Saturday 12 February 2011

"It's Fashion Daahling!"

I love fashion. I love it, everything about it. I love the fabrics and the drama of Haute Couture, I love the satisfaction of seeing a woman transformed by the right clothes, I love the surrounding palava - all the models & marketing & retail that revolve around fashion.


It seems frivolous, it's certainly not brain surgery (thank goodness) but it also has a serious side. After 4 years of studying 12th to 16th Century Italian and Flemish art, I ended up writing my final year dissertation about fashion (I know, what fun!) I looked at the influence of Japanese designers like Rei Kawakubo and Yoji Yamamoto on Western fashions, looking at fashion as an indicator of the current zeitgeist. Sounds like a load of rubbish, doesn't it? Actually it was based on solid references and meant I could pour over back copies of Vogue and call it study. I'm no fool!


My first attempt at creating fashion was interesting. I was 7 and had been given a reconditioned Singer sewing machine for Christmas. As I've mentioned, I was obsessed by making things - anything. I loved my wee hand operated Singer. It was so beautiful and solid and cold to the touch. It was the first time I'd ever owned a proper machine and I was fascinated.


My skirt was created using scraps of fabric that my mum donated. Simple seams and elastic threaded through a gusset to form the waistband, great. I continued to make my own clothes until I started working full time. My tastes were odd, to say the least. I had a penchant for making trousers out of curtain material. Completely hideous! I have photographic evidence somewhere but I'm not going in search of it. My poor son also fell foul of my dressmaking experiments. Linings for his Moses basket were turned into dungarees - when he lay down he disappeared.


Fortunately my procurement of a Management Trainee position at Jenners Ltd, Princes Street, Edinburgh put an end to my creative (and generally unsuccessful) attempts at fashion design.
I realised that after 5 years of study, my eye was more discriminating than my hands and decided to concentrate on buying as a career.
The rest, you may say, is history.
Let me try to describe to you in more detail what it is about fashion that I love so much: I have a bit of an obsession with form & function - I love things that are beautiful and practical in equal measure, and clothes fit that bill. I love that our clothes are an indicator of who we are, how we wish to be regarded by our fellow men. Even someone who purports to have no interest in fashion is still making a statement about who they are by the clothes they choose to wear. Fashion can give real pleasure to people and give us a psychological boost that can change our perception of ourselves. Fashion is therapy, hence the name of our shop. I have had meaningful, life changing conversations over the sale of a pair of jeans and I've made some good friends along the way.


Haute Couture is my passion. Literally meaning high fashion, it is to clothes what Da Vinci is to postcards. Haute couture is a dying area of fashion - too expensive, not enough artisans, not enough patrons - just like fine art. But like fine art, Haute Couture is the stuff of dreams. From such heady creations as those of the late Alexander McQueen, Yves Saint Laurent et al come the latest High Street trends. We need the highest level of fashion design in the industry because without it there is nothing to inspire the next generation of young designers or fuel the voracious appetite of the celebrity emulators.


Louise suggested I start a Therapy Blog so I'm working on that. Let me know what you'd like to see. New trends, problems solved? Let me know!
x






    





Thursday 10 February 2011

Brigadoon aka Petworth, West Sussex

I first came upon Petworth on a beautiful autumn afternoon in 2003. It was 5th November - Guy Fawkes night, and the perfect weather for it - bright and sunny with that special light peculiar to English autumns - clarifying, but more than that. If I hadn't known the season from inside my cosy car, I might have thought it a summer's day - exquisite. And made more so by the glowing wine drop colours of the autumn leaves.


Having no sense of direction, I arrived from Guildford along the London Road only to make a left turn at The Stonemasons roundabout and finally arrive in Petworth via the Chichester road! What a nutter.
When I clambered out of my hire car in the free car park I had no idea where I was. I had arrived in Petworth on my way to see a customer of mine in Chichester. At the time I was working for Chris's wholesale fashion agency in Shepherds Bush, London - out on a road trip in search of new business. My customer in Chichester had recommended I try the town for a new account.


Having emerged from the car park via The Old Bakery into Golden Square, I paused to take in my surroundings. A pretty little square dominated by a large white building housing the local bank, a pretty florist sprouting foliage in the afternoon sun, a row of shops, not a soul in sight.
Eventually I stopped an old lady and asked fro directions to the High Street. "It's there dear, right in front of you." 
And so it was, leading off from the square, a discreet, quiet little street - as quiet as the square by the looks of it. And so I made my way slowly in the sunshine, enjoying the luxury of stretching my legs after the unaccustomed driving. 
I walked half way up the street until I ran out of shops. Still no ladies' boutique and, aware of my time, I turned on my heel intending to return to the car. (I wasn't very good at my job - having no heart for cold calling.)
As I turned I caught sight of a little courtyard down a narrow covered passageway (or Close, as we'd call it in Scotland). Timidly I started down the passage (I really am a wimp when it comes ot doing anything I think I shouldn't) only to come out on a delightful light filled space. Simply decorated with plain planters and gently fading shrubs, it appeared as an oasis of peace. I was moved (literally - too much of a scaredycat to hang around). I returned to my hire car with the thought "I want to live here" swirling around in my head.


Now I'll tell you something - I'm a Towny, I am. I've spent most of my adult life living in either Edinburgh or London. Actually I feel a bit of a cheat referring to Edinburgh as a town, somehow it still feels like a village. But that's probably because I grew up there - my backyard so to speak. But I'm still a Towny. I like my corner shop and I like being in the thick of things.


More to the point, the reason I'm a Towny is because the "country" in Scotland is pretty hardcore. I used to drive the Jenners Saab from Edinburgh down to the Borders to buy men's knitwear from the likes of Pringle and Ballantyne - yummy. Well I used to drive these country roads and I tell you there's feck all out there - I mean nothing - one wee croft stuck at a 45' angle to a hill with a few sheep grazing nearby, knowing that by late October it'll be knee deep in snow and your nearest neighbour is ten miles away. No thank you. Scared the living daylights out of me! Nah, I'm a sociable soul, I don't want ot live in the country.


But I did - I walked down Petworth High Street and I fell in love. Love at first sight - sure as I'm sitting here.


So I drove out on the Chichester Road with such thoughts circling my consciousness and my view saturated with all the glorious colours of the autumn Downs. As I drove over the Downs my thoughts turned to my mum who had died only a month before. I'd been grieving pretty dramatically over the previous week and Chris had sent me out on the road in the desperate hope that it might take my mind off things. I've been a huge fan of therapeutic driving ever since.
With tears in my eyes I said to mum "I wish you were here to see this view." To which came the reply: "I am here, I can see it."


Ooh the hairs on the back of my neck are all prickling just writing the words. I swear it was my mum's voice in my head. I talk to myself enough to know the difference. What inclines me to say that is the effect her words had on me. On hearing her voice I felt this immense sense of calm. Now I meditate and I've done a lot of New Agey stuff, I was brought up on it, so I know the sensation when I feel it and this was like an enormous blanket of calm - my mind was calm, I felt no sorrow, no pain. I knew for certain that everything was indeed "all alright" just as Susan Jeffers said. 
I sailed along engulfed in this serene state through Chichester and on to Bournemouth where I couldn't wait ot check into my B&B and phone Chris.


"Hello darling, how's your day been?"
"We're moving. I've found this place, a little market town, you won't know it. It's called Petworth."
"Petworth? I know Petworth! I practically grew up in Petworth."
"Oh, well we're moving there."
"Well, what are we going to do? We can't commute to London. We'll have to think of something else to do, somewhere we can live over the shop."


And that dear readers is how we came to reside in Petworth. 


And I write this as a warning to any unsuspecting soul who decides to stop and take a look instead of just passing on through. You will not escape. Just like the fairytale Brigadoon which so captivated then captured the young Gene Kelly, Petworth will lure you in with its gentle beauty and sly charm. In the seven years we have lived here I have met many like me who came and couldn't leave - bit like a Sussex version of Hotel California. Well, they were British boys weren't they?


Of course I do intend to leave (or we did, not sure it's possible now - but more of that later) and I wanted my Blog to be a testimonial to this magical town. Now I know. Not only am I an outsider but a foreigner too. I admit I was nervous when we first opened Therapy. I thought that my customers might be scary posh English ladies who would boss me around and treat me badly. (I was moving from London!)


Before any of my lovely customers take offence, let me assure you that this was not the case. The number of difficult customers I've had over the years I could probably count on both hands - not bad for a wee Scottish lass plonking herself down in the wilds of West Sussex. So I'd like to start my Ode to Petworth by saying, on behalf of my husband and I; 


Thank you to everyone who has been a part of our lives here. We have the best, most interesting, funniest, friendliest customers possible and it makes our daily working lives such a pleasure.


Chris has a story he's fond of telling his London best friend Geoff. He says: "I live ten yards from my office but it can take me half an hour to get there in the morning". (In the morning? That'll be right.)
"Why does it take you so long?" (Don't you just love best friends?)
"Because I stop to chat to so many people."


Lovely. And true. Petworth is not like every other Market Town in the Home Counties, no. And shall I tell you why? Because it's full of nutters! Really, it is. Wonderful, colourful, friendly, interesting eccentrics - full of them. I don't know if it's the fact that there are still a lot of local Petworthians living here - families who've lived here for generations. I envy them, how secure would you feel if you could trace your roots every day of your life because you're living them? 


Or maybe it's the plethora of antique shops in the town bringing interesting collectors - characters with lives lived out like an Agatha Christie novel or an episode of Minder?


To be a little more prosaic, I do actually think it's appeal has something to do with its layout and the fact that road vehicles have to pass through Petworth if going north or south between the coast and London. I wonder if the town lays dormant in our minds until one day it creeps into our consciousness and we're hooked? 
Sorry, I'm supposed to be being prosaic amen't I?
Also Petworth is laid out in streets leading off from the main Market Square. it's not just a row of shops on either side of a main thoroughfare like Storrington or Midhurst. We're lucky to have the car park with The Old bakery leading off and into the town centre. It naturally leads walkers round the adjoining streets. Yes, I'm very pleased with Petworth. Thank you. x


PS: Remind me to tell you about my mum's other visits - she's a doozy!














     

Can anyone help?

I want ot know how to move 2 Pages docs from my Macbook & convert them to Word for my PC.
Help!
It serves me right to be honest. I was so excited about my new Blog and the chance to spew in public that I took my Macbook on the train to London. There I was, feeling a bit self conscious and a bit pleased with myself for looking like most of my fellow passengers. It was such a luxury to have an hour and a quarter all to myself... rubbish. Pride comes before a fall and now my spewing is stuck in the ether!
x

The Marriage Bed

In the dark
I can be
whoever
You want me 
to be.


I want you
to be You.
it's you I see
smiling at me
In the dark.


I wrote this wee poem in my head one night, prompted by something my gorgeous hubby said. I liked the way I could move the words around on the page in order to alter the meaning and visually I like the way the 2 sections create the feel of a couple talking in bed before sleep. It's such a beautifully safe and intimate place, the marriage bed. At least my ideal is. 
I love the image the words conjure up for me.
It reminds me of an Isabelle Allende book. I love her books. She's a South Amreican author who wrote House of the Spirits. Like her fellow countryman Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Allende's  stories are thick with layers of imagery, emotion and haunting, ethereal happenings - fab! One of her characters has a huge, ornate wooden marriage bed carved which she takes with her on her voyage to San Francisco. The bed becomes a character in itself, witnessing conception & birth, death & loss - life and love in all its intimate detail.
Inspired by this story to seek out our own marriage bed, I was blessed one day to see a carved walnut head board outside one of our local antique dealers. It turned out ot be a beautiful Napoleonic carved bed. Having dragged Chris along to the shop and made him lie down on the shop floor while I enclosed him in bits of bed, we then decided that it would be the perfect marriage bed and duly carried it across our town square in pieces to reconstruct in our bedroom. 
So this is the context for my little poem. I hope you like it. I love my marriage bed and I love my husband. Kind of the point of poetry isn't it - to be inspired by something or someone enough to want ot express it in this way.
x
  

Wednesday 9 February 2011

On Being Left Handed

I'm a Leftie - not my political leaning, which varies according to my mood and circumstance, but left handed.
Gauche, sinestre, corrie fisted, kak handed, widdershins...shall I go on? Being a bit odd and a woman and left handed, I'd probably have been burnt at the stake in days of yore (still might). But instead I have to live in a right handed world and take my simple left-handed pleasures where I can find them.


So as to give you Righties an idea of what it's like to be left-handed (and I'm not complaining) I'll give you a life in the day of me:


Door handles are in the wrong place - as are knobs & buttons and other generally useful things; scissors (and I use them a lot) dig into the fleshy part of my hand (especially my pinking shears - I've looked at left-handed ones but "left-handed" is like "wedding" prefixed ot anything - expensive - and so far my Scottishness has got the better of my left-handedness); books with a vertical spine are a challenge both to read and to write in. I have never unconsciously flicked through a magazine from front ot back - always the reverse, because I am in reverse.


Writing. You want me to start on writing?! Well I've told you already that I love to write. This is due to my prominent qualities of being cussid & thrawn - but I'll come back to that another time. Suffice to say that, being an awkward wee bugger, I liked the challenge of writing, not just mentally but physically.


I'm lucky enough to be of a generation which was not forced to write with its right hand. But I did get corrected for transposing my letters (fair enough) and also writing a sentence at a 135' angle across the page. It used to drive my teachers crazy, but i couldn't help it!


Shall I explain to you Righties what happens when you're left handed and have to write in a right handed way? Well, reverse it, go on, imagine that instead of pulling the pen across the page, you have to push it. Now imagine that you're trying to do that with the thick spine of a jotter caught under your wrist and causing your pen to slip. Okay, now imagine that the ballpoint pen you're using is a bit smudgy (you know the way Bic medium biros are?) and every time you write a word your hand drags across the words smearing them indelibly...
that is what it's like writing left handed.


Now I'm a bit of an expert on writing left handed because I've done a lot of it. Yes I know that's stating the obvious but I mean I've probably written a lot for a left handed person. 
I loved dictation at school - I was a right swat - and it gave me plenty of time ot practice my writing. Not only my style (which generally consisted of a lot of very curly Ys and Gs) but also the size of my writing. 
You know my mum once had a nightmare where my writing was so small that however hard she tried she couldn't read it. I mean there was real fear on the woman's face when she related it to me! 


Ah but that's not all...I'm fortunate ot have a father who's an engineer, a draughtsman. Yes! Pens! (Am I scaring you now?) Aw come on, when you're left handed, pens are important. So I had all the latest Schtaedler (sic?) models (which I broke too often even to be called regularly) and a range of coloured inks that was the envy of my best friend Suzie.


Now I haven't told you yet but I have a Masters degree in Fine Art. {ooh, I can feel the hairs on the back of my neck twitch as I write those words (being Scottish means not blowing your own trumpet)}. But I tell you now for a reason:


I am a huge Leonardo Da Vinci fan - a fellow Leftie and general genius for whom the term Renaissance Man was coined. I spent a lot of my teen years reading about his life and copying his drawings.
One of the many ideas that Da Vinci had was for mirror writing. Being left handed, he found it easier (and more confidential) to write in reverse. By write in reverse I mean he wrote backwards, with all of his letters turned around so that if you hold it up to a mirror you can read it. Cool, huh?
LIke I said, I did a lot of dictation at school - especially History - and many  a lesson was spent perfecting my mirror writing. While I became not exactly proficient, I did perfect it well enough not only ot be legible but for it to feel natural. I discovered that if I forgot about trying to consciously reverse letters as I wrote and concentrated on letting my pen be pulled across the page from right to left, then a natural rhythm formed and I could write whole sentences easily and without force.
Amazing! It was like writing like a right handed person - so effortless. 


Now did you know that we not only have a preferred hand but a dominant side? Yes. A great man, (another Renaissance Man - and I do not use the term lightly) by the name of Quincy (and no I don't mean Quincy QI!) told me that. Quincy is an Osteomyologist (don't ask me) and a practitioner in Bio Cranial Therapy. Roughly translated it means that I see him every few months and he gives me a good cricking. You you see, he knows.


As a Leftie, my left side is dominant - which means that my heart is strong and my left arm and leg are stronger etc. Of course the whole brain thing is reversed so that if you're a Leftie the right side of your brain is dominant. Now that always sounds to me the more logical side (since right is, well, right). But it's not. The right hemisphere is known to be responsible for areas like spacial awareness, creativity and intuition.


Did you see how I just did that? Said that as if I were stating a fact? Well I have to be honest and confess that my knowledge of the right brain and its functions is fairly minimal...ok that is the sum of my "knowledge". Hey, so what? Isn't that what we spend our lives doing?


I'm bored now. So you don't think the momentum is waning, let me finish with another wee list of Leftie irritations (if only to rouse my brethren to arms..."arms"!.. funny).   


Table settings, vegetable peelers, can openers, zips, computer keyboards, watches (anti clockwise is the way we work), fish knives! (have you any idea how stupid you feel using a fish knife upside down?), cinema seats, lecture tables... What have I forgotten?! 


Ah, what the hell. It's these differences that make us interesting and ensure we're all having the most varied experiences possible on this wee planet. I love my differences and the more I embrace my own, the more I'm inclined to do so for others - 
nae bad for a wee Scottish Leftie.


PS: Some of my left handed pleasures: leaving my mouse on the `"wrong" side of the computer, laying the table the "wrong" way round (I used to get such shit for that!), cutting things out starting from the "wrong" side and then watching a Rightie struggle ot continue, rearranging a desk so that everything is accessible for a Leftie. Hardly revolutionary but sometimes it's the little things that give us the most pleasure...
x























Tuesday 8 February 2011

"Where there's a will there's a won't." law of inertia

That was the one for the scientists. It's bit lame but I'm sure they'll appreciate its topicality. I think scientists get a bad rap - you know, as nerds and dweebs adn boring. But I have been stunned into silence, moved to tears and hurt my sides laughing at some of the things these guys have come up with.


Have you seen "What the Bleep do we Know?"
My sister gave me this film as a wedding present along with a copy of Kalil Ghibran's The Prophet. It is a blinding film and will introduce you to the beauty and possibilities of Quantum Physics. The scientists interviewed were a right hoot! Now I've seen Buddha and I've seen the Dalai Lama and they all have the same look on their faces - sheer bliss. They're pissing themselves most of the time, can barely keep a straight face.


Do you know why the Buddha laughs? Because he knows what it's all about. And so do these Quantum Physicists & Neuroscientists & Endocrinologists. Or at least they're beginning to. And you know what, they seem to be saying much the same as old Buddha there, or Krishna, or Christ.


I do love a good drama, and you don't get better than unravelling the mysteries of life.


Since I'm waffling and this is a scientific spew (writing - I have a drawer in my office labeled "miscellaneous spewing" filled with screeds of paper - figured I might as well spew where people can hear me) let me tell you the story of a worm:


Now about 17 years ago, as a young mother & fashion buyer, I watched an elderly female Biologist describe the life cycle of said worm with such joy and in such simple terms. Not only are the facts delicious in their completeness but the woman was so enthralled by her subject that it was quite mesmerising. So here goes with my hastily scribbled note, and I quote:


" worm - lives under tongue of frog - lays millions of fertilised eggs - the eggs pass thru the frog's body and into the water where they develop long hair-like protrusions (worms) and swim about. 
Meets a water snail & with its "beak" imbeds itself in the snail - eats the snail's liver & releases millions of tiny worms back into the water.
The tiny worm sinks to the bottom of the pond & retracts into its own tail, then produces fern like protrusions that wave about to attract the attention of a cyclops (water flea).
When the flea tries to eat the worm it shoots itself out of its tail at high speed into the intestine and then body cavity of the flea where it lives quietly..."


(Too effing right it needs a rest - it must be bloody knackered!)  


"...The flea is then eaten by a Dragonfly larva and the worm transfers itself to the larva. The larva grows into a Dragonfly and the Dragonfly is eaten by a frog. The worm then crawls back up the gut of the frog until it reaches the tongue and starts again."


I found that in my old Filofax, I used to bore everyone I met with that...and now I can bore you!
Still, it is beautiful - I mean a beautiful example of the way life works - perfectly.


Ah, that sounds like the end of a children's bedtime story so on that note I will say goodnight.
x













Monday 7 February 2011

"People don't see the world as it is, but as they are."

Isn't that great? I got it off a calendar that one of my suppliers sent me for Christmas. hey that doesn't sound too good does it?! Sounds like a line from Trainspotting. I mean one of my homewares wholesale suppliers.


Want ot hear another one? (i have a backlog - I was in Edinburgh last week visiting my family)
"It's important that people know what you stand for. It's equally important that they know what you won't stand for." Mary Waldrop.


I'm keeping the next one for all you scientists out there.


It's true though, we need to understand both sides of that great quote. You see that's why we humans try different things all the time. It's why kids (of whatever age) never listen to their parents when they tell them to "do as I say, not as I do".
What I've learnt is that we have to experience both sides of an option in order to make an informed choice. We need to try it out for ourselves in order to make a choice.
Where we try it out is another issue.


Did you know that the human brain is the most complex structure in this known universe? yeah, well, put that in your pipe and smoke it.


Did you know also that the human brain doesn't differentiate between what the eyes see adn what the brain imagines?
Wild isn't it?
That's why athletes do the whole visualising the win thing. Because it works. Scientists have proved that the same muscles in the body are activated when an athlete visualises a race as when he actually runs it.
As a mother it's a bit scary though. I have 3 sons and I know the stuff they watch. Ah but that's where the whole experiencing thing comes in.
the difference between ordinary people and mass murderers and Nobel Prize winners is that we thought it and they did it.
Choice.
It's all about choice.
x

this week I will be mostly talking about...country music

I'm writing this on my Apple Macbook...ooh posh! I know. I persuaded my husband to let me buy one because I needed it for my writing and stuff (it's always stuff, isn't it?).


Anyway, he's even worse than me about computers, so although I told him the price twice (quietly), he didn't really have a clue what I was on about.


Now I'm a bit of a spender. It's my profession. No, I mean it, seriously...will you men stop laughing! I am a woman and I have also spent my professional life as a fashion buyer.
Will you stop laughing!!


So, my step son Jack & I go off to the Apple store in Chichester where a very helpful young man (oh my God, I'm getting old. I don't want to be old enough to be calling men in their twenties "young"!) sold us a computer.


It's very shiny and quite heavy and I found a crystal encrusted mouse in Next - I mean it's actually shaped like a mouse with ears n everything - and it all looks very smart.
But I can't use it. Or at least I haven't much since I got it last July. Chris went mad when Jack and I got back and told him how much it cost. I mean snake. Of course I was able ot say with impunity "but I told you how much it was", the way we women do. And I knew it would be alright, he loves me.
So I thought i'd better make it earn it's keep.


so, Country Music:
Don't you just love it? Lyle Lovett. Lyle Lovett is my hero (as well). One of my best girlfriends, Ian, introduced me to Lyle. Thanks Ian. Ian is a boy, but I have given him the status of Girlfriend ot convey just how close a friend he is. He's a girlfriend because he's always there for me, even though he's married now and lives a plane ride away; because he thinks the same way as I do and puts it so much better; because he's an artist and will give me an honest opinion when I ask him "does my bum look big in this?" Great.


Lyle Lovett has one of the sexiest voices I have ever heard. If a man sang to me like Lyle does, he'd get my knickers off. (That's a figure of speech guys.) His voice is melodic and soulful and gravelly; his tunes are heavenly...and his lyrics have me howling with laughter.


"fat babies have no pride" "penguins are so sensitive...to my needs" "I need to impress her cos I want to undress her. Sing a song about Sonya..." "the judge pronounced us 99 to life, that's no lady that's my wife"


He was married to Julia Roberts for a wee while and I seem to remember him having a cameo in a Robert Altman film. He's nae braw, as we'd say in Scotland, but he sure can make sweet music.
Of course I'm biased because I love cowboys. My first love was Stuart Grainger in The High Chapperal (sic).
Here's another line from Lyle: "God will but I won't, God does but I don't. That's the difference between God and me". He's singing it to a cheatin lover. Cool.


I'm concerned that my blogs are too long. Is that like worrying that your underskirt is too long? Does anyone wear underskirts any more? Weren't they bloody awful.


So I'm going to sign off and come back in a minute.
x



Welcome kind readers!

Welcome,
to my discriminating (and probably faithful) viewing several.
Thank you all of you for continuing to encourage & inspire me.

My name is Laura, and the rest of me you'll hopefully discover as we go along. One thing I will say is that I am both dyslexic and, while not exactly computer-illiterate, I'm not Christina Hendricks...mind you, she probably can't type either.
My dyslexia combined with poor typing means that I spend a lot of my time transposing my letters. This is mostly restricted to words like to, for, and, is etc (yes, that one too). So they become ot, fro, si, ect. it drives me insane having to correct them all the time, although there's probably an easy way to sort it. It's the doing it that's irritating.
If you guys can live with it and can remember what the words are, then I might just leave them as they are. What do you think? Perhaps I can try it and you can tell me if it's too distracting.

I am nervously entering the world of Blogs for a number of reasons. But the main one is so that I can practice my writing - find my voice, so to speak.
I have written as far back as I can remember. I found a scrap of newspaper recently. My Grandma must have given it to me. It was a photo of me aged 7 standing in front of a television in my school uniform, holding a poem.
I had won a poetry competition with conservation as its theme. Now at 7 I wasn't much of a conservationist - other than persuading my 2 brothers not to pull the legs off spiders - but I did love to write. I can see in the photo that I had my mum's foam curlers in the night before ready for my big break. My poker straight hair has already rebelled and is sticking out at a 60' angle, looking most odd. 

My love of words is due in huge part to my beloved and now dearly departed mother, Ann. (I'll tell you all about her death one day - it was an incredible experience). My mum was unusual in many ways & she was quite a feminist. Not so unusual in the late Sixties? Well she had kids and did the whole housewife, hostess bit, but she raised me and my 2 brothers as feminists. Oh, and my dad. He was a civil engineer working for a timber company and travelling all over the world, in the days when not a lot of people did that. He was still expected to pull his weight round the house.

Now figure this: My 2 brothers are both extremely well rounded men. My older brother reared 3 sons single handedly for many years. My younger bro is married and takes charge of all household formalities, small and large.

Now me, I'm not so good. I have a mouse mat which reads: "I understand the concept of cooking & cleaning. Just not as it applies to me." That's me. I'm from the school of "can cook, won't cook".

Yes I am married, yes I'm a mother and yes I know how to do all the neccessary housey things. But I avoid them in creative ways that would make a child proud.
Do you know what my trick is in a supermarket? Now I really do have this happen so I'm not totally evil:
Whenever I walk into a supermarket I get this white noise in my head. Even if I have a list, I stand there trying to adjust and trying to remember why I'm there. Then I start wandering around looking at random things and picking them up and getting distracted by special offers. Then I pick up maybe two things on my list, a whole basket full of complete rubbish (by that I mean chocolate and wine - it's always chocolate & wine), then I try to find the end of the queue (it's always long) and decide that I'm so bored I've lost the will to live and I abandon my basket and leave.

Is this sounding familiar to a lot of you?! I bet. Well, I'm lucky enough (clever enough) to be married to an efficient, self sufficient man who is also skilled in household things. Not only is he great at DIY and enjoys grocery shopping (ok,so it's cheaper & quicker than letting me go), he also loves to cook.

He loves to cook because his last wife was also a very good cook and wouldn't let him in the kitchen.
Now, you divorcees out there consider this: (and I speak from hard won experience) Sometimes it's helpful to look at what we can find to be thankful for in our new "extended family". I have finally been able to thank my step sons' mother for raising such fine young men and also for providing me with a husband who is happy to do all the cooking. See, divorce doesn't have to be all bad!

You've probably worked out that I jump around a lot. I always have - mentally and physically. My darling Grandma Jose (my mum's mum - 100 in August!) used to say I had ants in my pants. She also had another less ladylike phrase - "you're running around like a blue arsed fly!"
Like my hero and fellow Scot, Billy Connelly (sic), I have a propensity to flit from one subject ot another. It has gotten me into a lot of trouble I can tell you. I'll give you an example (and yes I am blushing):
I once, in the middle of making love to my first husband, said out loud "I must check to see if the washing's done". Yes I really did.
I can hear all you women out there laughing and thinking about the times you've nearly done similar.
Hey you men out there! When women tell you they're good at multi-tasking what they really mean is that they'll be thinking about the kids' sports day next time you're shagging.

You know that thing when your thoughts and mouth bypass your brain? Mm hm, I'm really good at that. For those of you reading who know me - I try very hard nowadays to keep my brain engaged in the present moment, but sometimes it doesn't work - sorry.)

I am thinking of adopting an idea from The Fast Show. Remember, Paul Whitehouse etc? Too funny. "better than that..." and "you ain't seen me" and "brilliant!!"
Well, what about "this week I will mostly be... The character was a bit of a village idiot who dressed like an early 20th Century farm hand and lived in a shed. Every week he'd come out of his shed and say things like: "This week I will mostly be... wearing Yves Saint Laurent" or "this week I will mostly be... supporting the Conservative Party". Hilarious.

Well perhaps I could do "today I will mostly be blogging about..." and try to stick to it. Do you think that's a good idea?
I have no idea if I'm capable of focusing on one thing for that long without getting bored.

Since I haven't actually posted this, it's somewaht immaterial - so here goes! (I'm holding my nose)
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