Ssssteam Heat!

Ah I am indeed truly embracing my inner fauxhousewife. I have gone gadget mad & filled my FauxSurreyHome with the power of steam.

Firstly, due to major limsecale (if it was any harder our water would come out as chalk), the old steam mop furred up and died and then my trusty steam iron started to just be - well - not quite as good as it used to be no doubt also because of limescale despite always filling with once boiled water and always cleaning / descaling it. Ironing FauxSurreyHubby's shirts had become a real pain in the whatsit & a major chore. And no-one likes a chore.

So flopped on the sofa whilst trying to recover from THE COLD I was bored rigid & flicked to the shopping channels - and landed on Thane Direct. After suffering dreadfully dubbed American ads for The Slim'n'Lift Aire Bra and the WonderStep door mat, on came an ad for the X5 Steam Mop... and I was transfixed! Not only (promised the man) would this amazing mop steam clean the floors brilliantly - cleaning AND sanitising AND do carpets - I could use it to clean windows, steam clean the hob & oven, wet dust all the furniture & the wood blinds, and get rid of limescale with a power blast of steam from the specially designed blast nozzle. I was convinced. Chi-ching. One X5 wonder mop purchased.

Mop duly arrived and I wondered if I could use for FauxSurreyHubbys shirts as it also had a built in garment steamer ... (yes it's a marvel) but no - I really couldn't get to grips with that bit ... but our ensuite has never been so clean, the wooden blinds are spotless, the kitchen is sparkling and I even had a go at the windows.

But the shirts were still an issue ... so I did some online exploring and landed upon the Phillips GC8328/02 EasyCare Pressurised Steam Generator Iron..! For an amazing £140 off the RRP at Argos. Donning a disguise I popped into our local branch (me? Argos??!!) and have just finished flattening a kingsize duvet & 4 housewife pillowcases & 4 of FauxSurreyHubby's impossible cotton work shirts in 20 minutes!!

 OK OK I confess to now living in a semi sauna as I trawl the house looking for things to "sanitise" or flatten but as it's -4 outside I don't really mind!

To give is better than to receive ..

... or is it?.

Lucky girl that I am I was able to buy 3 beautiful comfy gorgeous sofas in the January sales. Hurrah! However as I bought them ahead of getting rid of the ones we have already, we now have a surfeit of sofas. What to do? Current sofas are in VGC but not really smart enough to sell for any decent amount of dosh, but also not rubbish enough to take to the tip so I put the word out to friends & charity volunteers alike & I have disposed quite quickly (for a small donation to Cats Protection natch) of 2 very lovely 3 year old leather sofas, but have been left with a tricky one - a quite old but still very serviceable 3 seat sofa bed that the KC is rather fond of excercising her claws on ... yes, you see the problem.

That said the scratched white beast is without a doubt the comfiest of all the sofas I am trying to find new homes for. Not only is it super useful in that it converts to a bed should the need arise, the cushions are feather filled & the covers are machine washable so it is the ultimate in 'easy to keep looking quite nice' furniture. So rather than send to landfill I called a few charities offering to hand over - gratis - a decent piece of furniture for someone in real need of such an item.

Oh. My. Goodness. I was almost made to feel bad & dreadful for wanting to give away something that was (shock) quite old, used & not in pristine condition to people who were probably currently sitting on deck chairs or even the floor. I call the first charity "and how would you describe the condition of the said piece of furniture?" (say it whilst holding your nose for full effect) My response  (cos am honest) "it's about 8 years old and has a few cat scratches on the fabric cover on the legs; the cover is fully machine washable and it's really easy to get new covers if you want". Response from 1st charity? "so it's damaged, that's no good, we don't want it" 2nd Charity - same question & same answer from me but this time there is a grudging maybe ".... hmmm. Does it have a fire certificate?". Me "I think so" Response "well it sounds OK but we will not take it without a fire certificate so please find it, then ring me back" Me "... erm .... OK ..."

I am however happy to report that said slightly cat scratched but v big, comfy sofa is now going to a lovely friend of mine & the KC's who is actually quite happy to give it a new home & probably continue using it as a scratching post for her 5 kitties! Hurrah!

However the bizarre charity shop discussions reminded of another time I tried to do some good - I had 2 rather expensive M&S sofas with fire regs etc all attached that were just wrong for our then house - they were perfectly decent, 3 seater solid sofas that again were free to good homes. Both beige linen, one had been placed in front of  a south facing window & the sun had streamed in leaving a 'pale patch' on it where the colour had visibly changed. I could've sold them but thought no, do the decent thing. I called a housing charity. The charity collectors duly appeared to take away this really rather good furniture ... but hold on - "oh no madam. we can't take that. It's damaged." Me - don't be ridiculous it's not damaged, it's just a faded patch on the cushion fabric that could easily be fixed by making a new cusion cover; or chucking a throw over it. Them "oh no madam the homeless people / people in empty flats on benefits / people sitting on the floor / deckchairs don't want (for free) a £1,200 3 seat sofa that has a small easily remedied sun faded stain on it"  Seriously. Quicksmart however my lovely Polish cleaner who had been working hard as the charity men refused my donation asked if she could take them - as they were "perfect". And she had a sewing machine & wasn't afraid to use it!! 10 mins later an estate car turned up & off they went to a very good home.

If I was donating a Chippendale do you think they would request a fire cert? If I had an original Eames chair from the 60's or a a 70's G-Plan sofa, hugely desirable by collectors would they claim it was "too old" & turn their noses up? Do you know what I fear they would.

Resolute

Well here we are about to tip 2012 into the bin it so deserves to be in (although you wait, in 10 years time with clarity of hindsight we will likely all go 'oh that was pants at the time but clearly needed to happen' ..)

Anyhoo I am not generally one for New Years Resolutions but given all the rubbish that's been going on I have been pondering things I could consciously do to make life better in 2013 and in no particular order here they are

1 - Be as healthy as I can & be conscious of being healthy (i.e. cut down on alcohol, do the stuff I have to in order to keep my back strong as well as X-Trainer etc.)

2 - Get out more!! The FauxSurrey homestead is such a divine & delightful place to be I frequently have to be prised out with pliers. Not good; hermit is a word that comes to mind.

3 - Don't sweat the small stuff. Because it IS only the small stuff.

 

4 - Enjoy what I have & be grateful every day. Because good grief I have such a lot.

5 - Hang out more with people I like & who are good for me & vice versa!

 

 

A very HAPPY NEW YEAR to all

Bored Now ...

... utterly completely & totally bored with 2012 and all the drama & misery it has brought.

FauxSurreyHubby & the KC & I had a lovely quiet Christmas Day albeit a low cal but naughtily high alcohol day (caviar, smoked salmon, potted shrimps & champagne pretty much all day thank you very much) and we looked forward to welcoming kids & family during the odd downtime that has just been - Christmas is over, it's not quite New Year & we are not ready to go back to work yet.



So family come to make merry, hubby goes all master chef & does a huge roast, all is lovely and as we wave people goodbye this morning, as it's still the awful 2012 Hubby gives in to vile cold & my back goes 'ping!'. He is in bed & I am swallowing diclofenac & wriggling on my backrack desperately trying to get pain free.



Listening to R4 news as I type I hear it's the wettest year on record, nearly a million people are glued to the loo with Norovirus, someone murdered his girlfriend on Christmas day and Americans are now (bizarrely) prevented from adopting Russian children

2012 - seriously - enough already.

Crikey it's Christmas!

Christmas is upon us once again - wishing everyone a VERY Merry Christmas and a bright & happy 2013

The Gucci Gardener

Ah dear. Yet another one of those "good grief my life has changed SO  much!!" moments. And don't get me wrong the change is not bad at all it's just such a 180 it stopped me in my tracks.

In the dark days BH, I was known by many nicknames which reflected my 'rush about the world pretending to be happy' status; JetSetGlam being one of them (seriously I am not making this up!), the Prada Princess being another. And whilst Prada & Gucci are quite different they are the same if you see what I mean - overpriced aspirational Italian brands offering covetable bags & shoes that fitted me & hence whose shoes I coveted & bought. With alarming frequncy. Meaning I gathered quite a collection

Fast forward 8 or so years. The weather in FauxSurrey whilst not flooding like other parts of the UK has been pretty soggy & grey. Yet spring bulbs will not wait forever to be planted and as I had in excess of 50 that needed to go in ASAP the grey soggy Sunday just gone seemed as good a day as any to get out there & garden.

Looking at the weather I donned jeans & a hoodie and thick socks  grabbed my Burgon & Ball gardening stuff (aka Prada for the garden!!) and pondered my Hunter wellies (I have 2 pairs ... come on, some things fundamental don't change...!) but quickly thought nah too hard as I needed to be in & out of the utility and needed shoes I could kick on & off easily. In the garage I peered into the cupboard where shoes go to die looking for something disposable, sliponable and chunky & staring back at me were 2 fab candidates. It was only when I had pulled them both out & decided which pair I would stomp about a muddy mucky garden in I realised what I was doing. On the floor in front of me was about £400 worth of shoes. 1 pair Gucci trainers, 1 pair Prada. Both black, funky & very early 21st century ie very much of their time & not really what you would wear in 2012.

So the Gucci trainers have become gardening shoes. I vividly remember the days I bought both pairs - one pair I was wandering about Selfridges wasting time and found myself in the Prada concession & thought ooh they are nice I'll have them; the other I was on a  Gucci mission with a gaggle of gay men (yes correct collective noun) and we all came out swinging the dark brown carrier bags and then had sushi for lunch. Cos that's what you did in 2001. My my how times have changed.

Starry starry night

Finally! We went away & it all (pretty much) worked out! To celebrate our 5th year of wedded bliss we booked a stunning restaurant (L'Enclume), a stunning 2 bed cottage 5 metres from the door of the restaurant in a stunning village (Cartmel) in the stunning south lakes. Yes, stunning. There were bed issues (as there always are - WHY do cottage people think you want to sleep on a marshmallow? Just one night in the soft mess & I was swallowing painkillers & being carried by hubby; naturally we then swapped rooms and the second night was, if not brilliant, better) so on balance all was excellent.

The weather was kind, the antique shops & cafes were amazing, the pubs were brilliant; as well as L'Enclume we ate at Nigel Howarths pub The Bull at Broughton - I had a celeriac souffle to die for -  but the rest of this blog is dedicated to L'Enclume.

I must admit FauxSurreyHubby & I were more than a tad nervous as we reached the restuarant door. We had read mixed reviews, we are difficult customers (he is seriously allergic to nuts & all soft fruit, me a sort of veggie I eat fish but loathe shellfish ..) and there was no menu and no sense of what we would be offered as Simon Rogan, the chef & proprietor is well known as a forager. He gets the best of what he can on the day. But our concerns were dissipated the second we walked in. The staff were amazing. The sommellier was brilliant, the maitre d' a joy. No pompous service or people looking down their noses but a heap of personable talented & engaging people.

And the food. 17 courses of sheer bliss. All foibles were catered for and each dish superceded the last for inventiveness & sheer brilliance of flavours. I have my personalised menu somewhere in the house but am still unpacking so from memory I was knocked out by a duck egg yolk with baby leeks & onion ash; a pocket full of scrambled eggs & garlic & light potato foam; stunning Jersualem artichokes (no idea what they did to them but OMG) and a mouthful of creamy perfectly cooked Hake.

I did have 2 tiny 'hmm not sure' moments, for 2 of the pud courses but I am not really a pud person and the flavours were slightly bizarre BUT they were meant to be! Overall top marks. 10/10 and I would go back in a heartbeat & would encourage EVERYONE to go there & taste a piece of heaven at least once on their lives!

Carted Away

No I haven't finally gone mad (although given what's going on I am surprised I haven't) it's just a feeble attempt at regaining my sense of humour as it's that time of year again - it's our wedding anniversary (5 whole years now!) and we intend to leave the KC in the capable hands of her best mate Iris the catsitter, point the Volvo North and head for the pcituresque village of Cartmel, the home of sticky toffee pudding for 4 whole days a deux.

Huh? I hear you mutter, Shanghai, then Hamburg ... now the Lake District? In November? Can this be true? Oh yes. And there is method in our madness. No foggy delays at airports, no jetlag, and no fancy pants "I saw you coming" hotel this time with its paper thin walls & bad beds & £12 for a glass of average fizz.

This time we have been smart & we have rented a whole detatched 2 bed stone cottage with king sized beds, its own stream in the garden, an open fire in front of huge sofas to lounge on & we are bringing our own Krug & Perrier Jouet Belle Epoque to pop in the huge fridge & as our little cottage is in the middle of the village we only have to stroll out to sample award winning bistros & pubs & we have already booked dinner at L'Enclume, the restaurant of The Great British menu winning chef Simon Rogan. Will have to do a big country walk the day of that dinner and I cannot wait!

Getting back to normal ...

Long time no blog - have been having vile time chez the FauxSurreyHousehold. My little sister, the beautiful bouncy baby who was my 5th birthday present, has had breast cancer.  No pretty pictures for this post as none are apt. She is far too young for something like this (43) and whilst all has gone as well as it could physically, emotionally she is wrecked. They managed to remove all the cancer (when I say all, there were 2 tumours - more cancer than breast) with a full mastectomy and luckily there is no need for chemo or radiotherapy but the poor girl is sledgehammered by this. She feels violated, butchered; almost abused. She even genuinely considered not having the surgery as the thought of what was about to be "done" to her was too much to bear. She understood it was the knife or death but that didn't help. Unlike Sharon Osbourne, for my sister the removal of a breast was NOT a no brainer.

There is no gentic cancer in our family. Her lifestyle suggests she should live to 120 disease free. She runs 7km daily and does half marathons for fun, she has never smoked, barely drinks (unlike me...) is almost a vegetarian, and is incredibly active - she goes diving & kite surfing when on holiday. It just shows you. Cancer really is no respecter of age or lifestyle.

Right now those closest to her, me included, are doing our level best to help her through this emotionally. The surgery is done (although I am NOT impressed by the private hosptial she went to - the surgery was on a Thursday evening & she was sent home in utter confusion & pain the next day - Friday PM less than 24 hours after MAJOR surgery - as  they had another paying customer for the bed. It's a disgrace), and the prognosis is full (physical) recovery so the future should be on the horizon. BUT she cannot see past the cancer. She is still struggling to understand how this happened to her. She cannot get perspective. And before anyone reading this goes off about how lucky she is (I know in the context of what happened she IS lucky; incredibly lucky) life, hope and experience are all relative.

Today she is seeing a counsellor from the Helen Rollason cancer charity http://www.helenrollason.org.uk/ ; I really hope that this counsellor can help her find some perspective, some hope, something to look forward to.

What the ...?!

So against the everpresent backdrop of not very nice things happening (not really my news to tell and not nice at all) we had my older sisters 50th and FSHubby's 49th this weekend. In an attempt to be jolly we all appeared at older sisters house on Saturday, handed over an expensive handbag, drank champagne & ate cake & got home in time for FSHubby to begin to relax into his next day birthday.

But we had been away from the KC for about 8 hours by the time we got home. She was unusually pleased to see us, came in like a good girl at her appointed bed time and trotted upstairs quite happily, not complaining and wanting to be let into the garage as she normally does. Hmmm ... Then the takeaway was delivered and the film chosen (Sherlock Holmes 2 Game of Shadows - quick aside 50yr old sisters "hubby" made the chair costume at the very end .. if you've seen it you will know what I mean - if you haven't I won't spoil it!), a roaring fire was lit and we all got comfy.

But around halfway through the film, I spied something out of the corner of my eye, scuttling around the sofa. As I had just seen the KC chase & polish off a rather large spider I assumed it was another. Then I saw it again & the stepson shrieked "what the..?!" pulled his feet up onto his sofa (he's 15 - big girl) and pointed at the thing....

The pause button was hit, the lights went up and there he was - a tiny, terrified brown & furry Mr Vole. Who had clearly been brought in much earlier by the KC - no wonder she was happy to be home .. she had rodents on her mind! Mr Vole then ran from the living room to the conservatory & managed to get himself wedged under the radiator. Hastily grabbing a version of the KC Rescue system I poked & prodded and only succeeded in pushing him further into unreachable places. Hubby had a go & despite agreeing we couldn't leave a small rodent running about the house all night, we agreed it was too hard & the film was too good & we gave up temporarily & went back to Sherlock.

20 minutes later we heard the unmistakable noise the KC makes when she has prey in her sight. Running into the dining room I saw him again; poor Mr Vole, who was clearly exhausted, trying to hide from probing claws in a small gap between hubbies boots. This time however I was able to sweep up the KC bodily & put her in a different room & quckly pop the Vole in a takeaway box and take him outside to safety. Crisis averted & Vole restored to nature. And of course, after being let back into the room where there was once a rodent, the KC was sniffing & fussing & she sat in vigil next to the radiator for the rest of the night!

You are what you think ...

Odd times chez the FauxSurrey household. Nothing I want to share publicly (and nothing affecting me or the FSH directly as such) but it has made me ponder & wonder if we really are in charge of our own destinies. In the bad old days BH (Before Hubby) I used to try so hard & stay positive constantly and had written "affirmations" dotted around & about to steer me through dark days, as according to Peter McWilliams & many other New Age gurus in his book "You can't afford the luxury of a negative thought" - a book described as "not a book just for people with life-threatening illnesses. It's a book for anyone afflicted with one of the primary diseases of our time: negative thinking". and so I avoided negativity at all costs often denying what I really felt.

Of course, being grumpy & negative all the time is not a good thing to be but surely we are allowed the odd rant & rage?? And can bad thoughts really truly manifest into "life threatening illnesses" & attract bad things as many in California would have us believe??

Pondering further I then remembered the words of Mahatma Gandhi -  not a 'New Age Guru' out to make money from our fears, but a man who stood firm by his beliefs and demonstrated positivity by preaching non violence.

And he said this - and I do feel there is something in this - “Carefully watch your thoughts, for they become your words. Manage and watch your words, for they will become your actions. Consider and judge your actions, for they have become your habits. Acknowledge and watch your habits, for they shall become your values. Understand and embrace your values, for they become your destiny.” Now that I believe.