Decorexia

 I have always had a fairly minimal house, perhaps because my family home  is so full you can only move  sideways in it and they think a surface without stuff and a wall without pictures is a complete waste of space. If you want to see what the Palace of Versailles would look like in a very ordinary Glasgow maisonette (or 4 in a block if you're one of us chosen people), you want to visit my mum & dad.
However in my middle years...
I find myself buying heart shaped things, all the feckin time, there can't be a room in my house without a heart shaped thing in it. To expand this hobby I have taken to buying heart shaped things for the villa, so not only am I imposing my lack of imagination on my nearest and dearest, I have now inflicted it on the good paying public who rent from me. Yesterday I spectacularly bought heart shaped things, in total, 3 pictures with hearts on, 2 cushions with hearts on, 1 metal hanging heart made with tiny bells ( I know), and no less than 8 hanging wicker hearts. I also bought bunting ala Kirsty Allsop but that's  a whole other story.


I have taken the buying of small bowls to an extreme art form also. We have a surfeit of small bowls, some are also heart shaped but it's not compulsory. I like bowls, I am particularly attracted to wee bowls. When you have crisps or nuts or snacky thinks it's so much nicer to have them from an attractive bowl.


Candles are also a particular passion, at present in my lounge, I have 25, some arranged in groups, some in bowls (you see, there is another purpose for a wee bowl) we have candles everywhere, inside and out. My husband who monitors our heating on a fancy graph, some Tado thingy that self regulates our heating so you don't have a timer any more (don't mock, Christ he needs something to occupy his mind, living with me) he can tell from his fancy graph when I have lit candles as the temperature increases. I am less impressed with the new fancy thing, I don't have the control thingy, he has one on his phone, if I get cold I have to light candles and put a cardie on or ring and ask him to switch the heating on. Still I have stuff and he has gadgets.


My house is filling up pretty quickly and my ever patient husband has learned not to ask what things are for, he just admires the heart shapes/wee bowls & candles and checks he is still a bloke, living in such a full house.


I am off to the beautiful house for a week, I am taking my husband, my stepson, my parents and several heart shaped things, some bowls and more candles with me. I will buy gin from the duty free and imbibe hourly from 11 to 11 as the combination of my mother telling me the same thing over and over and the boy wonder showing me how he jumps into the pool over and over will most certainly require a more relaxed (aka drunk) auntie to cope!!!


My starter for 10 was yesterday when I was chatting to my mum on the phone, she arrives tonight and I had said how nice it would be to see her. She replied that she was also looking forward to seeing me and then added "and your husband" As I am a very polite auntie, I said " Andrew is looking forward to seeing you too" She closed the conversation with, "Well, I don't know about that but I am looking forward to seeing your husband"


See you in June

Normal service will resume shortly...

My blog has gone a bit bodge, that's a technical term obviously as you all know how fan dabby dozey I am with technology. I thought I'd lost a bit of it as there was a lot of white screen but if you go away down far enough some other stuff is there, I don't know how to fix it, clearly, so I shall cross my fingers, keep writing stuff and hope it repairs itself.


I am having a bit of a run of broken/lost/problematic things at the moment. Our hot water tank appears to be leaking, we found this out when a patch of water appeared on the ceiling of the room below. The auntiegwen approach is to wrap the leaky bit in flannels and keep drying them out however I am now married and married to the kind of person who likes, nay needs to fix things, yes dear readers I married an engineer, he has a full complement of tools and fixery things but the water tank is winning at the moment. There has been lots of draining of things and turning water off and turning it back on, we still leak and every time I was my hands the water comes out with a ferocity and viciousness previously only seen in a hormonal and exam stressed BBD. I get soaked every time. I am tired of this game now.


I have lost my fitbit which made me sad, tis a sort of posh pedometer and was a Christmas gift.


Work has needed lots of patience and I don't have that much spare as general life is taking most of mine.


But huzzah, tis Friday and I have a very nice bottle of wine in the fridge for tonight, we have pizza and gogglebox (which I love, love, love).


Not too shabby, have a good weekend everyone

The 7 days of laundry

My youngest daughter continues to be a source of wonder to me. This is a photo of her bed.

Another view

 Tis fairly grim, is it not? So how can a child that messy be so clean in other ways? I do her laundry, I'm ace at laundry, it is really one of my best skills. And in 1 week, and I repeat for clarity, 1 week,  my child has worn (and I did count and then write it down so I didn't forget)

 11 pairs of pants, 9 pairs of tights, 8 pairs of leggings, 7 pairs of jeans, 7 bras (and you know how sorry I am that it wasn't 6 as I know some of you are singing along to the 12 days of Christmas)7 t shirts, 6 pairs of socks, 4 shirts, 2 dresses....

 and one skirt. 

My argument in days of yore was always that clothes should be hung up or put away like regular humans but as I am afeared of the BBD and even more afeared of the BBD during AS levels, I am just washing whatever is put in the basket, I am fairly certain that most weeks I am re washing clean clothes but as conversations with BBD scare the bejaysus out of me, I am letting dirty laundry get clean. If we have a brief 2 minute exchange of words and there is no eye rolling (her), deep or sharp intakes of breaths (me), slamming of doors (her), tears (either of us) I just count my blessings and go on my merry way. If she passes her a levels and goes to uni, we can tidy up and redecorate