Homeslot

It’s all a question of recycling. Four months later and the roof is finished. No more towels. No more buckets. If you remember, the water from the roof leaked from the second floor to the first floor - my bedroom. Traumatic at the time, and not too much damage - but enough to have the room re-decorated. Can't wait to be immersed in paint colour palettes and pretty Cath Kidston fabric choices. I love all things housey, so will blog next time on how that all develops, and give you some good ideas on how to turn over a room with minimal fuss and money. 

But to the scaffolding boards. You can buy scaffolding boards quite cheaply from any good timber on-line supplier - or check out your local wood re-cycling store in your area. There are more than you think. We had them made into attractive units for the dining room. 

This was the view from my room before........

....and here they are, rubbed down and taking pride of place in the dining room 














Anything can be displayed on them, and they give a good rustic, French farm feeling to the place. Pride of place goes to the Finnish Moomin mugs - not cheap at £20 a cup but really attractive against the back drop of the boards, and a staple item of a Finnish home.

The best, however  is in the kitchen where they span two walls and hold a huge amount of kitchen 'stuff' far too attractive to put away in cupboards. There is a beauty in ordinary kitchen 'stuff' and much of it needs to be seen. A row of teapots at the top completes the look. Teapot stories to follow........

Home Sweet Home

It’s all a question of decisions and priorities. Should I write my Blog, or should I practice shorthand? Well done, shorthand.Triumphant old shorthand. Have a badge, shorthand. Have a Headteacher’s award. Shorthand the Winner.

At least January has gone – blown away by the raw northern wind straight from Siberia. Do they have shorthand in Siberia? Probably. Thompson will do an all inclusive holiday there – a week in Siberia studying shorthand for beginners. For a supplement they’ll provide a trip to the Land of the Shorthand Dead – those that gave their lives in pursuit of the shorthand idyll.

Brother Number 3 doesn't understand shorthand or why I have to study it. Brother Number 3 doesn't understand anything that happens outside his master bedroom. He understands his food comes out of the basement, but has no idea how it gets there or how it manages to get cooked. Beyond him. This weekend he went off to Kent on a Geography field trip, laden with a suitcase larger than one we use for all seven of us on a two week sojourn to Finland. There were things he needed, he said. Most probably cans of supersize hair gel similar to the one that was confiscated by the army when we entered the Olympic Stadium. ‘You won’t be needing that one, son,’ said Corporal Jones holding the offending can in the air for all to snigger at.

Brother Number 2 has not been in touch this week. Keeping in touch with older sister is not the top priority of a University Student. It's hard enough deciding which one comes first, work or alcohol; alcohol or work. One of them normally comes out on top. Brother Number 2 here is my main news: I had my first story published in the local paper last week. You have some post. The towels from the leaking roof in the top bedroom and your room have been replaced by small buckets, and the small buckets were replaced by larger buckets, and the buckets by builders. There is a new crack in your ceiling too. The roof collapsed. The emergency scaffolding went up. People don’t get their roofs fixed in January. It rains in January.

Mother decided that the 42 inch TV screen needed to be moved from the top floor bedroom, and Brother Number 3 might as well move with it. He could stay in the top room if he wanted to, but the TV was a priority. They could both move to Brother Number 2s room. She made that decision and was hearing no protests. Brother Number 3 wanted to know if the sheets had been washed since Brother Number 2 had slept in there. Yes, my mother said, twice, and the second time she had put some extra Fabric Care in the wash, and had put the programme on a pre–wash too. Brother Number 3 was happy with that. When Brother Number 2 found out Brother Number 3 was sleeping in his room, he asked if the sheets would be washed before he came home. ‘Yes’, my Mother said, ‘twice, and the second time...’

Undeterred by large cracks and leaks in the both bedrooms, she had other decisions to make and escaped to her kitchen to set about sorting out Menus for the Week. She bases these on the week ahead, and the different needs of the Five Children. I am her Priority at the moment, and she thinks that food will help me in fighting the Battle of Shorthand. 

Sister Number 1 and Brother Number 1 have had an uneventful few weeks. No Shorthand getting in the way of their lives. Dad has been hearing roof updates on Skype. He is more interested in the first week of Formula 1 testing. How has Heikki Kovalainen not been given a seat? There could have been an all time record of three Finns racing; this would have really put Finland on the Map he says. ‘The water is running down to the second floor now...’ ‘I still remember Heikki’s first win in 2008, where Kimi was also on the podium’ he interrupts. He will put the roof on the ever growing ‘list of things to do’ and decide to sort it out when it is more pressing.

This week ended with a case of when to think before you speak. Mother, after searching for her car keys (the 3rd set) for two hours, found them in the car ignition. Finally exhausted from the constant drip of water through the ceiling and the even more constant dripping of moans on shorthand, she wanted sympathy. Dad remarked, in a bid to placate her, ‘Hey, at least we have a roof over our heads..........’

My Family and Other Animals....

It’s all a question of degrees. A full perfect circle happens when life goes to plan, when everything you set out to do is completed. For me, studies in Criminology, three years away from home and the acquisition of a set of Cath Kidston mugs just about brought me to a three hundred and sixty degree perfectly rounded circle. You stop, take stock, re-group then set off in pursuit of another full circle. Unfortunately, things don’t always go to plan and sometimes, just sometimes, awkward angles appear which need to be negotiated and the path seems steeped in tiny obstacles that only perseverance and a cup of Earl Grey will overcome. This week, a few obtuse and seemingly acute angles have appeared in the smooth running of life as we know it.

The Snow - personified here because it seems to take on a personality of its own.  Just as January 24^th approaches with the credit bills spilling through the letterbox, the snow arrives. For some this means a trip to tax dictating Starbucks, to sit there all day with a newspaper and iPhone and spend the day catching up with people you caught up with yesterday. Not for me. The leaking roof of six months means a fresh supply of towels every hour as the water dribbles through the gap between the ceiling and the wall. My room? No. My brother’s. He has a bad back and cannot get out of bed, especially as he only arrived home in the early hours of the morning and a headache now accompanies the bad back. He thinks if he ever gets out of bed he may never walk again, so I am left no choice but to do it. Four floors up and four floors back down to the dryer. I’ll lose some weight. Maybe I’ll pretend to do it – just turn the towels over now and again. Maybe I’ll just do it. Thank you, Brother Number 3.

Brother Number 2 is at University in Egham... I assume no news is good news and am yet to hear if he has been affected by the snow. Knowing him, he will be hungover and will not have looked out of the window yet today.

Brother Number 1 keeps phoning. He lives in London. One of the cats has been run over, leaving the brother cat on his own, and he needs to talk about it. Actually he needs counselling. His partner won’t get out of bed and he thinks his one year old daughter might need to see a therapist who deals in Feline Deaths. My Mother, whose tax return is due in by the 31^st January, asks if I can deal with him, and when I have time can I check her figures against bank statements. She’ll go to prison, she says, if I get it wrong so it’s really important I do it properly.

Sister Number 1 wants to go bum boarding and no-one will take her, and if we don’t go the snow will be melted and her whole life will be ruined because her whole class will have been except her. She’s 12. Up we get, off we go. My Dad comes with me, back from Madrid where he works. The cafe at the park, like the whole country, is closed. So we watch while she screams and we put up our thumbs every time she shouts, ‘are you watching?’

My Dad wants to tell me again about the chaos at Gatwick and the total incompetence of British Rail for what should be a 27 minute train journey turn into a three hour trek with three different trains and some buses in between. And not a drinks trolley in sight. He’s Finnish. Finns live in snow, in fact they invented it. Finns do not break down when 8cm of snow fall from the Finnish Heavens. All I want to do is tell him about my first week as a trainee journalist, how I coped with the dreaded shorthand, the lovely people I met and how I'm on the lookout for exciting stories and how these stories could be bought by the Argus... ‘...and the train was going 30 miles an hour, I was freezing cold and there was no heating and no drinks trolley...’

We return and my mother is pondering in front of the Millennium Cupboard. Created in 1999 as the result of an absolute conviction that the world would end at midnight on 31^st December of that year, it has changed name with each impending crisis. Today it is her Snow Cupboard; full of both full fat and semi skimmed long life milk, candles, Coffee-Mate and bottled water. She asks if we’re hungry and if we would like a nice long-life hot chocolate to warm us up. Oh, and Brother Number 1 has phoned, she says, and they’re waiting for the cat’s ashes.................       

                                    Tea and sympathy after a long week.