Oh, how I've dreamed about this day, about how great it will be to just be able to see all my stuff around me, without having to get on any ferries or aeroplanes, cross any national borders (real or emotional), traverse any bodies of water or endure heatstroke, damp or fleas in order to consult my book of medieval illuminated manuscripts or watch my DVD of Independence Day.
After a decade of travelling around Europe like Apthorpe's gear, my stuff has finally been brought home to Quinquireme Towers, London W12.
It is a great day.
Unfortunately, however, it turns out that I hate my stuff. My living room, which previously exhibited a kind of pleasing low-grade modernist emptiness, now looks horribly like Lovejoy's attic. It's full of hulking 17th century furniture, lurid Spanish lampstands, acres of blue and white china, some brass candlesticks that my Granny foisted upon me, and a suspiciously asymmetrical Persian carpet.
Fig. 1 - A scene from Lovejoy's attic, yesterday.I've given a lot of things away in desperation, but even so, a strange heraldic chair has crept into the bathroom, there are about 800 more books than I have shelves for, and at least two more televisions than I need. And as if this wasn't bad enough, I've also got ex-Mr P's priceless collection of 2000AD comics, a metric tonne of Ralph Lauren furnishing fabric and the entire contents of my French neighbour's son's Moroccan-themed salon, which is propped up in my hallway waiting for me to deliver it to an address in Bromley.
Brrr.
Maybe I'll feel better about all this when I've had my hair cut.
UPDATE: I have had my hair cut. I feel better about all this. Although a man at Gunnersbury station told me I looked 'confused', which triggered a violent fit of agoraphobia that prevented me from viewing the giant badgers' sett at Kew Gardens. In other news: I am going out now to buy a geranium* and some washing powder.
* Pelargonium.
17 comments:
I'm really tempted to ask what you've got to give away... must resist...
A strange heraldic chair is yours for the asking, Billy.
Maybe I'll feel better about all this when I've had my hair cut.
That's just asking for it. You're going to come out of there with a pudding-bowl that your hairdresser talked you into, and that you tipped him for, even though it made you cry in the street afterwards.
Let me know what you will do with all those comics, I literally have hundreds and am unsure how to rid myself of them. E-bay store? I don't have the energy.
LT
Can you quickly give Slaminsky Annie the surplus books? I'm sure she won't mind paying the excess baggage fee and my brain has turned to mush. What's the best of the 800?
Not a pudding bowl! You've got to have the Ian McShane-style black curly mullet! And Mr BC will be your Tinker (as it were)!
Your going to have to show us pictures of the 'pudding bowl' haircut (re Annie).
As for the junk. It's what ebay was invented for.
If you cant be arsed with Ebay, then freecycle it. Go to their website and you can find ones that are local to you. People will come and take away your unwanted old junk as long as they dont have to pay you for it. Another vote here for letting us see the pudding bowl haircut...
Ah now, I don't hold with photos on here, but the new mullet/pudding-bowl is available to view on the living hell that is Facebook.
Also, I can't get rid of this stuff, I've just driven it 700 miles in a Transit van with no wing mirror! (I'm braver than I thought.)
And hello Cake, and welcome! I like your blog, it's nice to see a well written sexblog for a change.
You can never have too many tellys. And will you never learn? (Rhetorical horticultural questions)
* The cat will be very excited.
Haircuts are a serious cure-all and de-stressor. I'm desperate for one, but I'm waiting until after my mother-in-law goes back to Australia on Saturday. Which means (because of my stylist's schedule) it'll be next Weds., but that's okay. I can hold out one more week. (But I might have to call my therapist in the meantime.) (Sadly, I am not kidding.)
It's funny how furniture and other personal possessions take on an almost mystical, longed-for quality when you can't get at them but when they're in arm's reach, their sober reality, in all its peeling, outmoded splendor, is revealed.
Plus, you just moved a house into a flat. I mean, come on.
The giant badgers' sett was great, but not as good as the biggest compost heap in the UK, which was BRILLIANT.
My brain isn't working very well today, because I'm in some pain, and rather drugged-up as a result. The apostrophe should tell me, I know; I think it means the sett belonged to some giant badgers, but perhaps it was just a very big sett.
So where do these giant badgers come from? Is it global warming, or some dreadful scientific experiment gone wrong, and is the whole world going to be eaten by them (and is James getting a film script out of this)? Should I be getting a TB jab?
We need to know these things.
I used to read 2000AD! I sent them all off for recycling donkey's years ago, not realising they might one day be valuable.
Have a book sale. Billy & I would turn up. I've just installed 3 IKEA bookshelves. They're already full of the books that were piled up or hidden in cupboards.
Ah, the great in-gathering of the stuff! I still get a warm glow when I remember the day that, after three years abroad plus a couple of years between different flats, I finally had all of my things under one roof.
Then I threw half of them away.
Including many tapes.
I miss my tapes.
Dave: I stand by my punctuation. It was a badgers' sett, i.e. a sett ostensibly belonging to more than one badger, and it was also huge. Well, James could (and did) fit into it, although it was SUPPOSED TO BE FOR KIDS.
Llewtrah: The thing is, I don't want to get rid of the books, I just don't have anywhere to put them at the moment. I'm not sure if the 2000AD comics are valuable, but shortly they will be restituted to ex-Mr P and all will be well.
Rafael: The temptation to throw things away is very great. Have you tried looking on Dalston Oxfam Shop for the lost tapes? I still really miss a beautiful pair of high-heeled Italian leather boots that got lost in a house move once, not to mention my collection of Spacemen 3 albums and handbag house 12"s.
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