More plans…

For someone who wasn’t going to make any resolutions for 2009, I seem to be making an awful lot of plans to do things differently this year. Today’s effort is the result of a lot of thought about how my daily life could be improved. So, without further ado (but maybe a little drumroll, just for good measure), I proudly unveil my new star chart:

I reckon if they work for 3-year-olds, they should work for 35-year-olds. The only downer is that, due to my ‘use what you have’ resolution, I won’t be getting gold stars or Snoopy stickers or any other glitter-based adhesive encouragement. Instead, I’ll just be using a pen and making a boring old tick. I plan to use this chart until my new daily routine has become habit.

I’m a bit embarrassed to admit to what each image represents because if you do a bit of reverse-engineering a picture emerges of my current daily life which isn’t altogether flattering. But, what the heck, here goes:

• Toaster – Eat breakfast
• Lady – Get dressed properly
• Folder – Do some work
• Clouds/sun – Go outside
• Chef – Have a proper lunch
• Pen – Write some of my novel
• Bed – Relax (i.e. have a little nap)

If I do all of these things consistently, I should be much healthier and happier – and random  visitors won’t know what’s hit them when they knock on the door at 2 p.m. to find that I’ve given up wandering around in my pyjamas leaving a little trail of biscuit crumbs in my wake.

It’s Resolution Time

I’m usually a sucker for New Year’s resolutions, but this year I’m taking a different approach. Instead of giving something up or starting something else, I am just going to stick to one simple mantra:

“Use what you already have”

As well as being in tune with the current economic times, it is also a way to keep me on the path I have planned for 2009 without wandering off down little interesting-looking alleyways and suchlike.

For example, the house is still not finished and I have lots of materials for planned projects which I haven’t started, because of my habit of planning future projects rather than getting on with existing plans. Also, along slightly different lines, this mantra should help get the first draft of my book finished (as I won’t have the excuse of waiting for the day when I wake up and find I am suddenly brilliant at dialogue – instead, I’ll just have to work with the skills I’ve got and assess what needs to be improved once the initial draft is done).

So that’s me resolved. Happy New Year everyone!

Monkeying around

I’ve wanted to make a sock monkey for a while and, tonight, I did. Following the instructions here, I came up with this:

He found things a bit traumatic during the first couple of hours of his life. I think he was pining for the jungle…

But after a little nap in the fruit bowl…

… he perked up a bit and posed nicely for a photograph:

Tomorrow, he is going to be wrapped up and given to his new owner. I think they will be very happy together.

Saying “Yes” to “No” or “No” to “Yes” or something

Sorry about that – I only popped out of the blogosphere momentarily to do a few errands and, whoosh, three months went by. A lot of what sidetracked me was work (two museum exhibitions, three reams of paper’s worth of research reports and some political work), but I have also spent some time reorganising my life so things will look very different in 2009. 

In September, I read a book called Yes Man, in which the author chronicles his year of saying ‘yes’ to everything. It’s a humourous book, but also has the message “how much more fun life would be if we all said ‘yes’ to random things”. I enjoyed it very much, giggled a lot and, somewhat perversely, came out the end of it with the firm resolution that 2009 was going to be my Year of “No”. This is because the Way of “Yes” has not worked for me. I’m tired of being tired, of putting my own goals (specifically writing my novel) behind those of others (specifically people who want to give me money in return for me doing stuff for them) and never having the energy to really engage with the people I care about. As I am in the very fortunate position to be able to thumb my nose at the credit crunch, ’tis time for a change.

So, over the last few months I have been purging clients willy-nilly, clearing out junk and spending all my spare cash on getting people in to fix my unfinished DIY projects. I am now left with one client, no voluntary commitments, very little unpainted wood, a happy husband and a blissfully blank diary for 2009, which I am going to fill with:

• 12 hours of paid work a week (and sticking to a strict budget accordingly)
• writing my novel (finally)
• making Pretty Things (or Ugly Things That Were Fun To Make)
• spending time with friends (real, virtual* and imaginary) and family (only real, I believe)
• … and nothing else**

* I have so much catching up on blogs to do – sorry for being so rudely absent.

** Small print: The Year of “No” does not apply to offers of tea, toast or chocolate, or any other act which may by construed, correctly or otherwise, as an act of friendship.

Oh dear

It’s almost bedtime on Sunday night and yet another weekend has gone by without me posting anything. I’ve been too busy enjoying the sunshine (and wilting somewhat in the heat) this weekend to even contemplate switching my laptop on. I do feel bad because I haven’t caught up with anyone’s blogs for the past week and my section of Word World is just an empty building site. Sorry!

I think, realistically, this situation isn’t going to change for a while, so I should probably just admit that things are going to be quite around here, which means that Arsenic-on-Thames is officially for sale. Any takers?  Hopefully, I’ll catch up with what you’ve all been up to later on this week, but right now I’m off to bed. Night night.

Arsenic-upon-Thames

I’m taking a quick lunch break and I thought I’d better post something in case anyone is imagining that dark things have befallen me. They haven’t, I’ve just been using my brain up to its full capacity with work and have had to give the blog a rest. However, as I was munching my sandwich a minute ago, I finally chose the name for my murder mysteries area. This is obviously inspired by people’s previous comments – thanks everyone for your input.

I liked Arsenic-upon-Tyne but the Tyne is not a river generally found in Agatha Christie land. She was much more of a River Thames kind of girl, so I have gone with the altogether more posh Arsenic-upon-Thames. (It’s pronounced ‘Temms’ for anyone wondering). Now I just have to come up with my interactive experience. I’ll be back…

Word World

I’ve been trying to think of a name for my area in Word World – alliteration seems to be the way to go but I haven’t come up with anything great. The two options at the moment are “Villainy Village” and “The Cyanide Sphere”. What do you think?

Word World: Destination Unknown

I have decided to call my signature ride for my still-as-yet-untitled murder mysteries area for Word World “Destination Unknown” after the Agatha Christie novel of the same name. I may have gone a bit over the top here, but I hope you will bear with me. I just couldn’t stop…

The ride starts at a wooden ticket office, decorated with posters advertising bus tours to the English seaside and stately homes. The carriage interiors are designed to resemble a vintage bus and there is a driver figure in shadow at the front. Visitors are greeted by a cheerful bus conductor who stamps their tickets and helps them into the carriage. The ride starts slowly, along a gentle winding track through quaint cobbled streets lined with cheery cottages whose inhabitants are gossiping over fences and trimming hedges while children play hopscotch and sing nursery rhymes (specifically “Hickory Dickory Dock”). There is birdsong playing. 

Soon the ride comes to a village green with striped tents, a Punch & Judy show, a tombola spilling with prizes and a brass band knocking out cheery tunes. The ride speeds up, getting faster and faster. A rumble of thunder is heard in the distance and then… crack! Lightning strikes and the ride comes to an abrupt halt in pitch darkness. A voice is heard shouting in the distance, “There’s a body in the library!” (only it is said in such OTT Queen’s English that it sounds like “Thah’s a bod-eh! In tha ley-bree!”). 

It starts raining. Suddenly, loud creaky windscreen wipers start screeching furiously at the front of the carriage and the ride is off again, faster than ever, careering around corners and dodging giant plastic red herrings swinging like pendulums. Plaintive voices cry out things like “Oh, Humphrey!” and “Gladys, are you there, Gladys?”, interspersed with piercing screams and running footsteps.  

With every crack of lightning a tableau is illuminated – a vicar hanging from a rope as a bell tolls, a woman slumped on the table with a knife in her back at a dinner party, an evil-looking housekeeper stirring a cake and cackling while green smoke rises from the bowl, a man in cricket whites with a cricket stump through his head, a butler lying on a staircase in a pool of blood … et cetera … et cetera … 

The rain starts to ease and the ride slows to a gentle pace as the light levels increase. The brass band pipes up again, but the music is slow and distorted. The ride passes a giant mirror cracked from side to side, a ticking clock stuck at ten to five and a large bottle of sparkling liquid labelled “Cyanide”. 

Turning a corner, the ride is at a replica of the village green. The sun is shining and the astroturf glistens from the rain, but the tents have blown over and the tombola prizes are scattered across the ground. The bus stops in front of a giant front door…

Silence…

…a lady’s voice: “Hullo? St Mary Mead 236?”…. and a man’s: “Mon Dieu! Zee leetle grey cells, ‘Astings, zee leetle grey cells!” The door flings open and the ride zooms through, coming to an abrupt halt again in a room decorated with oversized tables and chairs and a giant aspidistra. Two giant automated figures (fifteen feet tall or bigger) stand each side of a red velvet curtain – one a portly man in a pinstriped suit, chuckling and twirling his handlebar moustache and the other an old lady clickety-clack knitting while her eyes twinkle (quite literally – LEDs, perhaps?) above her half-moon spectacles. The curtains draw back to reveal the outside world and the ride ends at the entrance to Ye Olde Post Office and Gifte Shoppe. 

Doors Galore

I think I promised pictures of doors this weekend, didn’t I? Well, here they are. The new ones aren’t painted because I have decided to put off all painting until the very end as all the painting I have done so far has got trashed in the wake of further DIY. 

This is the landing upstairs (I was standing on the stairs with my back squashed against the wall when I took these photos. It’s a very small space!)

(from left to right: my wardrobe, the study, the bathroom)

(from left to right: the bedroom, my wardrobe)

This is the new front door. It is a stable door, which should be great for letting the air and sunshine in without worrying about security. At the moment though, it is awaiting all sorts of decisions on my part about locks, bolts, cat flaps and other hardware. And also about colour. It will be white on the inside, but what colour to paint the outside? This is a decision that links in with Garden Therapy and is one decision too far for my poor little brain at the moment.

Finally, does this count as a door? 

This is a little door/hatch/thingy I made for the kitchen (it’s on the left just as you walk in) to enable access to the pipe which drains all the radiators. It is held in place by magnetic catches and is opened by inserting an allen key into the hole and yanking. I am stupidly pleased with this and hopefully it will blend in well once it is painted. The photo also shows the skirting boards I finally got around to fitting throughout the downstairs.

My next door project is to make some doors for this space at the end of the bath:

I have the wood, so I might make a start this afternoon.

Welcome to Literature Land!

Having accepted Wende’s challenge to contribute to the design of the Literature Land theme park, I now have to come up with ideas for my English Murder Mysteries area. This section will rely heavily on the works of Agatha Christie and Dorothy L. Sayers and has the aim of exploring the various methods of murder that can be carried out in a civilised manner on a quiet Sunday afternoon.

I haven’t come up with a suitable title for my area, yet – suggestions are welcome – but here are my answers for the first task set by Wende, which is to define one’s audience. Aside from the obvious murder mystery buffs, the main groups are:

Dysfunctional families – The English murder mysteries section will provide an outlet for expressing repressed feelings of hatred and loathing towards family members in a safe and attractive environment. At Literature Land it will be possible to threaten to poison your mother-in-law or garrotte your offspring and be greeted by joyful laughter all round (including from said mother-in-law or offspring).

Desperate Housewives – the attraction here is two-fold: the Desperate Housewife can glean decorating tips from the quaint domesticity underlying the whole area whilst making comforting notes on alternative uses for mangles, bell ropes, knitting needles, fruit cakes, etc. 

Anglophiles* – particularly those for whom an actual visit to England would be inadvisable lest they find the village green littered with discarded syringes, the Post Office boarded up due to government cut-backs and the rectory inhabited by an openly gay progressive vicar who heads her own rock band for Sunday worship. In contrast, Literature Land will present a picture postcard vision of 1930s English village life where lawns are manicured, little old ladies spend hours making cucumber and arsenic sandwiches for cricket teas and everyone is well-dressed and extremely posh (humble and sweetly uneducated gardeners / housemaids aside).

* I am assuming Literature Land will be in the US somewhere.