At Home I'm A Tourist

One of the memes I picked up on a few weeks ago was the Personal Style Statement. Or words to that effect.

What I wear tends to be governed by its ability to meet the following tests:

1. Ability to flee from a falling building

This used to be 'run for a bus' but my paranoia has increased. I cycle to the station every day, so I like wearing things you can cycle in without being blown over. I have osteoarthritis in one of my toes, so I cannot wear heels now. Not even a bit. The solution is to wear flat boots with very chunky soles. Indeed, I have a wardrobe of army boots. I wear these with everything, especially skirts. I worried about this for a few days when I started work (because there are some women who wear extremely beautiful high heels and it can look a bit odd), and then I thought, fuck it.

2. Toasty comfort

No gaps. Scarves, woolly hats with pom poms, boots, warm padded jacket. Mostly comfort blankets scarves. I have the same blue and white scarf wrapped around me from September to April. Really need another one.

3. Primark aversion

I hate cheap clothes. I really, really hate scratchy, sweaty artificial fibres. I will put up with cuddly artificial fibres, at a push, but eww.

4. Flattering pt. 1 (Body Shape)

I am wee and curvy. The curvy part is more problematic than the rest, which is saying something. It is tricky trying to find reasonably flattering tops that show a bit of neck without exposing vast, terrifying billows of cleavage. Hence all that black jersey.

5. Flattering pt. 2 (Mutton Factor)

This is an odd one. Clothes fail on this if they are too young and thin, fashion-wise (frills, glitter leggings, Peter Pan collars, lace, milkmaid dresses). They also fail if they are horribly ageing (boxy jackets, shoulder-pads, tapered trousers, milkmaid dresses). You want a kind of ageless elegance. Arty is a reasonable solution although when that goes wrong it can be horribly menopausal.

Shopping

I find shopping hard work, although when I find the right thing, I am liable to splurge.

Clothes shops that work: Fat Face (casual tops and jeans), Jigsaw (wrap dresses and cardigans at an enormous price), Pepperberry (special clothes for busty people), M&S (selectively), Laura Ashley*.

**Clothes shops that usually don't work but I don't know why: White Stuff (too casual, baggy and skin-revealing), Boden (yummy mummy), East (little old lady), Monsoon (decrepit bridesmaid), Gap (horrible fit), Next (trainee accounts clerk), Phase 8 (mother of the bride).

Mail order: No.

*Laura Ashley is a very odd shop. Lots of their clothes look absolutely hideous on the hanger, but quite nice on. Very much mutton territory, though. Needs care to rootle out the nice things from the dreadful mistakes.
**This is entirely personal and down to the effect when I put on their clothes. Other people look great. YMMV. Etc.

The current work uniform:

Random multicoloured skirt in corporate pattern, knee-length, slight flare
Black long-sleeve jersey top
Black opaque tights
Tackety boots

This is pretty much what I wore when freelancing. I used to call it the Bohemian Lady Researcher. It's not bad.

It remains very hard to find the right things for work. I've decided that the dominant look for senior managers is Power Casual. For men, this is the mass uniform of stripy shirts, dad jeans, and brown brogues. For senior women in Marketing, this translates into silky tops, Armani jeans and spike heels. This is many things but it is not casual. Women in IT: Little dresses. Women who are going nowhere: Mum jeans and a comfy top.

I think I sound very calculated when I write all this down but a) I am honestly fascinated and b) it's kind of fun to crack the code. I am working on the components of my Power Casual look right now, down in the fashion lab. What is the chunky flat-shoe equivalent of a spike heel? Is it even possible? Answers on a postcard.

Hello. I am not doing very well at the whole January talking thing, because, well, it demands talking and actually it's quite hard to do that after months of sitting at the edges of the internet and peering through.

I should have realised that early January is difficult. December-January in our house feels like one massive thing after another: Christmas, Young P's birthday and New Year all on top of each other; this year i took some leave before and after Christmas, to keep E. company. All very lovely but a tad overwhelming.

I'm back to the commute again. There was a blissful day last week when every right thinking person was still on holiday, yet all the trains ran to London on time, and I spent a peaceful day at my (hot) desk doing things for absent bosses.

Geoviki asked me about the north-south divide. I read this and laughed because of course I am Scottish and therefore north-north; but actually there really isn't a massive divide between, say, Glasgow and Manchester or Glasgow and Newcastle. Glasgow and London, though: wow.

I still find London strange. It's at once more cosmopolitan and parochial than anywhere else. The Glaswegian take on London is that it's full of cold posh Southerners. And, yes, I meet people in my new job who I would basically have to describe as London-unfriendly: it's a kind of bizarre negative energy that I don't think I would encounter back in Glasgow. It's people bundled on the Tube in a solid force-field of self-protectiveness. It's the unsmiling colleague who will sit at the next (hot) desk and never acknowledge you.

Glaswegians, on the other hand, tend to regard random strangers as people in need of entertaining and amusing. If there is one thing I miss more than anything, it is the cheerful, witty conversation that's offered to complete strangers right across the board.

My friend and I went to Glasgow on the train with our two dogs last year. We had to take a taxi from Queen Street station in Glasgow, out to the suburbs, and I was very worried that no taxi driver would let the dogs in their car ( taxi drivers round here probably wouldn't).

Me to taxi driver: 'Will you take the dogs?'
Taxi driver leans out, inspects the two mutts: 'Do they smoke? No? Well you're all right then, hop in...'

Glaswegians are brought up to talk to strangers. It's the polite thing to do. I have to kick myself sometimes to hold back my hilarious commentary, because 50 per cent of the time I will get that swivel-eyed look of incomprehension and mild fear.

It's not that the South is truly unfriendly - it's just a hell of a lot more reserved.

Heading to Italy.

I would say 'don't break the internet' but I don't my lovely f-list has that power.

See you on the flipside.

I keep putting off posting because I feel if we wait just a little bit longer, I'll have loads to say. Instead of being in between many worlds.

1. We had friends over last night for a takeaway and I am now suffering a nasty wee hangover. It's the sort where all you are good for is washing dishes and doing ironing slowly.

2. Young P. has finished his exams and in about three days has reverted to the hollowed-out X-box drone that he was about 4 months ago. I miss Exam Boy, who got up smartly and went to bed on time. He has spent much of the last couple of months camped out in the local library, with occasional forays to the 24-hour library of our local ex-poly. Hanging around in the library of one of Britain's worst universities (his description not mine) seems to also have had a galvanising effect. He is aiming for better. Actually, he now has some vague idea of cause (study) and effect (results) so that's all good. I think.

3. Young E. deserves a post of her own really but highlights include her first love.

4. The dog is all right in himself.

5. I have fallen down the arts-and-crafts rabbithole. I cannot knit, so Ravelry is dead to me, but I can sew very badly indeed. I am doing an evening class, dressmaking for beginners, and am nearly finished making a skirt. I have made a few things in the past but they've always been terrible. Our sewing teacher makes theatrical costumes for a living, and confessed that she has a very successful line in pirate jackets which she sells in some piratical boutique in the south-west.

6. News of my dressmaking capabilities has prompted acquaintances to ask if I can fix their clothing. This is an odd feature of being able to do something practical - silversmithing throws up an unconscionable number of people who want you to solder their earrings back together. I think it may reflect badly on my artistic reputation. Did Coco Chanel's sister-in-law ask her if she could do some invisible mending?

7. I may be going to Scotland in the near future - my elderly uncle has died at the age of 94. Another long story, but my stepmum has been visiting him regularly for the last few years, and looking after his affairs. He was estranged from his son - indeed, we don't know where his son is - and had no other visitors apart from K and her little band of friends. She is such a good person.

8. I hardly saw my uncle or the rest of his family after I was 18, and when I visited with K. a few times, I don't think he really knew who I was. But when I was about 10 or 11 he was a jolly man who would bring my cousins over for a Saturday afternoon play. So I will go and support K. and that memory.

9. This is actually quite a lot to say, really. But I think a hangover-busting bacon sandwich needs to made. More soon.

Various people have asked me to post more, and the only way this is going to happen is stream-of-consciousness, so sorry about that.

Little E has been off school most of this week with a coldy, fluey, chesty sort of bug. As she is very prone to chest infections, this means I get somewhat anxious and dose her up to the hilt. She is wilting on the sofa eating toasted crumpets. She was complaining about a sore tummy, but I have just calculated that she's eaten pretty much nothing for 2 days, and has been coughing in a hacking sort of way, so I think it's a case of not enough food and sore ribs. I am knackered though - she has woken in the middle of the night for the past few nights and so I have been making hot lemon at 3.30 am and trying to ignore the dog.

I finished my first ever jewellery commission, making some earrings for one of B.s colleagues. This has taken forever, while I buy glass and run test firings in the studio. Each firing takes about 10 hours to complete, so it's not exactly instant feedback. I ended up making some dangly two-tone earrings of garnet and black glass, suspended on a fine silver bail that I embedded in the earring before it was fired. Afterwards I shaped it and made some matching earwires, and the final effect was very nice.  The silver-embedding is a little bit hit-and-miss: it doesn't always work. The two-tone effect doesn't always work either so the whole damned thing is rather experimental right now.

(I would post a picture but Dreamwidth's photo settings confuse me, as do Flickr's. I have about 3 flickr accounts, tied to different iterations of my online self, but nothing that appears to link to the emails in my current computer of choice. Bah.)

I seem to have fallen in love with a craft that is really somewhat retro - precious few books, virtually no blogs, and supplies shops that feel as though they hit their peak in 1973 and have never quite recovered. Half of the stuff that I see people make is quite horrid, reminiscent of 1960s ashtrays. I wandered into a craft shop in town last week and they had loads of glass crafts, underpriced (£3 for a glass snowflake that will involve about an hour of cutting, glueing and swearing) or overpriced (£45 for a tile which required about 30p's worth of glass and a good deal of chutzpah).

Ok, yes you need photos.

Finally, corporate Christmas e-mails. I just sent out my own lovingly purchased Actual Cards, and today have received 3 emails with links to pictures of educational institutions in the snow. No. Just no.

Back to check on my small consumptive.

My Livejournal blog has a photo post, and I haven't quite figured out the crossposting.

It is just a few pics of jewellery but you can go here if interested.

OMG I have been duped into buying Trainspotting.

So far today, I have supervised young E. being sick, and taken the car to the garage to find out why there is an electricity warning light on.

Now the car is humming nicely, E. is propped up wanly on the sofa with Tracy Beaker on CBBC and I have retired to the studio to do some work.

...

...

...

One one side, there is someone trimming their fucking hedge with the world's noisiest set of hedgeclippers.

On the other, there is either a cat in the throes of passion or next door's new baby, wailing.

WAILWAILWAILDZZZDZZZDZZZZZZZRRRRWAILWAILWAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHWAAAAAHDZZDZZZZZZZZZZ


ETA: Two cats, according to E. 'One black and white, one black with white socks.'

*departs in search of painkillers*

IT IS STILL RAINING FFS WILL IT EVER STOP?

The last bout of megawork starts tomorrow.

Last week was a blur involving 5 am starts and one 7 am start when I slept in and had to be zoomed to the station by B. (still in his pyjamas).

This week:
- young P. has gone to Poland with the school
- little E goes to Norfolk on Friday

In the meantime, I have been sorting out the bloody Tenner Project aka Junior Apprentice. Children write Powerpoint presentations to beg for money. Children who get first stage funding get £10 each and are allowed to run their sales project. All profits to charity.

But first we must all learn what profit really means.

So I came back on Friday from a truly manic week of high-tech interviewing in London, to find myself Creative Director and Technical Consultant to three eleven year old girls who had decided to make jewellery as their Tenner Project.

Myself and the other 2 mums then spent half the weekend sorting out the details and making the motley collection of beads they had ordered off the internet into something that you wouldn't mind spending a cool £3 on, outside the school gates. (The school gate has a chilling effect upon the amount that anyone is ever willing to spend, ever. £3 outside school is like £10 anywhere else. Unless you are talking about cake). They had bought lots of random wooden beads and leather cord so I masterminded the creation of adjustable friendship bracelets (£1) and little necklaces (£3), and taught everybody how to make magic knots. I spent the Wimbledon Final making bracelets in my office with kids and mums, while we spilled flapjack over everything.

This week: the sales spree. Ten teams selling all sorts of things: brownies, baked goods, strawberries and cream, fresh lemonade, toasted sandwiches...and two stalls selling non-food, ourselves with wholesome necklaces featuring wooden beads in rainbow colours, and the opposition with plastic and nylon monstrosities. Also a miniature nail bar, selling wonky manicures in neon colours.

The kids have been like things possessed. Yesterday, they were hunting down teachers with known weaknesses for shiny things. Today they spied a new and valuable target audience: little girls coming out of Reception with their mums.  Tween sales technique: slip adjustable bracelet onto plump wrist of 5-year old girl. Admire it. Hold breath. Accept money.

£60 made so far and two days to go.

11-year old M: 'We've made £30 profit!!!'
Gloomy academic mum, A (not me). 'Well, as long as you don't count the costs of my labour.'