haiku #1

My heart is broken.

Not in a romantic way,

It just doesn't work.

Now that I've managed to blog every day in July (phew! and go, me!) I'm on the lookout for a new bloggy challenge.  It's been good to have something to keep me going this month.  I'm thinking of making August haiku month.  What do you think?  Three haiku a week in August?  Or maybe two is enough.  I'm not promising anything here, just thinking aloud.  Either way, here's a very simple haiku about my heart, written ("written") in the car on the way back from Kilmarnock the other day.  I'm considering making all my haiku about heart-related things, but am worried I wouldn't be able to avoid becoming maudlin.  We'll see.

P.S. Origami paper die cut hearts (pictured) available here.

look what I got

Yesterday Dulcie and I accompanied my mum and dad and their measuring tape to their soon-to-be new house.  It was the first time I'd seen it in real life.  Ooh, it is lovely.  Old and quirky and cosy and comfy and with a beautiful garden.  I can't wait to see them settled in.  Before heading back to Glasgow, we took a detour to the nearby town of Kilmarnock to have a bite to eat and visit some charity shops.  Kilmarnock is not a very nice town (though the sculptures on the main shopping street are great!) and, as is often the case with not-very-nice towns, is chock-a-block with charity shops.  We only scratched the surface this week, but once my parents move, we thought we might drop Dulcie off with my dad one day so Graham, my mum and I could spend a full day charity shopping.  Wowsers!  What a thought!

These jigsaws were my favourite find of the day.  Dulcie loves jigsaws but is starting to find many of her existing ones a bit easy.  These beauties are the next level for her, I think, except the rabbit one, which is too hard as yet (it took my mum and I a full 15 minutes to make, I think!) and I'll be more than happy to look at these over the coming months and years.  They must have been someone's collection at some time and I got them for less than £1 each.  Dulcie also got a hideous pink electric guitar for £2, but it is less photogenic.  I couldn't leave it behind once I saw her rocking out with it in front of the changing-room mirror, but I suspect we'll redonate it at some point in the future :)

time-travelling tuesday (part 12)

4th April 1988

We went to visit Martin Scott. [The one with the broken leg - see last post.]  It was boiling.  I could have sizzled like a sausage.

5th April 1988

Quite hot but not as hot as yesterday.  I saw a bee three times today.  Tonight I am going to read Son of a gun.

6th April 1988

We saw Junior Mr Fly.  In other words Mr Fly Junior.  This morning Kerry and I were swimming.  We had a barbecue.

7th April 1988

Donna, I've got something to tell you.  I'm going to buy a Gordon the Gopher.  I've got enough money to buy one.  I went to granny's house to earn some money.  We stuck an L plate on her back.  She went to huntly with it on and everyone was laughing at her.  We earned £5 each.  We sang her our cool song.  [This day could have a whole post of its own, my funniest childhood memory, probably.]

mum mum 8th April 1988 mum

Today it was windy then rainy then windy then rainy then snowy.  I got 70p for helping with the sticks.  Kerry and I did a play for mum and dad

9th April 1988

It was Pinknosewinkypoos birthday.  [He was my cuddly toy cow with a name chosen with help from my granny, she of the L plate debacle.]  I don't know what else to write apart from I am wearing plain white ankle socks.  Kerry only has to get 95p until she can buy a Gordon the Gopher.

10th April 1988

Last night dad videod taped Police Academy and I watched it this morning.  We were looking after Linsay and she never cried once.  I got an easter egg, a T shirt and 2 pairs of socks.

library luck (again)

Dulcie tried to veto this book when I found it in the library recently.  She refused to listen to it for the first few days.  But I persevered.  I knew she'd love it eventually, though I didn't realise she'd love it quite so much as she does.  She chooses this every bedtime and her face while we read it is a (delightful) picture.  Her mouth hangs agape as the boy does something scary and she gasps and beams as the dog stops him doing anything too scary.  It's a lovely book, it really is.  We might have to invest in our own copy.

I blogged about another Helen Stephens book once before, also brilliant.  She's an author/illustrator worth looking out for, for sure.

note to self (you don't need to read this)

Beautiful swimming poster/print by Virginie Morgand.  I discovered her etsy shop this week and immediately favourited about 50% of her listings.  So good.

I'm feeling utterly broken today.  Dulcie's sleeping issues (and general clinginess...clingyness?) are wearing me down, big time.  Things had improved and she has been sleeping right through, or settling herself when she woke up, fairly often.  But the last couple of nights she has been back to having me up constantly from 1 or 2 am.  Last night, after hours of hysterical screaming, I ended up caving in and sleeping in her bed with her, clinging on for dear life all night and hating myself for not standing my ground, knowing it was the worst thing to do in the long term.  Graham had promised to take Dulcie out today to give me some much-needed space (also because he was out solo all afternoon and evening yesterday, so owes me) but the few hours of this morning were hard to get through and now, even though they've finally left, I feel like a switch has been flicked and I can't flick it back.  BROKEN INSIDE.  Sometimes I don't think I like being a mum.  That sounds awful, doesn't it?  But I feel comfortable enough saying it because I love Dulcie so dearly and wouldn't have things any other way, of course.  But I'm broken.  Oh, I said that already.

Our house is a bloody disaster area.  There will be something where it's not supposed to be and Dulcie or the cats (the effing cats! aaaargh!) will spot it and drag it out and spread it all over the house.  I turn my back to sort one thing and another thing is speedily destroyed behind me.  I want to have a nice day to myself today, maybe even do some nice things to the house, like hang some pictures in Dulcie's room, but once everyone had left and I could stop and look around, I realised that by the time I tidy up today's mess and go to the shops for essentials like food and toilet roll, they will be back and Dulcie will be limpeted onto me until I leave for work tomorrow.  I can't stop thinking, "What is the point?"  About everything.  Of course, there is more behind this than a lack of sleep and a messy house, but to go down that road really would take all day.

So, what's good?  Well, Dulcie is!  She's funny and sweet.  Her brain is dreaming up a load of nonsense.  She lies hilariously about what she's been doing with her days, write songs constantly ("It's the trainer shoe, trainer shoe, trainer shoe sooooooong!" on an ascending scale was the grand finale of one) and makes up words that make perfect sense.  I stormed into her room with my hair all bed-headed and crazy.  She stopped crying instantly and said, "Mummy, what has happened?!  You hair is all skeltered!"  Skeltered?  Where did she get that from?  But it described my hair perfectly.  I love her brain.

Other good stuff?  Well, we went out on our bikes again yesterday.  Graham found a way to get to the pool without going on the roads much at all.  I had to get off and push at every hill (and there were MANY) but I made it, was noticeably more confident on my wheels and had another lovely cycle home via the canal paths.  At the pool I swam ten lengths and felt good to swim many more, only Dulcie wouldn't allow it.  I'm still planning to go swimming on my own again this Tuesday and am REALLY looking forward to it.  I still can't stop eating things I shouldn't, but I feel like this is a good and maintainable improvement to my lifestyle.  My bum is sore again from the bike, but not nearly as sore as it was last time.  Do they toughen up as you cycle more?

It's not long until we go on holiday and I CAN'T WAIT.  We have three holidays lined up between now and the end of the year, one of them especially exciting.  I'll blog about it some other day.

My mum and dad are nearly ready to move into their new house.  Dulcie and I are going to see it with them for the first time on Tuesday.  Exciting!  My parents will be 20 minutes away, rather than 4+ hours away.  Dulcie will go for sleepovers and my mum and dad will pop through to take her out and help me when I feel ill.  Graham and Dulcie and I will have a lovely homely home to visit for nice lunches, dinners, afternoons in the garden.

My friend is going to lend me her car while she is abroad for six months.  I'll be able to see how much of a difference it makes to our life and make an informed decision about whether it would be worth our while to invest in a car of our own.  We'll be able to do supermarket shops and not have to carry home bags pack-horse style, we'll be able to go on day trips, I'll be able to get to work on Sundays!  We're so lucky that this has all fallen into place and my friend has been so generous.  (Let's not talk about how terrified I am to get back behind the wheel!)

Some little bits of our house are getting excitingly good.  I'll have some amazing furniture to share here soon and we got it for FREE!

So there is plenty of good stuff.  I feel better now, slightly less broken.  I'm off to make the most of my empty :)

little drummer

Graham found this drum machine thingummy in our back lane recently.  One of our neighbours had thrown it out.  He brought it in and we were surprised to discover it actually works.  Graham has often spoken about buying one of these and he's not the only one who loves it.  Dulcie will play with it for ages.  We did give her some beaters, but she prefers to use mismatched kitchen utensils.  We don't know which of our neighbours originally owned this, but we do wonder if they can hear it from their flat and if they are tearing their hair out, going, "Aaaargh!  I thought I'd got rid of that infernal racket!"

Graham is one of those people with an uncanny knack for finding things in bins and skips... i.e. a tramp!  Ha!

PS, I don't know what was going on with Dulcie's fuzzball hairdo on this day.  It has been very humid.

wallpaper ptaste (the p is silent)

 See what I did with that title?  Oh, me...

We are in the process of choosing wallpaper for our tiny and dark hallway.  Not having found anything in our original price range that we remotely liked, we're now looking at all the expensive wallpapers we discounted for their price in the early stages.  Our hall is so tiny that we're hoping we won't need many rolls at all to cover it.  

Last weekend we went to John Lewis and spent ages looking through all their books before ordering these samples.  I was a bit disappointed the pieces they sent were so tiny (A4 sized) because you don't even see the whole pattern on many of them and it makes it really difficult to imagine the wallpapers in situ.

What do you think?  The three on the right-hand side are definite nos, even though the hexagon one is possibly my favourite of all.  Graham has vetoed it.  To be honest, in the space it's intended for, it looks more grey than I'd imagined.  But it is beautiful hand-printed paper.  I'm glad just to have the sample.

 This one is looking like it might be the dark horse of the pack.  Things we were not looking for: big pink flowers, a white background, Orla Kiely (I love her but see some of her designs too much to be able to live with them) and this is all of those things, but it works somehow.  It's nice and bright in the space, pretty but geometric, '70s but modern.  When you see more of the pattern, you can see the flowers are grouped in hexagons.  (I'll have hexagons one way or another!  Ha!)  A definite contender.

 This pink one (brighter in real life) also seems to work well in the space, but I do worry it might be slightly cliched in its Japaneseyness?  Is it Japanesey?  It does have the advantage of a colourful background with white accents to brighten it, rather than vice versa.  This is more what I had in mind, I think.  Again, it would have been nice to have got a bigger sample.

I'm sorely tempted by this one too.  Turquoise and gold?  Yes, please!  When the light hits the gold, it is beautifully glinty, but we don't have much light in our hall and the turquoise background is very deep and dark.  I worry it might be a bit too much/too dark.

In the process of writing this post, I think I've swung even more in the direction of the pink Orla Kiely flowers.  It reminds me of my childhood for some reason...plus I just found it online for almost half the price we were quoted!  Whoop!  But gold is so special... Oh, I don't know.  Do you have a favourite, or any other wallpapers you'd recommend?