Another of my favourite singers gone – Shane MacGowan, who diedyesterday. I have to say, I didn’t quite keep up with his post-Pogues career, but a handful of Pogues albums were among the CDs I carted around Europe and the UK when I was travelling in the mid-90s. I had one of those big zip up CD holders, and a portable CD player that chewed up the batteries, but kept me company on my travels. I haven’t listened to them lately. Fairytale Of New York is one of my favourite Christmas songs. It’s possibly not for the fainthearted, but it is oddly…romantic? Optimistic? Pogues songs seem to me to have been a mixture of drunken Irish ditties, romantic ballads, and some deep thoughts on life, death, and society and its inequities. For a supposed punk band, there are a lot of beautiful songs. Shane’s voice is part of the soundtrack of my youth.
Thank you for travelling with me. Down all the years. Down all the days.
At least that’s part of the reason! We’ve had a bit of a virus drifting round the house this week, so we’re all a bit languid at the moment. The heat hasn’t helped… Littlest Bean has had the worst of it, but even my Babe spent a large part of yesterday sleeping. Lots of cups of tea and snacky things happening. Still, there’s time to smile.
I’ve been reading a lot, but also listening to cool music 😀
There are various nooks and crannies in this house, just waiting for beauty. Books, of course, are what I choose first… I also have a collection of jewellery. I don’t wear jewellery that much, but I love looking at it. The wardrobe that came with our room has lots of shelves, so I have space to hang up my sparklies 😀
Finally, a way to display my medals (from virtual challenges). Also, a place to hang up necklaces so I can see them, and they don’t attract dust.
I had a good week for most of last week, and got all sorts of washing, cleaning and organising done. This tends to culminate in some days of not so good, which was the last few days. This morning I felt I was turning the corner a bit (and today has been better), but Biggest Boy came in to say good morning to me, and the first thing he said was, “You look really sick!”. Such encouragement for the new week 😆 I have had my moments today, but I think what he was seeing was a combination of middle aged lady and lack of sleep – dark circles under the eyes, with an overall crumpled, bleary look… Still, it’s been a good day.
But – what about the elephant? Here he is!
A tiny little being from the charity shop ❤ There’s just enough room for a tealight (via a flap at the back). So many ways to light up a room…
And to bring some more cheer – another fun song! Complete with what I think is a depiction of the way the years seem to speed up as life goes on (and how that sometimes feels…).
It’s been a good few days. Got things done. Felt OK. Maybe the heat helps a bit (although, not too much heat!) I’ve washed the quilts and changed the sheets. Tweaked the garden a teensy bit, and tidied up some things that have been annoying me. Even been out of the house a few times… I spent more time out today than I expected to, so even though it’s nice to have the ability to wander, I’m very tired now. When I’m tired, I don’t think quite as fast or as well as I’d like. So – no words of wisdom here. Just an easy to like sea shanty medley.
Live, and a cappella. Although Adam seems to be having fun with a looper back there… This was originally released during lockdown, where each member of Home Free recorded their bits at home and put them together for the full clip. Worth a listen as well. 🙂
Maybe you’re after some nostalgia?
Or maybe you just need a lullaby?
That’s the Hound + the Fox, with Tim from Home Free taking a guest role.
Hopefully a good night’s sleep will bring a more combobulated tomorrow…
No more boxes! Upstairs, at least… My bookcases are sorted, my DVDs are arranged, and my decorative touches are placed around the house. Some things might be moved again, but it still feels like home. I didn’t have a good health week last week, but this week has been OK. It was lovely to be able to sit in the lounge and enjoy the space! So far, this house has been easy to keep clean – not much dust on surfaces, haven’t noticed much in the way of unwanted wildlife (just an ant or two).
There are lots of surfaces to fill with trinkets. Here’s a metal crayfish I found the other day.
He lives in the bedroom at the moment.
I also picked up a little cat dish type thing.
The head tilts slightly downward, which apparently helps cats to not get furballs when it’s used as a water dish. This one holds our keys – as Sweet Bean says, we get to decide what the cat’s brains should be 😆 I thought my camphor chest could be an emergency seat if we get hordes of visitors all at once, so it needed some cushions.
My bits and pieces for the glass display cases are downstairs, but I decided to let my giraffe sit on the bookcase for now.
Because everyone needs a random giraffe 🙂
There’s a quiet joy in a lack of clutter, and in knowing you’ve accomplished everything you set out to do in a day. There’s also joy in finding new songs! These are two I’ve been listening to the last few days – one because I looked up the song we’d been singing in the online service Sunday, and the other because YouTube recommended it to me.
I hope you have been able to find joy in your day. And maybe you’ve even been able to find your very own decorative giraffe! ❤
…or at least, coffee! 😀 Everything’s coming together nicely. My books are snuggling together in the shelves, the kitchen is easy to move around in, and the general surroundings are still quiet and a bit sleepy. Our door is open for sharing coffee and bikkies – had a lovely friend round today to catch up. We even had time for a morning out last week for our anniversary ❤
Hot chocolate with a lovely melty marshmallow 🙂
My Babe has set up his studio downstairs, and has started some projects for the business. His website is up and running – check out sajumusic.com for all the details. And of course you can still listen to the podcasts! My space is coming together, too.
…and we’re reaching the end of the tunnel of house hunting and all the admin that goes with it (renting seems to be a difficult process these days, even when you can find a place. Lots of documents and procedures).
We’ve been finishing off the packing and organising for the move, and I’ve even managed a good chunk of cleaning. Tomorrow there should be enough people and large vehicles to make it all a bit quicker and easier 🙂 )
We’re all feeling quite weary already… but you know those “Thank you, God” prayers you breathe when things that look like they’ll be difficult suddenly work out? I’ve been saying quite a lot of those lately. YouTube has been helping me along with “out of the blue” suggestions.
Well, it’s an early start tomorrow. At least soon there’ll be less of this –
– and more space, light and silence!
I’ll probably still miss the coloured glass.
That’s our back door at the moment.
This one’s the side window in the toilet.
There’ll be more beauties to capture when we settle. We went to have a quick look around the yard in the new place the other day. There’s a lot of mint in the garden, and a largish chilli bush. Also what looks like a spear of asparagus!
Well, looks like we’re moving next weekend! 😀 We’re off up the road to One Mile – it’s the house I really liked when we walked through it, and there seems to be a lot of space. So, we’re nearly out the door here.
It’s funny – Tuesday we were on tenterhooks, wondering if our offer for another house would go through. I had forgotten about this one! In the space of a few hours we found we’d lost the other house, but the agents for that one put us forward for yet another place, and were happy to take our application before it was put up online. And then, we got the phone call to say our application for the One Mile place went through 😆
I still have bits and pieces to pack (the teacups!) but I’m thankful that I started the books a while back. The heavier things are done, and we’re thinking this move should be a bit easier than the last one. Our stuff hasn’t had a chance to pile up in random places yet, and cleaning should go well. Some nights I don’t sleep well, so there’s a wave of tiredness that swamps me sometimes, and confuses even simple actions. As an example – I wear different glasses for everyday and for the laptop. This afternoon I knew I had to change glasses so I could go downstairs to get a cup of tea. Put them on, puzzled as to why my eyes were even blurrier. Realised I was trying to put my everyday glasses on over the top of my reading glasses… Obviously, I really needed that tea.
The title of this post is the title of a song I hadn’t heard for a long time, but rediscovered yesterday. Seemed to fit, but I could only find an audio clip for it. Since I’ve done so well with packing today I decided to rest and enjoy some time online tonight. In the absence of an official video for the titular song, here’s another clip to make you smile!
Powering my way through packing at the moment (you know, with rest and coffee breaks included…) I feel like the hardest bits are pretty much done. I have to remember how I packed my teacups safely last time, but I’ve finished the fragile things from the glass display cases. Books are all packed.
Still got most of the art room to go. The TV room has been my main point of packing so far. This means it has been a mess, even though most of it now is actually boxed or in some other kind of order.
Still life with cardboard 😀 Time to put my feet up…
We’re waiting to hear back about a couple of houses. It’s all quite exciting! My Babe is still getting his business off the ground, so there are various things to do with that, in between the house viewings and box packing. He’s waiting for a website to be finished, but in the meantime, there’s his YouTube channel. Go and listen to some podcasts about songwriting, or relax with some music.
I’ve managed to pack a fair amount of boxes in the last few days. Mostly books, a few trinkets… books are easier – they’re mostly some form of rectangle, so they can fit in any type of box. When I finish for the day, I like to just watch stuff, settle down a bit for the evening. Lately I’ve been catching up on a bit of CSI. I don’t really like horror, or even actiony/thriller type things, but I love a bit of forensics 🙂 The only thing is, I’m watching the earliest seasons. One of the fun things is catching the supposed corpses breathing, or showing other signs of life. Some are quite obviously breathing, and I’ve caught a few eye twitches. I can only suppose that later seasons will refine the non-breathing technique!
When you think about it, all TV shows are artificial. They’re all actors acting – making us believe that what we see is what is there. We get so caught up in the story that it’s a bit jarring to see a corpse breathe. It snaps us out of the narrative, and can make the scene seem absurd.
Life’s a bit like that. We’re wandering (galloping?) along, thinking what we see is real, and then the corpse breathes, and we’re looking from outside at absurdity. Where we are now (as in moving again) has been a bit of a snap back to reality, where our plans can sometimes veer off at the last minute. Good thing there’s stillbreathing!
Still, I can appreciate a bit of absurdity. The boys have shown me a few AI song mashups, and YouTube has given me a few to watch… I’m not sure if you’ve ever wanted to hear Johnny Cash “sing” Barbie Girl? Here it is anyway…
I listened to that one, and YouTube seemed to think I would also enjoy this –
They were right.
Well, I’m off to check out some forensics. It’ll probably be more comprehensible than the clips above.
There are random boxes everywhere at the moment, but my clay sculpture (John) continues to look cool and ready for anything 🙂
a bit of creativity, a bit of eco consciousness, a bit of inspiration.... hopefully not a lot of pompousness and blathering :D
i'm not entirely sure what's going on here... let's travel along and see...
1000 Fields of Roses 