Can I speak to the home owner?

So I have had a bit of a weird fortnight. It was payday on last Tuesday and I celebrated by buying a bottle of wine…. Oh, and losing my purse. That was fun. I have my replacement cards and a new purse now but it looks so sad and empty without all the loyalty cards and all the general tat that I’ve yet to replace. 

But the big news of the week was - - - OUR OFFER WAS ACCEPTED AND WE ARE (hopefully, touch all the wood) BUYING A HOUSE! Provided all goes well and the bank agree to give us the mortgage and all that stuff... I am convinced that it will all go wrong. I'm just going to prepare myself for the worst and do what I'm told by the bank and the solicitors and everyone. There should definitely be a better, simpler way to deal with house buying but I suppose they like so keep it confusing and mysterious so they can keep charging more and more money for things. This week has been an incredibly stressful crash after the excitement of last week. We had a problem which meant we couldn't go ahead with the first bank we had approached - due to their stupidity rather than a problem on our part. But this meant we had to start the process again. I nearly had a full breakdown this week before we made our mortgage application. I just keep reminding myself that it will all be ok in the end, even if we don't get the mortgage we won't die or have to live on the streets. 

I have been distracting myself by.....

Reading 

Girl Trouble: Panic and Progress in the History of Young Women by Carol Dyhouse

Isn't this cover magnificent? I have only read a little of this, I am dipping in and reading a chapter at a time. The first chapter about white slavery was fascinating. The public became so whipped up into a frenzy of fear about white slavery that a whole generation of women lived in fear that they would be kidnapped at any moment. The cause of white slavery was taken on by suffrage campaigners and anti-suffrage campaigners alike, the panic over white slavery coincided with the growing women’s suffrage movement, and there was even a special department set up at Scotland Yard. However it was a panic over something that didn’t really exist, at least not in the way the public were lead to imagine. There were young women in sex work and there has been sexual exploitation as long as there have been humans, but the type of kidnap an exploitation described in the popular press and sensational novels of the period simply did not exist. It makes you wonder how often this type of baseless moral panic has happened and how often it still happens to this day. 

Watching 

Miss Fisher Murder Mysteries - Netflix 

Set in the 1920s about lady detective Phryne Fisher. She a total babe with a perfect bob and excellent lipstick. Phryne Fisher marches around Melbourne saving young women from terrible situations, solving murders and having sex with beautiful men. I know I’m not the first person ever to watch this but I have to confess I was slightly put off because it’s set in Australia and I was worried it would be all dusty and like a Jazz Age Home and Away. It is not and I feel bad for even thinking it. 

Drinking 

Vanilla Chai 

When one of my co-workers left for a new job and she left behind her collection of tea. One of these teas was Vanilla Chai. I tried it just because I was curious about how it would taste but I thought it would smell nicer than it tasted and be disappointingly twig flavoured. Perhaps expecting things to be disappointing makes them tastier? Either way, the stuff smelled like a Yankee Christmas candle and tasted cosy and comforting. Vanilla chai is the kind of thing that should be enjoyed while wearing Christmas leggings on the sofa and watching a costume drama and the terrible weather outside. I am getting seriously Christmassy. I have already made two Christmas decorations!

Good Afternoon

I was supposed to conclude October with a post on the 31^st with a little update and a celebration of the end of my 11 hour days at work… I didn't really manage that and then Paul fractured a bone in his foot and I became a tired house elf for a week while I did every household task that involved standing.

So here's a belated update on my life.

In mid-October I went to New Market with some old friends to meet another old friend who now lives in New Zealand.

Here is the selfie I made us take in a windy multi-story car park:

We've all been friends since primary school and we've not been all together since Issi's last visit to the uk when we were 18. But the strangest part of the day was how natural it felt to be together. It doesn't matter that we don't spend whole weeks together at school, or that we don't get to see each other as often as we should, we all still get on and tease each other for the same reasons we always did. 

I think this day marked the beginning of the intensification of my Christmas excitement which has already caused me to buy and eat these:

I spent the weekend dressed in what Primark so beautifully (and rightfully) labelled a "smock" with my very sexy woolly penguin leggings underneath. This is how I intend to dress until the end of the winter.

Each month brings a new Lucky Dip Club box and October's was diner themed and contained this golden doughnut necklace:

I wish I could say that this is the only jewellery I bought this month but that would be a massive lie...

Here are the books, blogs, tv shows, films and music I've read, watched and listened to over the last month:

Reading/Listening
1) I have become hooked on Serial and listened to all the episodes so far within 24 hours.
2) I listened to The Monogram Murders and Little Face both by Sophie Hannah, courtesy of my Dad's audible account
3) I've been reading Carol by Patricia Highsmith on the bus into work 
4) Bad Feminist by Roxanne Gay
5) I also listened to Lady Susan by Jane Austen from the library's awesome and freee audiobook app. Lady Susan is brilliant. Hilariously funny and, to use my favourite granny phrase, Lady Susan is no better than she should be.
6) She & Him's version of Time after Time from their new album that isn't out till December 

Watching
1) I've give the Gilmore Girls a bit of a wee rest, mostly because it's getting to the angsty bit with all the heartbreak and boat-stealing.
2) My friend from New Zealand told me about a really depressing film called Once Were Warriors and a work friend (who happens to be from New Zealand) lent it to me. The film is brilliant but incredibly harrowing. I wept throughout.
3) Paul and I have begun watching 1 Harry Potter film per week ready to watch the last one with my family on Christmas Eve. This is making me extremely happy.

New Blog Crushes
These are some blogs I've recently discovered
Ella Masters - Ella is an illustrator who sells prints and awesome bags and tshirts (like this) her blog is full of tips for creative people and lifestyle posts.
Miss West End Girl - Lynsay is a awesome Glaswegian blogger who wears awesome clothes and feeds my obsession with Scotland. 
Lemon Freckles - cute lifestyle blog written by Toni who has blue hair and lives in Sheffield 

Like sand through the hourglass, so are the Gilmores of our lives…

SO it's October, huh? Where did that come from? Time, you merciless bastard…..

Anyway... So the internet has gone crazy with Gilmore Girl lists and quizzes and trivia because as of 1^st October, the entirety of the Gilmore Girls is on US Netflix. This means that I, the owner of the entire series on DVD, have begun to binge watch as soon as the news came out. It has become my life. Luckily Paul, who claimed it hate GG when it was originally on, seems to be softening and actually enjoying it this time round! This means that I don't need to feel bad about commandeering the TV. Bake off? What Bake off? I really have been watching Gilmore Girls constantly. The other day Paul was out and I didn't want to start the next season without him, and I was trying to think of something else to watch when I suddenly remembered Netflix. This is home Gilmore-obsessed I have become.

I really really love Gilmore Girls. My last couple of weeks have been: Work – Gilmore Girls – Bed – Work – Pub- Gilmore Girls – Bed – Repeat.

However, there has been the odd moment when I've been torn away from the sofa...

These are the things I've been watching/reading/listening to when forced to be be separate from Gilmore Girls:

• The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie by Muriel Spark audiobook from the library. Read by Miriam Margoyles. Brilliant.
• Fresh Meat on Netflix – This is especially weird when I remembered that my younger brother is closer to this than me.
• Animals by Emma Jane Unsworth – I've been reading this for a million years and I'm not massively enjoying it. I just can't care about the characters.
• Letters between Six Sisters edited by Charlotte Mosley

Other exciting news from my week:

I made this fox sleepmask from a kit in the September Lucky Dip Club Box:

 
But, by far the best thing that has happened to me this week is discovering how wonderful it is to get stuff delivered to collection points. Thanks to Amazon Prime trials (yea, I know Amazon is evil, but what can you do?) and the pick-up point that's less than 5 mins from my house, I can order books one day and collect them on my way home from work on the next. It's much better than having to try and collect them from the impossible to find the royal mail collection place or organise redelivery for a day I'll be in.

Here are the books I ordered:


I've already started Pretty Honest and Bad Feminist and they are both Awesome. The whole title for the third book is Girl Trouble: Panic and Progress in the History of Young Women. Which sounds really interesting. I hadn't heard anything about it but the title alone is awesome and it has tattoo-style cover art.

How is it September already?

A day late. (I wrote this on Monday.. It's now a million days late due to internet issues)
What has happened to me over the last week or so?

I had two days off and I spent one of them the best way you could possibly spend a day – at IKEA. We bought a table so that we can be civilised and have people round – very key for our Margot and Jerry aspirations. On the second day I went to see Lucy. It was nuts. I don't have anything else to say other than that.

Other than that I have been carrying on with my normal life: trying to decide what to be when I grow up, eating lots of carbs, trying to decide what so do with my hair, wearing lipstick. I had a nice weekend – on Saturday I convinced myself to buy a satchel in TK Max for NaNoWriMo purposes (what else will I carry my laptop in?!) and I went to the birthday party of an old friend who I don't see enough of any more. Sunday was spent feeling insanely tired and eating hash browns.

I have managed to give the Freya North audiobooks a break. There are only so many times you can listen to the same story over and over again. This week I chose to have my heart almost broken by Persuasion. It is such a breathtakingly beautiful book. I know this and yet I am amazed each time I re-read it.

Now that September has begun, I am itching to wear jumpers and boots. GOD I LOVE AUTUMN. I am also getting quite Christmassy. I have submitted my leave requests for Christmas, and we have made our Christmas plan so I know where I will be over the Christmas period. I'm not going to lie, I'm pretty excited about it getting colder. I can't wait to smell that special, exciting cold smell you get at night. In my excitement I have made a list of all the things I want to do this autumn and winter.

This is my to-do list for Autumn/Winter 2014:

Eat munchkin pumpkins
Watch fireworks
Finally hold housewarming parties
Have amazing and properly planned Halloween outfit for the first time ever
Win NaNoWriMo
Get some awesome new ankle boots
Go for long, cold walks in the countryside and then thaw out In front of a fire in a lovely old pub
Eat as many casseroles as possible
Watch lots of costume dramas
Enjoy silly seasonal drinks
Make a Christmas playlist
Watch a Harry Potter film each week in the lead up to Christmas
Have Elf day
Go the BUST Christmas Craftacular
Visit a garden centre for cheesy Christmas fun
Go to Liberty and be dazzled by their Christmas shop
Get a new Christmas jumper
Get Paul and I Christmas mugs
Get one of these hair clips from Crown and Glory (and/or maybe this or this)
Make Christmas decorations
Watch Christmas specials of everything – especially The Good Life
Have a Christmas party with games and mince pies and over emotional singing to the Pogues. 

I am really quite desperately excited!

Another week...or two...

Most of my week was marred by a separation. It has been very difficult but I am pulling through now that we have been reunited. I left my iPad at my parents' house after the bank holiday and it took until Thursday for us to be reunited.
But I shall focus on the good things that have happened.

1. My Lucky Dip Club box arrived and included this: 
   
2. I got to spend a large amount of the weekend eating melted cheese and hanging out at my parents' house alone. It was awesome. Like old times but without the depression and soul-destroying rejection.
3. I watched most of the first season of Twin Peaks – a tv malfunction messed this up for me but I got paid this weekend and treated myself to the boxset...
4. On the rainy bank holiday Monday I watched Frozen at last. I loved it.
5. I did a ballet workout from YouTube. I think YouTube is my favourite thing ever. I was really hard but also extremely amusing and because I was alone and not anywhere near a reflective surface I could pretend that I was graceful
6. I had some mussels for the first time ever

7. I got a revlon colorburst matte balm in shameless which looks like this and leaves awesome marks on faces and mugs 
   

Main things I'm looking forward to:

1. Paul and I are having a teeny tiny trip away because we didn't have a properly holiday so we fancied a trip away together.
2. From this week I won't be at work for more than 2 days in a row for three weeks. 
3. Possible IKEA trip in the future. 
4. AUTUMN 
5. Watching more TWIN PEAKS my boxset arrived today (thank you Amazon Prime) 
   

The week that nothing really happened…

This week felt long. Far too long. It felt like it was about three months long. This weekend has been about 5 minutes.
I think it's because it has been a pretty boring week. I had no impromptu dinner parties. I had no trip to the pub and I didn't discover a new life mantra.
I have:

• Continued to listen to trashy romance audiobooks. My current one is about a medieval girl who is pretending to be a boy so she can go to Cambridge. I think she may soon been discovered by the rather dishy man who has taken her in…
• Bought a new handbag and Tatty Devine necklace because I am a reckless spendthrift

• I have hennaed (?) my hair. I can't see a lot of difference but my work friend went "I can see it! Your hair has some life!" so that is a positive review.
• I tried to write some blog posts. I have half-written a few…
• I have taken a couple of selfies!



Particularly sexy face here..

• I have read Lucy AitkenRead's Happy Hair book about giving up shampoo and it has really interested me because I have hippy tendencies and really want nice hair. If I could get gorgeously thick, healthy hair for very little effort I should be very well pleased. I am just going to start by washing my hair less and using less shampoo and see if I can stand it.
• I have been thinking a lot about becoming one of those brave people who cycle round Oxford. I am petrified but I am planning on doing some cycling proficiency for grown-ups so that I feel confident, and don't piss everyone off/die as I negotiate the horror that is the roundabout after Magdalen Bridge. I would be so proud if I could actually do it without death, not to mention fit and rich.

Hopefully the coming week will be a little more thrilling. We are seeing some friends for dinner tomorrow night so that will break the doooom of Monday.
This week I am going to put a lot more effort into my work wear. Our department has a stupidly strict dress code which feels like school uniform and makes it easy to wear boring, drab clothes everyday. I vow to book interesting this week!

My Week

Copying Laura, I have decided to write a weekly Sunday post about my week. I am trying to blog again. I have lots of ideas for posts I want to write but I am always over think it and stop posting. I once wrote a massive essay about cupcake feminism and craft and stuff – but then I spent so much time writing it and then re-reading it… and then printing it out so I could write on it with pen that it never happened.
Stuff that has happened this week:

• I attended a vigil for Gaza. I thought there would be candles and speeches but there was a flag and complete silence.
• I finally went to the Turf Tavern with someone from work. I drank a ridiculously expensive g&t and tried to explain to him that Jane Eyre is a feminist masterpiece and probably the greatest novel of all time. On the way back I found a wall with I <3 INTERSECTIONALITY chalked on it. It wouldn't show in a photo but it was awesome.
• I got to go to the dump for the first time. Something I found exciting because I am an idiot.
• Found out that I am actually pretty good at my job… even though I find it deathly dull and it has brought out my already very strong misanthropic tendencies.
• Adopted this as my motto: I believe in music and gin and joy and talking too much, and human kindness.(from How to Build a Girl by Caitlin Moran) TBH this already a pretty good summary of my belief system… except for the human kindness part…
• Had a lovely impromptu dinner party with a friend

Resolutions for next week:

• Finally henna my hair. I have been meaning to do this for about 6 months. I was going to do it today but then I had an impromptu dinner to cook and although our guest was an old friend, I thought it would be weird to spend the evening with my hair wrapped in cling film.
• Finally take advantage for one of my work benefits and join the gym at a really cheap rate so I can go swimming all the time.
• Sort out box room so it can become awesome office of dreams.
• Start taking more selfies. I want more pictures of meee (I'm vain like that). I see so many bloggers who have cute pictures of themselves everywhere I want this tooo. I always look shit in photos but I think it's a case of practice makes perfect.
• Wear better outfits – especially to work. Partly for the sake of the aforementioned selfies, and partly because I want to look more awesome in daily life!
• Write blog posts on How to Build a Girl, Landline, The Punk Singer and more

Laters... hopefully with some of those magical things called photos!