Category: Grumbles

I am becoming quite intent on finding a way to sterilise our letter box. Along with the traditional array of leaflets offering to deliver us pizza, sell our house, steam clean our interiors, and more recently and most curiously, offer instructions on ‘how to use a bus’, it has given birth to no less than 13 charity bags in the past week.

Now if you are one of the people lucky enough to live in an area not to receive such items, I shall explain. The ‘charity bag’ is gay-fully coloured plastic receptacle into which a home owner is invited to place their disregarded items for collection by the advertised charity. Now don’t get me wrong, I am very fond of the intent of such a notion, but they have become somewhat of an annoyance, for Mr F especially. I think it is more down to the frequency of their delivery that brings me out in a cold sweat. You see I’m a charitable soul normally, and I’m struggling to cope with the insurmountable pressure of striving to improve the life chances of children in Africa, the elderly, the homeless, sufferers of gout, chronic nasal congestion and flaky scalps, and I can’t bare to think about those poor donkeys who continue to suffer northerners on beach holidays.

The things is though, I have worked out that with an average of 13 bags a week, and having counted the number of items in my wardrobe, by placing one item in each bag would see me out of apparel in 3.4 weeks. That means I would be shopping for an entire new look over 15 times a year, and given the amount of time I normally require Mr F to sit outside a changing room whilst I preen and twirl, 32.5 hours of his life would likely be spent landing helicopters on his smartphone while all the time the fence still is not getting painted. Furthermore, the extent of funds required to provide regular offerings to the charity bags would also well exceed £2000 a year, and that’s without discounted Ugg boots on eBay.

So I continue to collect charity bags, feeling too guilty about throwing them away with their destiny unfulfilled, and for the fact they are made of non-recyclable plastic, but unable to keep up with the pace of the donation regime. Thoughts are that I begin to fill them with the ‘Emperor’s Clothes’ and leave them as requested at our gate, fashion them into a piece of public art Neil Buchanan stylee, or I am rather taken with the idea of their potential for ponchos. If you have any suggestions, I would be a grateful recipient before our house is overrun! Any really good ones will be implemented.

Currently on the list:

1. News of visas
2. Destination of potential far flung adventure
3. Purchase of the ‘New Palace’
4. Start dates for the money making work
5. For reversible jumpers to make a come back
6. Invitation to Royal Wedding

I can only assume it was lost in the post.

My patience is severely being tested. All things to get excited about are dragging their heels in the most excruciating of ways.

Still, I can at least make a personal effort on the reversable jumpers front. I’m sure I still have one lingering in the loft somewhere sporting the Eurotunnel bunny. I have decided this is the only answer to my unerring propensity for wearing food without having to do the washing so often.

I’m all about the eco.

This week I got a cold.

Quite disappointing seeing that I had been doing so well up until now, avoiding anyone with a sniffle or a sneeze, taking my pre/probiotic omega 3 packed multi vitamin ultra sonic make-you-go-faster-or-your-money-back drink religiously every morning, I have been eating all of the vegetables that have been put on my dinner plate (now that I do the washing, it is less tempting to hide them in my socks as I did at age eight) and I even have been leaving my desk every time my boss coughed without covering his mouth – although I now fear my colleagues think I’m incontinent…

The only thing I can put my finger on, is that this last weekend I let myself go a little – not as in the wearing my pyjama’s to Sainsbury’s or breaking wind in public sense (not that this is something a lady would ever do…) – but I just let myself have a couple of days to forget about all the things that need doing, or ironing, or writing, or sending, or making – and it was glorious! It is however largely unfortunate that whenever I take a sabbatical from all of the other things in my life, it appears fate wants to fill this void of acitivity by giving me a bug.

If I’m honest, tickets to see the Lion King or a voucher for a Shaitsu Massage would be far preferable, but I imagine seeing as its nearly Christmas, fate probably has its work cut out reuniting mischevious youngsters lost in New York with their mothers in front of the Rockafeller Center Christmas Tree, or finding Christmas Elves their Biological Parents (have I been watching too much Christmas TV?)…

Still, as my very wise friend Jim advised me – Colds remind us not to take for granted our health – and that admittedly, is something I am inclined to do.

So instead of feeling sorry for myself , I’m going to keep taking my lemsip and will try and remember when my temperature has gone down and I have stopped walking into things, how nice that feels – despite the obvious amusement I appear to be causing those around me, particularly when I managed to walk away with one foot in Diane’s waste paper basket…

So I shall leave you for now and promise to be back when I am running on full juice again…

That is unless I find also find a bucket to kick…

I have committed to virtual paper in the past my general dislike of clothes shopping, which (for if you were fortunate enough to have missed that blog on Aimstation)  stems largely from a lack of patience of large crowded stores, unflattering changing room lights and shop assistants that have more interest in telling their colleague ‘how much Julie lost on the Cabbage diet’ than helping you purchase your item. It also doesn’t really help either that I am the shape of two squares hinged together in the middle, and getting anything to fit the right bits in the right places, flatter my robustness and present itself in a colour that does not (as my mother says) make me ‘look terminal’ is a challenge in itself.

It was therefore on Monday, with a trip to Reading town centre planned, I drew in my breath (helps to make my tummy look flatter) , donned my lucky pants and marched on into the ‘Oracle’ shopping centre (known locally as the ‘Orrible’) to see if I could find anything to help me with my clothes crisis. You see, lately something has taken over me  demanding ‘out with the old, in with the new’ – something last week that applied itself to my wardrobe. As I now share hanging space with my ‘better half’, it was actually time to thin out the fleet a bit and review of all of the things that either don’t fit, are too old now, or were a mistake on purchase – like the fitted pink top with a buttoned high collar which makes me look as though I am representing Russia at shotput. Having turned out two whole carrier bags worth of stuff however, I am now left with 2 pairs of ropey blue jeans, a few t-shirts and some work trousers that – if I’m honest – have seen better days.

I need new clothes.

My venture to Reading however was sadly less than fruitful, and thus I share with you a further grieveance of shopping….

It is now my experience that if the current ‘fashion’ does not suit your tastes/shape, you are largely buggered. This is because all high street shops sell virtually the same clothing, the difference being an occasional bow or button, or a split down one side. At the moment the ‘1980’s appear to be once again ‘en vogue’, and where leggings and flourescent pink tops never ‘really did it for me’ the first time round (oh dear, I sound old) it would appear their remergence onto the fashion scene has not improved how I look in them either. Indeed all of the clothes I tried on in an attempt to join in with the ‘hip kids’, simply made me look like a sturdier cast member of ‘Flashdance’.

I can’t even do a cartwheel.

I am therefore off to the ‘Next’  conveniently stationed next to Sainsburys before the weekly shop tonight, hoping they may stock some more’ conventional apparel’….

Because the only stop left after that is BHS or Littlewoods…

And I’m not that old.