rip it up and start again

Soundtrack: King Crimson - In the Court of King Crimson


What an odd day. Despite the prospect of having to stay at work until 8pm tonight, I've got a right spring in my step; despite leaving the house late this morning I still arrived at the train station early! I must have been bouncing. These were the thoughts that carried me on my walk to work:


Thought # 1

This is a sad one, but it's bin day tomorrow. Usually after a week we need to break open the second bin bag, but last week we finally received our recycling box. Our waste has gone down so much! I don't think the bin bag is even a quarter full, we've put so much into recycling. This makes me happy because I hate not recycling. It was really easy in Tooting as the council would just give me orange bin bags that recycling could be thrown in to, and they'd collect it every week. So I ordered a recycling box for the new house, and started this week. Today I feel like a superhero.


Thought # 2

It's been a stressful weekend. There was a Bowlie meet-up, which involved me not only playing a gig with The Gresham Flyers, but also setting up the gig (with Thom, John, Sally and Geoffroy). Although it was relatively easier than the last Bowlie All-dayer, you still can't relax until it's all over. Thankfully it went well. Anyway, leading up to this weekend, my sister Sue was finally moved to Cardiff (I had to keep renting the place for a month whilst she completed her Masters). The problem with this weekend was getting hold of the elusive landlord to get our deposit back. He suddenly turned very slippery when it came to us wanting something from him. Anyway, we managed to get him to tentatively agree to come over on Saturday after Sue came home from university to find him in the house! She managed to add emotional weight to our argument of needing our deposit back quickly because she had a Sainsbury's cashier steal her debit card last week. Bastard.

This passage doesn't even begin to describe how much chasing Sue and I had to do, and how we still weren't sure whether we would see him even half an hour before he was due, but the upshot is we got our deposit back. Minus £100 because the garden wasn't 'up to scratch'. Thom and I spent 5 hours and a week of not being able to move sorting the garden out the weekend before, but I'm sure the landlord would've taken more off our deposit if we hadn't. Bastard. It was worth losing that money just to get the whole debacle over and done with.

And yes, the cheque cleared.


Thought # 3

I was listening to the Kaiser Chiefs on my walk to the train station. I'll have to say this quietly so as not to offend the rest of the band, but The Gresham Flyers certainly have an affinity with this band - on the spunkier songs, anyway. It's the melodies and energy I think - it's very similar to our alcohol and nerve-fuelled live sound. And I'm sure the mutual respect of Blur and XTC helps too. This reminded me of walking home last night and coming up with a Kaiser Chief-esque couplet. All I need to do now is write the rest of the song around it.


Thought # 4

I'm currently knitting some 'glittens':




They are sparkly fingerless gloves. And they are Doing. My. Head. In. I've already had to 'frog'* them once. Now I've just started knitting them again, but there's no light at the end of the tunnel. I know what I did wrong last time, that's fine, but when it comes to the hard bit of making the finger holes, it's going to go all wrong again, I can tell. So to prove I can knit, and in time for our Scottish tour, I finished the scarf I started in March. It's black, red and white ribbed, and gloriously cuddly, and about 4foot long. I was going to make it about 8foot, but I had a cunning plan instead...

You might have noticed that baker boy hats are in fashion right now. It's getting nippier, so it's time I had a winter hat. Every morning in Waterloo station I pass Accessorize, and I keep seeing these hats. Yesterday I finally popped in to see how much they cost. £28!!! They can sod off, there's no way I'm paying that. So yesterday I got my arse into gear, cast this scarf off early, and with the remaining wool I'm going to knit a cute ribbed hat to go with my scarf. I'll post pictures of the scarf when I get a camera in my hand.




* A technical knitting term. It means 'rip it' - the sound a frog makes.