Things I love about my house....Part 4

Presenting....

THE DINOSAUR

Next to the bed is a cupboard. And on top of this cupboard sits the dinosaur.

He’s pretty old, my Grandpa made it for my brother when he was a youngster and it’s a papier mache jobber.

It used to sit on top of my brother’s wardrobe and used to scare me a bit. My brother would often take it down and chase me with it, my squeals echoing down the hall and landing as I made my way to my bedroom and safety.

Even after my brother had left home and his room was transformed from a teenage boy’s pit to a charming guest bedroom complete with white muslin curtains and rag-rolled walls (rag-rolling was the craze at that time, if you didn’t keep moving in my house you’d either be rag-rolled or stencilled by my mother), the dinosaur remained on top of the wardrobe, casting his beady eyes over all who stayed with us.

About 2 and a half years ago Mum was finally selling my childhood home and downsizing. I desperately wanted her to stay, I wanted her to stay until the day she died so I could get my grubby mitts on it and keep it in the family forever and ever but she had spent the past 5 years or so living alone in a 4 bedroom Victorian terrace so I had to admit that there was a case for moving somewhere smaller.

This meant that there was a massive clear out of the house and whole rooms were sent to charity shops, furniture and pictures alike, auction rooms were filled with trinkets and enormous chests of drawers, until we were left with the bare minimum. Mum was brutal in this culling, she had no problem sending things to the throwing out pile, while I trailed behind her bemoaning the fact that she was getting rid of my childhood memories.

However I had to put my foot down when it came to the dinosaur.

“You have nowhere to put it” Mum said to me. She had a point. I was moving with her and would be living in the 2nd bedroom of the new house which was about a quarter of the size of my old bedroom.

But I was adamant. I would eventually find a home for him.

And a year and half later I did find a place for him. In our flat.

So he sits on high, back at his vantage point, keeping a close eye on the door in case anyone comes in that shouldn’t be there.

And I look at him occasionally, smile and think of the day that I will use him to scare my own children.

Happy days :)

Fight or Flight?

I always find it quite funny when people throw up these hypothetical situations and either ask you who you would respond or tell you how you should respond. You know the type of thing - if someone comes up behind you and grabs you to elbow them in the stomach, if you hear someone in the house you call 999 etc etc.


The reason I find it funny is that you have absolutely no way of knowing how you're going to react because you will do whatever your natural response is in the heat of the moment. I believe it's called instinct. There might be a small voice in your head advising what it is you should be doing but this voice will be completely over-powered by your instinct which can make you do something that you would never have anticipated.


Take Saturday evening for instance...


The boyfriend and I live next door to a popular nightclub in Hull. Most of the time it isn't a problem, our bedrooms are at the back of the flat so we don't get woken up by people leaving and it usually just provides us with a great source of entertainment for laughing at people being generally drunk and foolish.


Our ears have become atuned to the various calls of drunk people now. We know when someone's screaming to get someone's attention and we now know the type of noise that indicates that something not so good is going down. This Saturday we heard that kind of noise. We looked at each other? Could we bothered to get up and look out of the window? The boyfriend went over (I'm far too lazy sometimes) and looked out.

"Uh-oh. Proper big fight."

Suddenly my laziness disappeared and I ran over to the window.

What happened next happened very quickly.

I saw a girl outside the flat crying her eyes out and a boy on the other side of the road on the phone and a boy and a girl in the middle of the road. This boy and girl had their arms around each other. No wait. She was holding him up. Suddenly a bloke ran over to the couple and starting hitting the girl.

No you didn't read that wrong. He was hitting the girl.

Before I knew it I was out of the door and running down the stairs and out of the front door. I have no idea what it was I thought I was going to do but luckily they'd disappeared by the time I got out of the front door. Luckily for them and me I should say.

Anyway the rest of the story is irrelevant. The police came, they took some statements and then they went off to look for the men that had attacked them.

When I got back inside though I thought to myself "What did you think you were doing? You're an idiot" Whilst I'm no whipper snapper and could have probably done some damage if I'd sat on him I don't know any self defence and I don't know how handy I am with my fists. Maybe I thought that the sight of me with my tracky pants on coming out of the building whooping like some kind of harridan would do the job but there's a serious chance it wouldn't have. This was a guy who was pretty ok with punching girls.

I shouldn't have done it. I should have stayed in the flat and watched what happened and come down and talked to the police when they came.

Hang on a minute. Rewind.

Watch what happened????

Nope. That's what the trouble for me is. I could never stand and watch what happened. I just know I couldn't. I will be the idiot that gets involved with something they shouldn't and probably puts themselves in danger (in fact I did once and I have the scars to prove it but that's a tale for another post) but all I can think is that if that was me who was in danger, what would I think of the person that just stood and watched and didn't try to help me?

Being stupid I can live with. Standing by and doing nothing I can't.

(I asked the boyfriend what he thought when I ran out of the flat like some kind of mental person. I assumed he'd say he was worried that being with someone like me would end up getting him in to trouble at some point. But he didn't. When I asked him if he thought I was stupid he said no, he thought I was incredibly brave and that he was doing the same as me, he was on his way down to bash some heads together and was just getting his shoes on. "Aaah you were getting your shoes? I was out there barefoot!" I replied. "Yeah good point. You are stupid."

He's lovely.)

Why being a clean freak is bad for your health.

I do like to clean. (Wait I think I've mentioned this before...)

However sometimes I know that it's either not worth cleaning, or I just really can't be bothered. That's the paradox you see. Clean freak but also lazy girl.

With having the visitors for the past week I really couldn't be bothered to clean, I couldn't be doing with fighting a losing battle with their fur. Which. was. everywhere. How do they do it?! They're not even long-haired cats!

Anyway...

I left the flat to get dirtier than I would like which has an unfortunate side effect. I become irrationally angry about the fact that the flat isn't clean whilst at the same time knowing that there's no point in cleaning it.

This tends to boil over into what can only be described as rage. Pointless rage.

So last night I decided it was time to clean and channel my rage productively. Normally this works well, it gives you a little rocket up your backside and you can get in the cleaning zone. However this time it ended in severe calamity.

I turned my cleaning rage to the hoover. I pulled the cord out of it somewhat vigorously shall we say and in doing so I smacked my finger somewhat vigorously in to the door frame.

I'm not going to tell you what came out of my mouth but I didn't know a nice girl like me knew language like that.

The rage probably doubled in ferocity at this point and I went on a hoovering rampage to end all rampages. There's not a cat hair left in this place (there are probably still a billion of mine lying about however, I probably moult more than them) and it was only when my cleaning whirlwind was over that I realised that my finger still really hurt.

Like really hurt.

And that's why my finger now looks like this....

What you can't quite see in the photo is the rather marvellous shade of purple it has now turned.

Oh and did I mention I'm left-handed?

I don't think it's broken but either way they can't do anything can they so I now have it taped to my middle finger which is making typing pretty hilarious. Although if I'm honest it's not quite as hard as I was hoping it would be. Still I can still swing the lead a little bit I reckon.

Lessons learnt? Don't clean when angry.

Also.

Mind the doorframe.

(PS The boyfriend was in charge of the ironing at the time of my cleaning frenzy, he wasn't just letting me do it by myself. And he did sit with me all evening while I complained about how much it hurt. And he took the photo without really understanding why I wanted it taking.)

Today is a sad day...

....because The Fred and The Lily have gone back home to Mum :(

I'm missing them already, it was rubbish coming back home and not seeing their little faces. Although it is kind of nice to be able to have the kitchen door propped open again and I can be sure that the threads from my cross stitch box are going to be safe and unscrambled. Same goes for my i-pod earphones.

I thought I'd show you some of the photos I've taken of them over the past week. There are some classic Lily head tilt photos included here...

Bye-bye Munchkins!!

(Yes I know that box is a little too small for them but they are getting a new one and it's only 15 minutes to Mums and they just go straight to sleep now. I'm not mistreating them I promise!)

Tree Project - October

Things haven't changed too much when you look at tree as a whole (which was quite worrying as I realised that something I thought would be really cool suddenly seemed to be edging towards potential boringness).

However look a little more closely and you'll see there are a slightly fewer leaves on the tree and a few more leaves on the floor....

And on the tree, things are starting to look a bit less green and little more golden...

I sense change is afoot.

The definition of patience

Sitting, waiting, wishing for a special treat to come a little bit closer.

Despite the fact that said treat is on top of a building and through glass...

....and is totally oblivious to the presence of his stalker.

You can always hope though!

Sweet & Simple Bakes - St Clement's Drizzle Cake

After last month's disaster I was a bit wary of getting back in the kitchen again but apparently you have to get back in the saddle after you fall off so I had no choice but to get my behind back in to the kitchen again.

Someone in the office is about to go off to have an operation so that was all the excuse I needed to bake this delight and bring it in for everyone to share.

And I was in luck because everyone liked citrus flavoured cakes and absolutely loved this cake.

It was just the right amount of citrus flavour and had a lovely golden colour from the orange and lemon zest.

All in all - a success!! Unfortunately I only had time for a couple of hurried photos before it all disappeared - but I guess that's never a bad thing.

The recipe can be found here.

A big thank you to Rosie & Maria who have been a little quiet on the blog front lately - hope you're both well and know that all of us appreciate the effort you guys go to to provide us with a new challenge each month!

Sweet & Simple Bakes