fashion scooters and PJ's

Was it just my half-awake Monday morning imagination or have I just spotted a new fashion trend? While I was still bleary-eyed in the co-op, buying my breakfast, I spotted a man wearing a kid's scooter casually flung over one shoulder, whilst perusing the papers. (Why do people have to peruse papers? and how do people have the energy to peruse papers standing up at 9am?). And he was not waiting for someone, oh no, for this was I man who had just dropped his kids off at school and was proudly sporting the lifestyle badge. This is not the first time I've spotted this phenomemon. There is a man I see at school doing it all the time.
Ok I'm being stupid and taking things a little bit too far. I just couldn't help feeling a little bit self-conscious in my beanie pulled over unwashed hair and no make-up, not a good look for me, not to mention the baggy jeans and top and that jumper-jacket I bought during the two-weeks of snow, when I was so cold I thought I might die. Especially when there are proper ladies who wear proper coats and have reasonably well turned out hair, managing to find the paper bags youre supposed to put the pastries in delicately using the tongs provided. And here's me fumbling around with the pooper-scoop bag provided by the Quorp for putting vegetables in, and contemplating using my fingers to pick up my maple and pecan plait, which I had to buy as well as musli because I was so hungry by then. If only I had had a kid's scooter over my shoulder perhaps I could have convinced myself that people weren't noticing anything else. But only a man could carry this look off, so to speak. I did, hovever then look twice when I noticed a woman marching down the street clutching a folded buggy: childminder.
And then I get home and read this article about people being banned for wearing PJ's in Tesco this about  sovenly mothers wearing PJ's to drop off kids at school. Don't these people realise that wearing PJ's is a fashion/lifestyle statement?  I can't say I read the popular magaizines about celebrities. I don't even know what they are called: Hello? But I'm sure its has been a well-known fact for years that celebrities are seen out at the school gates wearing PJ's (designer) and Ugg boots. People are just following this trend, people! get with the programme! Furthermore PJ's are comfortable and OK to wear all day at home and if you're just nipping out why not? Of course they are wearing knickers! Well, I can only speak for myself here, but even if they aren't there is no crime in not wearing underwear. The man with the scooter could have been commando for all I knew, (and he may well have been perusing Hello! magazine.)
Ok I don't actually go to school or the supermarket in my PJ's, well, not without something over the top of them, if which case I wouldn't get out of the car! I did go up to the stables in PJ bottoms only 2 days ago, but it was dark, and my daughter has a mobile. What I wore this morning are really Sunday clothes, what I would prefer not to be seen in, and no bra either, (although I don't need one that much!). They are what I find at hand to pull on quickly, especially when I know there is some serious Monday morning slobbing to be done when I get home. Ideally by 3 o'clock I am properly dressed; I may even have had a shower. I like the PJ idea because it states more clearly that these aren't my proper clothes!
OK so why the sudden obsession with fashion? Well, I did just watch "The Devil Wears Prada", followed by a channel 4 documentary on the editor of US Vogue magazine. Also I have been reading quite a lot of fashion magazines, having been ill in bed and there being a dearth of home magazines. I still get my grown-up daughter's Cosmo, and she gives me her old Elles... Then I found myself actually buying them. (O gosh it's starting to sound like a seedy addiction). But when I was at DS1's piano lesson the other day, his teacher noticed my fashion mag and without me having to say much he remarked that it was CPD: continuing proffessional development. In other words I get fashion magazines because I am, in fact, an unemployed fashion designer. (I think he must have known that- nice of him to remember).
Now this is a fact that has been gradually dawning on me over the last week or so. I have spent the last ten years exclusively bringing up children with little thought or time for career notions. In September, when they had all been at school for a year, I decided it was time I did something that was not just about them, but about me and work and personal fulfilment. I had spent the previous year doing up our new house and working towards getting a room I could work in from home. This took me form September till July. By then I could not remember what I had planned to do in that room. I had vague notions that I would do a bit of sewing, but also something a bit more creative than patching boys' trousers. In the summer I got the form to enter a local fashion show but I never got round to making anything- still doing the house. Last October I started life drawing and printmaking classes and decided that after all these years I was doing something I was good at. I am good at it. But I am still not convinced I am an artist. I spend much more time doodling ideas, sewing, playing my guitar. Art suddenly seems like college work that I have to do. I will spend hours mending a knitted blanket, working out ideas for a new dress, rather than drawing or making printing plates. I am actually a qualified fashion/textiles designer but by the time I finished college I was so turned off by the fashion industry I never wanted to do it again. But it's what I do. I thought it was all so superficial and useless, but, come to think of it, how useful is art, and who buys it? Everybody needs clothes, right? And cushions... OK, maybe I need to refine my reasoning a bit... I always cringed at the idea that I was good at sewing because I was a girl and it's what girls do. But not all girls do. And somebody's got to do it, right?
... Ok more thought on that perhaps... Needless to say I couldn't find a stock photograph of man-wearing-scooter. Maybe I'll have to take one. Maybe that man at school will oblige. Maybe then you'll see that I am not a complete numpty but a cutting edge fashionista!

winter: enough already

Well the big melt came on Saturday, about flippin time as I know it looked pretty but it was making life very difficult. I don't mind the odd day or so of being holed up by the fire, but this was over two weeks. We were running out of coal! And when the schools opened I felt obliged to walk there and back twice a day, in snow and ice, which was seriously interfering with my dysfunctional symphysis pubis, thankyou very much. It's ok now, and I quite enjoyed the walking, especially when I reallised that it was way too slippy to go the ungritted back roads, in fact the only way to go was to walk down the middle of two A-roads, which can be accessed out the back. However my children are far too sensible (brainwashed) to walk on a road, but preferred to risk the pavements, which I think would actually have resulted in hospitallisation had I fallen as many times as they did.

And it was really cold! The sort of cold that makes you want to eat a cooked breakfast, followed by a really hearty stew and dumplings. (See pic, although I think you can tell it has gone cold and had been attacked by a hungry mob). The sort of cold that makes you fantasize about hooded jumper-jacket type things that look really warm and actually contemplate spending 60 quid on one, because it's a justifiable necessity. (...and yes i did). The sort of cold that hurts, especially when it the snow pricks your eyes when you're walking along, and the buses aren't running, so you get a taxi.
So, by Friday I was a bit of a run-down wreck. The boys went to their dad's for the weekend and I just sat in a torpor knitting a sock. I did find a hidden depth in the coal bunker and got the fire really hot on Friday night. I barely moved from the sofa till Sunday afternoon, apart from finally digging the car out on Saturday (no digging it just melted!), and taking huge amonts of uncollected rubbish to the tip, and stocking up on essentials in LIDL (Leedle, dahling). I knitted round an entire perfect heel of a sock before I reallised I had used the wrong size needles.

So here I am, back on the sofa. I am still taking it easy on myself, not giving myself a hard time for driving the school run. I think I was so wiped out over the weekend because I hadn't had time to recover from the nasty cold and the whole snow-thing was pretty hard work really. The ME clinic called to cancel yesterday's appointment, which is probably just as well, as I was let down over childcare at the last minute, in a snow- related change of plan.

So we seem to be back to normal, finally, after a month of extended holiday, and a bit of a slow start to the week due to Freddie having an awful sounding cough and not going to school Monday, so I missed yoga :( Course he was fine by lunchtime. Also Meg has flown over to the west coast of Ireland to bury her grandma today. I hope she's ok- I know she's a big girl now, but it is a long way to go by yourself.

Right. That's an hour's worth of faffing, I only have another before I have to go out again. It's supposed to snow again, and it's looking very grey...

drinking hot water- too lazy to add a teabag

I'm blogging now because I'm bored. bored of facebook, which is what I do when I'm ill or tired, which I am both. Nothing much going on, well it is Friday night and people have more interesting things to do. I could go to bed and read Margaret Atwood's The Tent, but I had been looking forward to Falling Through Clouds at the book launch this evening. I didn't have the energy but Rach said she would get me a signed copy- huzzah! (But why didn't I just get it from Amazon?)

So we had a lazy week at home. When I felt like I could do something other than lie in bed napping and lapping (laptopping, but lapping rhymed) I decided to mend a badly in need of repair blanket. Something I can never really be bothered to do, and leave it till a rainy day when I've not much energy. Well it was a snowy day. Look you can't see it! haha, well, at least its not all raggedy.
The boys finally went back to school on Thursday, though Joy's school was closed all week because of the snow. So I finally got out and about to college, and out in the evening, which was nice, but now I'm paying for it as the cold has gone to my chest and making me feel really drained.
I am running low on supplies of food and fuel. Surprising how good I am at stocking up on food though; after going through all the leftover mince pies, funny cheese and stollen I have found plenty of soup ingredients and frozen pizzas. I've only just had to make some bread, as I did recieve a food parcel earlier in the week from Sean, who can't work because of the weather. Juice seems to be an issue, and although the children are quite capable of drinking water I had to persuade Freddie to have some, which involved spilling some down his pj's, which he was not very impressed with, but I was worried about him getting dehydrated. Me, I'm just drinking gallons of ginger tea, aka hot water with a few bits of ginger floating in it, which I only change about once a day and don't even bother adding honey now. I can't really be bothered to change the tea bag- can't really taste it anyway.
It's not as though I'm totally cut off in drifts of snow and shops are only 10 minute walk away, but I can't get the car out, and when I have been out I have been too tired and cold to actually go and buy anything (apart from cat food and a battery for my guitar tuner- those little essential things!). I'm sure there's a few veggies in the garden, but they are still under a foot of snow, and I've not been desperate enough to dig for them yet, (like sheep do in the snow to find grass).
I just did some washing, finally, but only hung up the urgent things: my favourite t-shirt and cardigan and the school jumpers. Watched way too much TV today- didnt reallise the Johnny Depp Charlie and the Chocolate factory was on, and The Simpsons movie. I think I'm going to give the TV back after Slumdog Millionnaire on Wednesday. It was good for Christmas, and it does keep me company and stop me feeling all sad and lonely, but I do have other things to do, and the adverts are starting to bug me- the kid's ones that is... they have been really good at not watching it, even when I was ill in bed, but now remember when the Simpsons is on... thin edge of the wedge? Anyway it takes up space and i want to clear the decks a bit. Can't wait to get all the Xmas decs and stuff tidied away. Joy took down the tree decorations, but it is still here with us, getting all hot and dry... somebody help me get it outside and watered!
Spent way too long helping Freddie make a model pirate ship today which was way too fiddly and is now gaffer taped up, in the hope that it will stay together when the glue is dry... Didn't make it to Fergus's piano lesson, unfortunately, so it will be 6 weeks in between lessons, but he has been doin a bit of practice, which is the main thing.
Now I really must get some horizontal rest. Amazing how much I need sometimes. Ah sure it will do me good.