Boxing Day boxes

I hope everyone is having a lovely holiday time. We started yesterday in a rather wonderful reversal of the last 14 or so years: we had to drag the man child, Son, from his bed at 8.30am to open his stocking; I told him flat that it was revenge for the real crack of dawn starts to so many recent Christmases... Our day consisted of stockings, Christmas creatures, present opening, food, Luther series 2 and skyping family.

Clever Husband knows how much I love boxes and two of my gifts came in such beautiful boxes that I consider them presents in their own right. I am easily pleased...

Bless me father...

I am very fond of saying that I don’t have many sins; I don’t smoke, I don’t drink (very much - because it poisons me; no really, actually poisons me, like five day hangovers!) and I don’t take drugs.  Since I had a raised blood sugar test, even bloomin’ chocolate’s been banned. (I confess, I sometimes eat dark.) Tea, I whine, is my only pleasure left in life.

But then I remember actually I’ve got quite a bad handbag habit not to mention a horrific book habit. I’ve been trying really hard to buy fewer books – to make a dent in my TBR bookshelves (oh yes, plural. Husband really wants to shame me by telling you HOW many there are. He’s threatening to find out how to post a photo in the comments…) I’ve been doing quite well on the book front - only buying friends’ books - until my sad patch last week. It doesn’t really count, if you’re sad, does it? Then it’s medicinal. You know, instead of anti depressants. I think if you go twice and buy two books, it’s infinitely better than going once and buying four. I had double the fun!

But then, it occurred to me that I’ve got quite a penchant for boxes – you know, containers. I love boxes with lids; I always intend to fill them with things (books?) but actually I just covet them because I love them. There’s nothing utilitarian about my buying them – they’re just beautiful in their own right and so they usually end up displayed empty.

And it doesn’t end there. I also have trouble with textiles. I’ve always been a feeler (ooh err;) my friend K, in my first year here, always used to tease me about how I’d have to palpate everything in the shops – fabric, textures. I need to touch it and I can’t walk past without doing so.

When we were in Chiang Rai a couple of weeks ago, I had to buy some hill tribe textiles because, well you do, don’t you? We tourists have to patronize the local crafts. And look, isn't it pretty?

I bumped into a friend at the BIG & BIH exhibition on Saturday. She was buying fabric while simultaneously trying to sort out family on the phone. I caressed the cotton, thinking about my promise to Husband that I would try really hard not to buy any material. (I could have failed, right?) When my friend got off the phone I asked her what she was going to do with the fabric she’d brought. “I don’t know yet,” she said. She looked down at her purchase and then up me and said: “No, I do. I’m going to take it home and put it in a cupboard for ten years…”

I think maybe I should form a support group.

My name’s Jenny and I’m a textileaholic, a boxaholic, a teaholic and a bookaholic.

Still in the 70s

Moving swiftly on from yesterday’s contentious subject matter, I have been delving in those boxes again.

Today’s post is more from my letter writing days; the purpose of which was always to get some booty back.

As a child I didn’t watch much television (I made up for it later in life – though I’m back to ‘not much’ in Thailand – no point!) but I did watch and love the BBC children’s television. I was around ten/eleven years old when I wrote to Blue Peter (twice) and to Johnny Morris of Animal Magic fame.

This is the Blue Peter team that characterized my childhood. Looking back, I loved John Noakes for his humour; the way that he personified Shep the dog always made me laugh. And Johnny Morris’ humour too was much of the attraction although the animals were a big appeal too.

My Mum

Now it's my Mum's turn. I rather think that I maligned her in my post here. She doesn't tell me I should come home nor does she give me a hard time about it. She recognises that it's my life and I'm living it, but I know how much she misses me and wants us to come back to the UK.

My Mum:

• Is obsessed by Shakespeare. (And is a bit of a lovie; okay quite a lot of a lovie.)
  Applied, without her parent’s knowledge, by audition to RADA (Royal Academy of Dramatic Art) when she was a young. She was offered a place but because she didn’t get a scholarship and her parents weren’t interested she couldn’t go.
• Started Marden Theatre Group because there wasn’t a group, and she wanted to continue with her hobby of drama. She’s never viewed her hobby as amateur.
• Is passionate about costumes. She has an enormous theatrical wardrobe in the attic. She has an encyclopaedic knowledge of period costumes but can’t remember if she took her tablets that morning.
• Husband says that when he goes to their house she always asks him to move boxes, say from the attic to the dining room. Six months later she’ll ask him to take boxes somewhere else, maybe from the dining room to the attic. He has no idea if they are the same boxes or if anything has happened to them between his visits. They are nearly always full of costumes.
• Hates cooking.
• Is forever falling over the cats and dog, and shouting ‘Oh my God’ or ‘Jesus’ or ‘Bloody Hell’ in a completely over the top manner.
• Once wrote a history essay for me because I was overwhelmed with work due at school the next day. My teacher marked it in class and then called out loud: “Jenny! This is excellent; wonderful.” I expect she was bitterly disappointed by any future essay I handed in.
• Is the kindest, most generous person. Every week for months she drove a woman she knew to see her husband in a care home because the woman had no transport and the buses took all day. She waited and then brought the woman back again. She met another woman she knew in the village whose husband had weekly treatment at the hospital 10 miles away. She took them up to the hospital each time they needed to go for several months.
• She has several friends, on their own now, who are referred to as the Sunday lunch club. They come every week for Sunday lunch to my parents’ house.
• Has written/adapted several plays which she has produced and directed at a local men’s prison.
• Has written a play that Radio 4 rejected.
• Thinks technology is ridiculous. Thinks she has kept up with progress by learning to send faxes. Would rather use her old manual typewriter than the laptop my Dad and Brother bought her.