tappy claw

blue typewriter A5 screen print

Originally uploaded by memohelen

Just dropping by for a final September hello. I am braindead following a long day at the office where I just kept getting landed with the most terrible programmes - Waterloo Road (ugh!) and the Beechgrove Garden to name but two. Actually, I kind of love subtitling the Beechgrove Garden because the accents remind me of my childhood, but my lack of knowledge about all things plant makes it a truly tricky and time-consuming task. Tomorrow I'm learning how to subtitle DVDs, which should be interesting. I like it that there are so many things I don't know about my job even though I've been there nearly a year.

Today was my first day back at work after a three-day weekend. I spent most of my time off doing stuff to the house in our bid to get cosy for winter...and beyond!. It's mostly going well (though we are already having to make some irksome compromises) and I am excited, but tonight I'm hiding in the craft room for fear the new teetering shelves in the living room will fall on me and squash me. Our floors are very uneven and Graham moved our new shelves while I was at work, but obviously didn't use his spirit level. Or his eyes. Ha! We will have to shore them up at the front asap to avoid claustrophobia and/or death by crushing.

I found that putting together flat-pack furniture was not the ideal thing for my hands. I now can't even get dressed (or do what all girls need to do when they visit the toilet - shh!) without yelping or crying. My right pointing finger will not fully straighten or bend so has become my tappy claw of this post's title. It stays in the same position all the time and taps the play/pause subtitling button all day long. I think it is infected too. My knuckle is making strange noises and my claw is hot, swollen up like a sausage and throbs quite violently. This afternoon, the redness started spreading up my arm and I thought I would have to head to A&E for emergency amputation. I resisted, but shall be going back to the doctor again soon, I fear. In the meantime, I have taken to using Savlon as hand cream. Oh dear.

I can't hold a pencil at the moment, let alone a needle and thread, so my crafting is generally not going well, though I have managed to make over 100 pinwheel brooch kits this week (actually, they're not all finished) as the first giant batch vanished. I've also pretty much sold out of bunting in a box (which I thought I had made a crazy huge amount of) but I had a brainwave last night and came up with a labour-saving trick that is going to make them so much more speedy/less faffy to make, even with my tappy claw, so they'll be fully restocked very soon. Hooray!

I still don't really know what I'm doing with this whole crafting thing. I'm not enjoying selling stuff online. Actually, I should rephrase that as I generally don't sell much/anything online! What I don't enjoy is the listing and photographing and describing etc. I'm a bit torn, though, after having a few really sweet nudges (including my first ever treasury appearance!) to get more stuff in my etsy shop. It also seems like real-life selling opportunities rely on online presence a bit and I definitely do like selling things face to face. I feel I have been considering my crafty motivations for a really long time and am just going round in circles with it and not getting anywhere. The looming festive season is bringing things to a head as I'm really torn between opting out (being a Christmas buyer rather than a Christmas seller) and going all out. Hmmm....

Anyway, this is a ridiculously long and seemingly pointless blog post, but I do consider my blog to be my diary, so this one is just for me, I think. I can't keep a real diary (I get more morose every day I write in them!) so this blog is my substitute diary where I'm too embarrassed to do a full-on whinge as other people can read it, and so I stay relatively positive. For me. I'm actually feeling rather grumbly tonight, but maybe I didn't have to spell that out for you... I think I have some fun and cosy snaps of the new fire on my camera, but I'll save that for October. October!

Cheerio Bon Soir Too-roo-loo no more! Uncle Alex

A couple of weeks ago I was in Relics (a jam-packed second-hand shop down one of Glasgow's many lanes) when I found a huge box of postcards. They were obviously all the correspondence of one family over the years. I bought a few. I kept reading them and thinking how lovely they were and how sad it was that the collection was being broken up after all this time, so last week I went back and bought a few more. By this time the box was looking much emptier and the man who runs the shop told me that one person had come in and bought £165-worth of the postcards in one fell swoop! Yikes! That made me a bit happier. Hopefully the person will keep their collection together, but I have my wee set of ten that I plan to keep anyway. Uncle Alex sounds like he would have been a really lovely man and I'm intrigued to know more about Bennie. I have scanned each postcard front and back (with varying degrees of success with my temperamental scanner) and put each one in a separate post, so you can scroll down to read them all. I've typed out what the postcards say, but hopefully you can read the handwriting and Uncle Alex's (and Bennie's) little drawings for yourself too.

How do you do?

How do you do today, today?

How do you do today?

Er - I mean how dae ye dae today ay?

There is nothing down here for birthday presents

(Postmark 15th July, 1942)

Dear Lizzie,

This is you admiring the work of Ben. I'm sorry I could not get a p.c. with a fountain in the garden. There is nothing down here for birthday presents so will you buy yourself a pair of gloves and I will pay you when I get back. Ina will give you my coupons to use.

Kind regards,

Alex.

Post early in the day

(Postmark 26th July, 1939)

Dear Bennie,

Hope you are looking after yourself. I think you can do that alright.

Tooraloo, Ina

Getting most of the latter

Another Uncle Alex illustrated postcard classic :)

(Postmark 6th June, 1935)

Dear Tommy,

I hope that you are keeping [well] as I am at present. Give my kind regards to all at home. We are enjoying the [sun] and the [rain] and are getting most of the latter.

Your affectionate

Uncle Alex

Perhaps it's at Millport

(Postmark 23rd July, 1934)

Dear Tommy,

There is no chance of me getting sunburnt. I don't know where the sun has gone to this year. It's not at Dunoon, Largs or Rothesay. Perhaps it's at Millport.

Ina