A Day or Two Off.

I've spent the last few weeks chasing my tail, I never quite seem to catch up. I've been suffering from that horrible feeling of being out of control, too much to do and not enough time, not being able to relax because you feel like you should be doing something.

You know the thing.

Weekends are usually my time for getting the bulk of the housework done, but I haven't had a proper weekend in some time now so those little jobs are piling up and becoming bigger.

I had to have some time of for the washing machine repair man to come round, so I decided to take a full day and see if I could catch up a little after he had been. One of those classic, no set time 'between 8am and 12 noon' visits that you feel trapped in your house.
Usually I can lose infinite amounts of time doing bugger all when I am at home, but the minute I HAVE to be in, the minutes drag and I pace about restlessly not being able to settle to anything.

Thankfully washing machine man arrived at 10.30 am, was in the house precisely 18 minutes and said about as many words as minutes he was in the house!

Now I am not one to stand over someone when they are trying to work or talk their ear off so they get nothing done.
 I'm friendly and polite, I show them to where they need to be, explain whats what and leave them to it.

This guy broke new ground in non people skills, he never cracked a smile, looked at me like I was an irritating imbecile and basically managed to make me feel uncomfortable in my own home.

Nice.

All in all I'm rather glad he only stayed such a short time and he did manage to fix the washing machine too (thank you God). The old girl lives to spin and churn another day.

I loaded her up and suddenly felt full of energy, I blitzed the bathroom, nipped into town for a few supplies and then spent a blissful afternoon getting the front garden ready for the year ahead. Yes there were other jobs on my 'to do' list that were more important, but I needed a bit of time in my garden.

I decided to take another day off this week with chores in mind. I very nearly just went off to browse the chazzas in town, (after a lovely lie in with a book and a mug of tea of course) but I managed to stay strong. I'm feeling very virtuous now I must say.

Himself and I had a night out at the local arts centre recently to see the comedian Richard Herring. Laughing your head off is definitely just what the doctor ordered. We had a great night.

The arts centre also sell crafts and browsing the cabinets in the interval I saw a cute hedgehog necklace. I nearly bought it, but we both agreed I wasn't likely to wear it, now if it were a brooch......

I took down the website address, had a browse when I got home and ended up buying two brooches!

If I have one wee criticism it's that they arrived in an ordinary paper envelope with absolutely no protective packaging at all! Other than that I love them both. Turns out I already have the black cat from the range which was a birthday gift from a friend.

There was the solar eclipse as well. Apparently the whichever science society of the University of Oxford it was decided to have the eclipse watching in front of my work. There will be 10 or 20 people they said, good job said our building manager as currently they are digging up the pavements and roads to build a continental style plaza (that is another story) However somehow it then got advertised on the internet and this happened

Just to clarify this is the main entrance of our school and not the pavement in front. It was nuts!

We had an open day so all our poor visitors were trying to battle their way into the school. I ended up directing people to the toilet rather than collecting visitors.
At least if you didn't have special glasses you could watch the eclipse in the smoked glass at the front of the building which was pretty cool. We got about 85-89% coverage in Oxford so it went very dark.


I finally started working on the green dress from the vintage fair. I spent bloody hours looking for buttons. I kept seeing lovely ones that were either stupid expensive or in America. Or vintage sets without enough, I needed 9. I ended up going down the novelty route with yellow apples.

Himself is not convinced, he says I should have gone with red apples hmm I'm not convinced they would have worked.
I haven't got round to putting darts in it yet, I might need my Ma for that, it's not so easy to pin a dress when you are in it and I wouldn't trust Himself with the task.

I also made the Peacocks dress I got trapped in when the zip broke into a scarf/shawl thing.

Going for the easy option is what I am all about these days!

I've had that spring urge to sort through and clear out. The wardrobe seemed to be a good place to start. I've been brutal with 3 or 4 frocks that have been on the 'not sure' pile for months now, they have already been dispatched to the charity bag.

One black and two blue frocks waiting to be worn for the should I stay or should I go decision......

Mum and I have been swapping magazines this week. Killing an hour or so between visiting times have meant we have both ended up buying a few. I had a moment of rage at 2 separate articles on 'fresh Spring make-up ideas' for ladies of a certain age.

Both articles said that once you are over 35 you must STOP wearing black eyeliner at once! It's terribly aging they declared, and only for the young. A dab of navy blue is what the more mature lady should use. A dab? a dab?? WTF? I mean what is a dab of eyeliner anyway?
Personally I love my black eyeliner and will continue to use it for as long as I chose too. So up yours spring makeup for ladies of a certain age.
Whilst we are on the subject of black. The magazines in question also said the other big no no is mascara in a jet black hue. Terribly aging and unflattering dear ladies, burgundy is the way forward they instructed.
Don't give me that, I was seduced by this back in the 90's when burgundy mascara was first an exciting new thing.
 Sucked in by the promises of how amazing it would make my eyelashes look and how my eye colour would pop, I rushed out and bought some, I was sorely mislead.
Believe me, it is definitely not the white knight in shining armour of mascara that these magazines like to make it out to be.
If your lashes are sparse and or pale, stick with the jet black is my advice.