The Cost Of Living?

Just spent a delightful half day doing gorgeous things browsing and a bit of coffee sipping & lovely lunching at the Design Centre in Chelsea. It was a mission of sorts as a friend had spied some wallpaper she really wanted & a web search had shown it was American but available in Chelsea. Web search had also shown it was US$41 a yard - about UK£30 a metre (give or take). Fine & dandy thought friend. If with shipping & VAT etc the price was around £50 a metre (a v generous mark up indeed) she'd go for it. So off we went - amazingly easy to get there by public transport (despite cancelled train on the way out) and we soon found ourselves in taste heaven. Gorgeous. Sumptuous. Restrained. Delicious. Amazing. I wanted everything & my excitement at my utilitatrian utility faded. I discovered an unnatural desire for copper baths & marble floors & naked men floor lamps & walnut hall tables and for all the cracks in the FauxSurreyDesRes to disappear .... and when I looked at the prices I realised I would have to pretty much sell the des res to afford any of it!

Anyhow, after coffee we wandered into the wallpaper shop - sorry fabric & wallcoverings shop - and cooed over book after book of amazing wallpapers - made out of cork, jute, mica (yes tiny bits of glass on wallpaper) and found friends' hearts desire. After mistaking me for an interior designer (HOW flattered was I??) the lovely assistant ordered some samples for us & then worked out the price. £85 (inc VAT)  a meter. Minimum of 25 metres to be ordered. WHAT? How? How can they virtually triple the price?? And then insist you buy a heap of it? That's simply insane.

Picking my jaw off the floor for me, friend ushered me out of the shop as I was spluttering about the disparity. Luckily for friend she has family coming over from the US soon  - they can pay the sane price & bring the wallper in their suitcases ..... as a gift of course..!

Where have all the good men gone??

No no, before anyone gets upset or excited this is not a personal question - I am super happy thank you & grateful daily that 7 years ago I was lucky & blessed and I met the BEST man ever and smart girl that I am I married him pronto- no I am not looking I am just questioning. I look around me and I am surrounded by a virtual bevvy of true beauties, Women who are talented, exceptionally kind & caring, intelligent & drop dead gorgeous - and ubelieveably single! And then I look around at the men I know & the good ones are of course married / in a relationship, the very good ones are gay and the available ones are - well they are available as no sane self respecting woman would take them on!

I had lunch with one of my beauties today which prompted this little rant. She is divorced, but an optimist & so would quite like another partner. And she is doing everything she can bar walk about with a sandwich board saying "Hello I would like a boyfriend". She is not - repeat not - desperate & is past wanting children so those neon lights aren't flashing but she is - deep breath - just past her last birthday with a 4 in front of it

And herein it would appear lies the rub. Blokes seem to take their age & subtract the cost of a Ferrari and hey poncho a paunchy 50 year old thinks it's reasonable to expect to date 30 year olds... but my gorgeous, vibrant, young at heart mate is now going on dates with 60 year olds who are looking for companionship. Yes they are well mannered & appreciate her & old fashioned things they are are picking up the tab (which for this friend is hugely refreshing) but they are - sorry - old men & she would like to meet someone closer to her own age who makes her heart skip a beat (and not have to call an ambulance if his does.)

Where are all the sane, sensible, funny, intelligent, handsome available 50 / 52 year olds who can appreciate a woman his own age hiding? Or is every man that age who divorces automatically trading down? Do they really want sleepless nights beacause they are changing nappies rather than being kept awake by a woman who enchants him & is his equal?

OK the oldies I have chosen to make this rant more interesting are unusual but surely not completely unique? Any handsome solvent funny grown up men out there know where to apply ...

If you go down to the woods today ...

... please make sure you know where you are & which direction you are heading in! My 2 lovely but clearly dumb stepchildren decided to walk less than 1/2 a mile (about 20 minutes) to come & see me. The most obvious route is a straight line down a main road. You cannot get lost. Really you can't. But they did - they decided to go on an adventure and head off the straight simple main road into the woods. Smart you may think, get off the congested & polluted 'A' road & get some fresh air. No. Not smart with these 2. They thought they could walk across a privately owned stud farm to cut off a corner & naturally as they reached the fence of the farm they came across the farm dog. Who was very loud in his greeting!!
Cue phone call to me but as I have no idea where they are - and they cannot describe in any accurate way where they may be I cannot help them.
Then their father (FauxSurreyHubby) called. He got through to them & managed to talk them out. Where did they pop out? Exactly where they had gone in. Still 20 mins away. The scary thing is one of them has a Silver Duke of Edinburgh award!! Good grief!

The Joan Collins Fan Club

Am listening to Radio 4 Saturday Live & the wonderful, ascerbic, honest & fabulous Joan Collins is a guest being utterly - well Joan Collins like! She is a woman after my own heart - kids don't tell adults what to do, adults tell them - sing hosanna! Todays society is poorer for instant fame & the utterly crass 'celeb' culture. Restaurants serve you far too much food and much of it is wasted - couldn't agree more.


Hurrah for a dose of honesty! Oh Joan you are inside my head. Watch out Doris Day ...

Come & join us!

Surpise? Surprise!

Long-time no blog. Was exercising the grey matter at a work conference out in the countryside last week and have been recovering from the shock. FauxSurreyHubby has left the country briefly - his presence & expertise is required in the USA and as we have both been busy & knackered I thought I'd sort a surprise out in his absence! A surprise for both of us. The money pit – sorry the des res – still needs a heap of TLC and I thought I would give it some whilst he was away. So trying to work quietly behind Hubby’s back I briefed a decorator to “do” the downstairs cloakroom & our en suite.

They are both in a shocking state and I made one 100x worse by trying to paint it myself last year. I even had a bit of a plan for the downstairs loo, ‘The most sumptuous smallest room’ and I decided that I would not only bring luxury & gorgeousness I would also save money & be cunning & use the leftover wallpaper from our newly refurbed downstairs bit which is a gentle gold-y silver & cream & all la di da. And would look fab in a small cloakroom; so the decorator came ‘round when hubby was at work last week & I assured him we had all the wallpaper & the paint necessary & all is good. All I needed was his time. I couldn’t double check & search the garage however as Hubby would wonder what I was doing fossicking about.

And so this morning the decorator arrived as planned and I went to fetch the wallpaper (of which I was convinced & so assured him there was plenty) and found … disaster … I only had 2 x 2/3 rolls of the fancy stuff I wanted and the 2 wrapped rolls were nasty beige anaglypta (!!) which I had stupidly thought were the good wallpaper. Yikes. So I had to head off to B&Q and buy 2 more full rolls plus the adhesive & a new shelf & am now £100 poorer. Oops. So much for make do & mend…. But it will look amazing!