I feel strangely...

content.

The idea of moving from our much loved cottage has been oddly liberating.

Charity shops and car booting are the order of the day.

Tipper wagons R Us

The big question now is can I fine tune the old family photographs...

a moment of panic approaches!

If I knew how I could get them onto the computer and then dispose of the originals.

Music CD's and tapes could go the same way...

Ooh scary!

This is the book that has helped me to come to this momentous decision...

'Essential'

Essays by the Minimalists

Watch this space!

Does this...

running the shower on ice cold at the end, work wonders on the bad fat my blubber idly wonders!

Answers on a postcard please...

What is it...

about old ladies and linen I idly wonder as bottom in air I rifle through my much loved crafting cupboard full of fabric?

At the boot fair last Sunday the most successful part of my stall was the huge basket of odds and ends of material, old curtains, velvet oddments.

50p a pop...

What is there not to like?

This morning has found me after many years of absence listing stuff on ebay.  I seriously thought my days of wheeler-dealing were well and truly over...

Not so!

This is the...

problem...

These are my much loved dinner party bread baskets, they hold sway over the more conventional receptacles. 
I do so love an orange box!
Now the thing is, if I find parting with these little beauties  a wrench, what hope for the more conventional family crockery and 'silver'?

It's all very well reading the bible for living an unencumbered life.  I can certainly talk the talk... now time to walk the walk...

The vultures...

circled at dawn as we 

unpacked our treasures.

Is this a healthy way to live?

I thought as folk carried away square plates given to me by Uncle Norman 300 years ago, which to my shame I have only used a few times

back in the day when pretension was the name of the dinner party game. 

So many things tied with happy memories were taken to be sold.  

Possessions I now know 

don't empower you.  

Strangely I feel so much  freer, lighter, happier.

This for me is the way forward.

Let others be the guardians of clutter not this lass...

Picking the spent...

flowers of the Morning Glory, all is quiet in the early morning sun.
An enjoyable first task of the day.  My thoughts are given free rein as I look around at this tranquil 300 year old cottage and wonder is moving to a modern eco house a step too far?

All my life I've pushed back the boundaries that have hampered many folk.  Onwards and upwards has been my motto... suddenly now I am having a wobble.
We both agreed that this will be our last home, until a few weeks ago I floated the idea of moving to the sea.

Events have moved fast: we have decided where we want to live, our neighbours have agreed to buy and at the full asking price.
And still the lass isn't happy?

With every fibre of...

my being...
I have to resist picking up wheel hubs of cars found on the highways and byways of this corner of sleepy Kent.
I have a penchant for signs;
only last week I 'lifted' 
a sign...
❤️❤️wedding 
pointing to the little tucked away church nestling in the hills.
Not content with one sign I happened upon another at the second lane junction... which also found its way home in 
my little car.
Now before you get all uppity, they had been there for weeks so I was sure the guests weren't still driving around lost in the leafy lanes.

.

I do get my knickers in a twist about houses that advertise a party by hanging balloons on the gate then are too idle to take them in. For weeks after they hang, forlorn, deflated and wrinkly...

This morning my yen to be a bag-lady stirred: just as I was about to go into Waitrose.
There in the litter bin was a copy of ES Magazine which is the 
supplement of the London Evening Standard... a free evening paper given to the good folk of London.
For some reason only known to my inner psyche
I am anyone's for a copy, not 
literally obviously!
Glancing to right and left I carefully removed the banana skin languishing on the top 
and deftly slipped it down my 
left knicker leg... 
Do I need counselling 
I idly wonder?

Don't you just...

love a car boot?

I do!

The crack of dawn mornings,  the shifty early bird who wants to get stuck in with helping you unpack, in the hope you may any second be unveiling a Ming vase.

The rediscovery of forgotten treasures, the memories they invoke of happier/sadder times.

"The shall I, should I,

maybe keep it till next time?"

Knowing all the while it must go.

All is so good for the soul... 

I don't idly wonder...

I KNOW!

The thing is...

I am spoilt...

Why I don't know? 

It sure isn't my

winning ways, my svelte like figure, my engaging conversation.

It could be because I'm an oik, say it like it is, or to be more precise... say it like I see it.

The man never ceases to be amazed at the many and various conversations I get into with all and sundry who happen to cross my path... I wouldn't mind but I'm not even Irish!

I have the desire to clap
everyone to my ample bosom and give 'em a hug.  That in my world is the answer to the world's ills... mind you I would draw the line 

at Trump.

I suppose I'm not 

all bad...

Special day...

70!

14th August 1947

Oh dear...
or should I say...

Old dear!?!

In the mouse...

quiet of of the house at 6.45am I sit,

glowing with good cheer at the remembrance of a wonderful meal at a Michelin restaurant in a sleepy village in Kent.

Food with friends... what greater joy.

Gossip flying backwards and forwards across the table, no one person hogging the conversation.  Healthy, free and fair, the words flowed.  Talk, the joy of a bygone age without the modern day ping of electronic equipment.

It is so good to be alive.

***

70 must wait until tomorrow...

What is the...

point of coasters

I idly wonder?

Does anyone use them?

Over the years I have been given so many

from funny ones with comical sheep on, 

flash fancy silverplated, raffia, 

even slices of dried pineapple.

Without a qualm they all get taken to the nearest charity shop.

And still they come...

friends trying to tell me something 

I suspect?

***

It used to be a joke in the family that 

Auntie Margarine wherever she went used to always buy tea towels as gifts.  I have always poured scorn on such unimaginative presents...until now, 

the onset of official old age has brought about a change.

My heart lifts as I open the cupboard and see neat piles of folded tea towels from John o'

Groats to Lands End.  The potted history of a not forgotten Edwardian Aunt.

What exactly is it about old ladies and piles of linen I wonder?

Any ideas? 

Just sat...

after a morning's sorting out for the charity shops and clothes bank.
Holier than thou is how I feel.

This moving is sooo good for the soul.

Suddenly you see the crud, the cobwebs, the dust, the champagne corks (fib!)

On Monday the estate agents come for our photo shoot... for a nanosecond I can dream as I await their arrival, I'm a super model instead of a slut...

Food parcels...

it's what I do!

Why?

No idea!

Up early this morning, I've packed the birthday parcel up...

Contents...

a sticky gingerbread with spicy rum icing

Cheesey oatcakes (not hugely successful)

Jar of pickled onions

Marmalade

Crab Apple Jelly

All off to the Highlands

Oatcakes to Scotland?

Bit like coals to Newcastle...

Am I totally mad I idly wonder?

What state the contents arrive in I've no idea... I am assured they survive the journey... one day they won't!

Are we making...

the right decision to move?

Last Sunday I floated the idea of living by the coast?  Fully expecting the man to say no!  Strangely he was very receptive to the idea.  As we walked and talked, we spied across the village green a dear friend, an ex army officer, who with two sticks walked at a pace to put a snail to shame.  We fell into step chatting all the way.  The upshot of what he was saying was sadly after all the happy years in the village they were being forced to move by his increasing frailty 

'We should have done it sooner, before it was forced on us!' 

 We looked at each other and thought this exactly echos what we were thinking... do it now before events overtake you.  Robin didn't know how fortuitous his words were.   

His wife checking his 

progress popped out of the hedge looking for all the world like a rabbit bobbing out of Watership Down.  We helped him into the car and off we walked with far more resolution in our step!  

Perhaps now is the time before it is too late... 

Oh the joys of getting old I idly thought!

In the arms of...

Tom Courtenay!
In that snoozy place between waking and sleeping this is where I found myself.

Is this the quality of fantasies an old girl can expect I idly wonder?

Not that I'm complaining, mind!
He is a sexy man and I do have a soft spot for
Yorkshire men.

Memorable gifts for...

the wrong reasons.

My first serious boyfriend gave me 

a pair of the most gloriously soft 

white leather gloves...

I 'kid' you not!

Now anyone who knows me will tell of my oiky 

tendencies.  The passage of time has not soften my tell it like it is persona.

He got short shrift and returned with a gold cross and chain.  In the hope I suppose of redeeming my abrasive demeanour...

FAT chance!

And that reminds me, he even suggested on one occasion I should lose a little weight.  His fortune was told in very short order I seem to remember!

'If you don't like it, sling your hook!'

I slung it for him.

***

The decade birthdays seem to be especially memorable for 'pants' presents.

My fortieth heaving to was expected to be (foolishly by me, it turned out) an especial milestone.

A facial, every bit of the 39 year old bod got waxed, defluffed and buffed to mirror shine. In the hope of being wined and dined by the then farmer beau.  I didn't have much of an idea then of men of their ilk... I do now.

I was taken to meet some farming friends,their wives and children,to a pub in the middle of nowhere.  I spent the evening with the kids on the bouncy castle in the garden. At least with my smooth body I flew higher, further and faster than anyone else.

I should have known when he gave me a mini-tool set what to expect.  Never being the sharpest tool in the toolbox I was taken by surprise... worrying isn't it?

***

Next special birthday I organised my own bash... the only way!

***

The one after, through the post arrived a parcel, great excitement...

a shopping bag knitted out of dreary grey Sainsbury's carrier bags, not a Waitrose, Aldi, Liberty, Lidl, Harrods, Tesco carrier to lighten the drear.  Added to which the flaming thing had no handles...

yes you read that right...

No flaming handles!?!

I politely enquired as to no handles?

The reply...

'I did question the lack? 
No response from his wife!

A few days later some handles arrived knitted in the same monochrome plastic... Oh and three chocolates in a box...

No doubt to give me strength for the sewing task ahead?

Is it me I idly wonder?