative base instead.  I will have the same amount of space really but less time and money to spend on it so it will be a longer project but hopefully just as fulfilling.

The costume making is pretty much ready to start and I am looking forward to starting that when I get back home.

xx

The scent of a woman

I have asthma, it isn't serious now, many adults grow out of it anyway and since I don't smoke and currently live in a part of the UK was the cleanest air I have ever breathed, I am not really suffering with it. 

I recall a very traumatic experience when my mother practically fought me to put some noxious spray on my neck, not only was I not in the least interested in girlie things in general (I was well into my T-shirt and tartan phase, aged 12) I did not like the smell, it made me choke....and burned at my sensitive skin.  Anyway, I am unsure whether Mother got her way, I do know she accused me of being a 'lesbionic person' and got very cross with me but I remember little else of that experience.

Since that point I have been virulently anti perfume, I have received countless bottles of posh scent over the years from clueless family members and beaus trying to court but I have never hidden my disinterest or dislike for the stuff....it is one of those things one gets a woman isn't it? I have either passed them onto others or used them to fragrance the toilet....yes, folks, my  Chanel/Gucci/Dior/whatever went down the loo. I did sell and pass on others though.  One friend even gave me a Britney Spears perfume......Britney......Words fail me.

I have found myself unable to breathe when caught behind a woman wearing a lot of perfume, my lungs seize up and I have had to use my inhaler, often gathering dust in the bottom of my purse.

One day however I was at a conference and came across a Pan's Pantry stall. They usually sell incense and herbs but they had in something with an Ankh on it, which drew my gaze. Turns out it was supposedly a scent, which looked like a dark red or black liquid, it was an ancient Egyptian scent and it was.....heavenly....oh my goodness.  It wasn't in a spray bottle but in a roller tube and you just rubbed that against your skin.  I wore that scent just about every day and when I tried to get some more....gone.
They don't supply it anymore, but I always wondered what it was in it that made me fall in love with it, this ancient smell.
Having been so anti perfume all these years I was never the best at identifying smells, I couldn't tell one perfume from the other and thought it was a party drink when one friend would say to the other 'Ooh is that Chanel No. 5?'  

Of course since then I have been the head nose in the family business, I might not be able to pick out one scent from the next half the time but I know what I like and so, buying in a new ingredient the other day I finally, after ten years found out what it was about the Egyptian blend that I fell in love with.....

Sandalwood

In all my years buying essential oils, in all my months running a toiletries business how on earth could I have missed this amazing smell? mostly because, of course, I practised aromatherapy, I brought oils according to their properties, not their smell, it seems Sandalwood is often used to treat acne and anxiety, which are not conditions that has been a problem with me, hence my ignorance.

It has a lovely, woody ancient smell though and it's now part of a scent of this woman!

Yay!!!! Big Amazon parcel yesterday.....

The book about the PRB came today and the DVD of the BBC series also. I don't know if they actually show any Artistic Reform clothing or Arts&Crafts but I am hopeful.

x

Casing the new house.....

I am getting a bit frustrated with the lack of news regarding the house move, mostly because I am afraid that I will be out of town when we are supposed to move and I need to have my mind put at rest, but also because we do not have a lot of time now to pack. 
So, yesterday I went out to have a look at the new place, well, besides a well placed conservatory (the winter sun was shining right on it, it is going to be a great place for plants) the exterior of the house is pretty average, it is a link detached three bedroomed house.  The dining and living rooms are separated with sliding doors which we will keep closed (which honestly, I prefer anyway). 

So, what could I see? Well pretty much this picture except on the opposite side  I saw a rather small square living space, in the left hand corner opposite the window was a bunch of wall cabling which I will assume is for the entertainment system, behind that was a built in bookcase which was only about three shelves high and useless for bibliophiles (we need a library really) next to that was the 'fireplace' which holds a wood burning stove which we think is a Squirrel.  And next to that the door to the hallway.
I wish I could say I could see more but I couldn't, I should take some pictures really.  I look forward to moving in though and getting to work.

Political rant

Another reason to do this:

I have been flicking through the channels, I seem to have an inordinate amount of shopping channels, channels that I don't want, selling things I don't need.


Yesterday I was chatting to one of my partners about consumer culture and the fact that we have far more than we need, he said he will try to buy less new clothes this year, I said I wanted to make my own, it is worth it, in a situation where you DO have the freedom, to indulge that freedom to dress how you want and present how you want, how often do we truly get that chance?

Finally today we had a VAT rise, it means almost everything we buy will now cost more. I wasn't entirely bothered by this at first but what really made my blood boil was hearing this 'this country relies more on consumer spending (ie shopping) for its economic wealth than any other country in Europe....'

Wow....so, you mean we have destroyed our industry to such a degree in this country that we need to constantly be buying to encourage economic heath?  No wonder we are constantly being told by the media that 'we love to shop' no wonder we are always being sold something, no wonder when we buy our things just don't last that long.  Everything has a built in lifespan so we have to buy again.  It saddens me that so many of my compatriots buy into it as well.  I told my mother that there was something wrong with my phone (a minor issue) and she said 'why don't you upgrade'?  She saw my Stove and asked my why I hadn't brought a new one yet?  (the old one works perfectly, it just has a cosmetic problem).  We are constantly told what we should want, the newest, bestest shiniest thing EVAH!!!   And we fall for it, not always realising that it is a ploy by the government to spend more to boost the nations coffers...how desperately cynical is that?

I turned off the news when the chancellor repeated the same phrase to the journalist for the third time in a short time frame, desperate to toe the party line and looking like a deer caught in the headlights.  I have very little patience for that tactic, it drives me loopy and it just makes the interviewee look moronic and since these are the people running the country I would rather not think along those lines.

So, the upshot of this rant is.....I think I am along the right track, I don't WANT to be a mindless consumer.  Do you remember when they started using consumerist language almost everywhere?  You were no longer a patient, a visitor, an interviewee. No, you were a customer or a client, even our most rudimentary interactions were transformed with consumerist actions, so we no longer acted in a personal way but we are there to engage in the act of business. Whether you are selling a service or a product.  I am not there to interact with you as a person but to interact with you as a supplier of something I need.

Are we constantly being reminded of how 'fun' spending money is?  Aren't all those people on the advertisements smiling and laughing....".look this is fun this new gadget, or look how more attractive I am to the opposite sex now that I wear this......Look, I brought this incredibly expensive sofa and I got two cushions for FREE!!!  Yay me...result!!!!"

It is enough to make you weep.

Ladies who do tea..........and not wanting to be vulgar about it

I am a little bit paranoid but do re-establishing the idea of visiting cards seem OTT to anyone? I don't want to be thought of as pretentious or vulgar. I just thought that when I am ready to meet people it would be nice to give them a card, separate and distinct from my business card (which I do pass out on business meets) but I don't want anyone I meet socially to think that I am also fishing for business.  I think the idea of calling cards is quite lovely, they can have just some swirling decoration on it but with your name also, of course, originally they did not have your address on it, but today it would make sense to have some other kind of contact detail on there so people can get back to you if they want to maintain some contact. 

One of the reasons I wanted to do this is because I thought it might be nice to also re-establish, afternoon tea  as a practice to entertain myself (I love to bake) and also to meet people and encourage me to socialise a bit.  I don't know how it will fit around my work hours because the early afternoon is usually when we work but perhaps something can be done.  To be honest we only have free time between 9am -2:45pm so I don't have all the time in the world for it and I really can't entertain in my indulgent old fashioned way with the children at home.

I am aware that I come across as a terrible eccentric and I suppose that I am, but I have not had this sort of opportunity before so I just want to catch it.

I have to admit…DIY confession

First of all....Happy Solstice!!

I really, really am not very good at DIY, I did one single thing only, I plaster washed and painted the kitchen, I did it because it was actually a unhygienic and unhealthy room to begin with, I lived for years trying to get my ex husband to do it and he refused, as soon as he moved out I started working on it myself. 

However after that I stalled a bit, I changed jobs twice, my social life got busy, I was flat broke and I just didn’t have the time or the energy to even ‘think’ about how to do the rest of the flat.  I got in some help from a friend, which was really great and I am grateful  but when it comes from help from friends, you feel quite bad being critical, so when I told him I wanted purple walls (from a lovely rich purple blue colour I had seen in one of the decorating pages) he actually brought a paint himself, from Trade and surprised me with it, except it was a reddish purple, not what I envisaged at all, so when he mixed a sample pot in a white tin for the halls it looks pink.  I am, the least pink woman in the world, really I am.  My daughter loves it though so there is some upside.

But in the end, slightly wrong coloured walls turned out not to be an issue because I moved in with my partners in the country and now I don’t care so much about what the flat looks like. 

The exciting prospect is, we are to move into a new house soon and that house will be ‘ours’  I am ever so excited, I want it to be beautiful and practical, natural and warm.

Because of the children, it won’t do any good investing lots of money in delicate little things that will be broken in a matter of hours (no joke, kids are destructive, I once brought my best friend’s daughter a piggy bank with her name on it, it lasted less than an hour!)  so when I came across the Arts and Crafts movement as a natural follow on to the Artistic Reform, a light bulb came on in my head, William Morris once said “never have anything in your home that isn’t beautiful or practical “  how many of us can say we do that for certain?  I have a whole load of ugly useless rubbish in the flat right now, we have a load of unattractive stuff at the house too.  What we need is stuff that can withstand the kids but look nice also, things that are sturdy but good looking, William Morris was a craftsman, he did not like the way that big industry was producing cheap, rubbish factory made mass produced items.  I appreciate that and I think that is a good way to go.

Of course I have family to consider so I can’t just decorate to suit myself, but I want to have ideas and be fully instrumental in making sure our new home is warm and inviting and a place we all love being in, because goodness knows we adults especially, spend enough time there, it has to be a place that we love looking at!

So, I have started this ID project, I have a folder and I am collecting magazines for inspiration and procurement ideas.  I tend to go for the Country/Period/traditional magazines, because the standard ID/Homes magazines are very much of the mass production types, full of sleek contemporary lines and futuristic monochrome features which is probably my idea of designer hell.

So, anyway that is enough for now, there is very little I can do right now, but  as the weeks go on, I will be adding more about my journey into lifestyles of the Victorian decadents!!!