My hoover has died. May he rest in peace with my beloved tv.
But seriously what's going on?? Did I offend the Goddess of all things electrical? What's next? My iron? My hairdryer? The microwave? Maybe I'll blink and all the street lamps will go out one by one...
It takes a special kind of woman to render everything she touches stone dead.
Do you think buying a little Hetty would be taking my obsession with all things pink just a little too far?
Well I think it's about time don't you? You see the problem with scrumptiousness is that if you don't attend to making life lovely on a daily basis, you forget to attend to it all and life becomes one long round of kids packed lunches and scrubbing toilets and it seems to me that there is little joy to be found in the daily drudge. Unless of course we whiz around the dull stuff, housekeeping music on full blast, collapse with a long, tall glass of something cold and fruity and then award ourselves an afternoon resplendent with puttery loveliness...
Go on. Take your pick...
* Seek out lavender, orange or rose scented sugar syrup and use it to add a little blast of loveliness to plain yogurt first thing in the morning....
* Mommies never frame photographs of themselves. Find a photograph of you at your prettiest and put it on the kitchen windowsill. You are beautiful... you just forget occasionally.
* Set yourself a challenge for the next twelve months, twelve difficult books you will read between now and next Spring. Twelve increasingly difficult sock patterns...? A chapter a month of the book you've long considered writing...?
* Create an "organisation station". A corner of the kitchen where a pinboard, calendar, diary, address book and housekeepers journal live. Have a little pot with pen, glue and scissors, a tin with note cards, envelopes and stamps, a place to charge your mobile, and somewhere to hang your keys. Never again will you leave the house without your shopping list...
* Take yourself on a creative excursion for the biggest ball of natural string you can find. Aesthetically gorgeous all by itself you will find endless uses for it and will, like I do, consider it a fabulously silly investment...
* Spend the afternoon downloading a wonderfully upbeat collection of Springtime music to your Ipod, Just perfect for finally getting into the garden and dancing by yourself while you sweep away the last vestiges of Winter.
* Hunt out an old fashioned enamel coffee pot and use it to water your houseplants while you wait for the kettle to boil in the morning...
* Create a "Treasure journal" for noting the provenance and price of all your vintage finds. Make it handbag sized and oh so pretty and you will, over time find yourself with a precious little record of your favourite vintage haunts and most gleeful moments of discovery...
* Spray your signature perfume onto your partners pillow... Oh and while you are about it, open your underwear drawer and spray a tiny blast in there too...
* Sew yourself an oh so quick collection of eco shopping bags from scraps of vintage this and that and stash them everywhere: in your handbag and the boot of your car... Never again will the supermarket cashier sneer at you when you pack your shopping into a plastic bag...
* Add a length of the prettiest, brightest ribbon you can find to your house keys. They'll be so much easier to spot in the abyss that is your handbag...
* Dust your light bulbs with a cloth infused with aromatherapy oil for a gentle scent when you switch them on...
* Create a "Charging Point". Choose a plug and extension and use it to charge mobile phones, cameras, mp3 players etc etc all in one place. Enough already with all these wires dangling everywhere!
* Choose a pretty teacup and use it to scoop washing powder into the machine.
* Freeze slices of leftover lemon into ice cubes for the perfect G and T's...
* Sprinkle handkerchiefs with cedar oil and put them in the pockets of Winter coats before you put them into storage for the Summer...
* Write your Daddy a love letter and include a picture of yourself as a little girl... perhaps he misses her...
Life isn't as lovely as it should be. Yesterday the man I adored as a teenager made a game out of spotting the grey hairs on my head and taking an irrational amount of pleasure in yanking them out like a flea-picking monkey. (It was probably the defining moment of my romantic life but don't tell him that...). Then this morning I found myself super-glueing the bedroom curtain pole to the wall so the fright that is hearing things that go crash in the night and finding myself staring at the moon where there should be only cream chenille never has to be suffered again.
When one finds oneself doing battle with life on a daily basis one has to seek respite. Respite for me come in the form of Piers Morgan and a fish finger buttie. It can be found too in Heat magazine. In Scooby Doo and red liqorice laces sucked in spectacular fashion into my mouth. It is ketchup with everything and Britney Spears latest disaster. It is spending hours playing silly games of "Would ya?" with Kath (Ok, so to save the planet you've got to sleep with either David Hasselhoff or Gordon Brown. Which one are you having?) and stringing a truly awful set of pink fluffy heart shaped fairy lights across my bed because they make me smile. It is wasting away whole evenings gossiping on the phone and taking baths in Power Rangers bubblegum scented bubble bath. It is watching the car crash that is Kerry Katona open mouthed, eating micro-chips, really and truly caring about my fake tan (I'm from Liverpool!), and letting Finn eat half an easter egg after his breakfast because it is the first day of his holidays and I want it to be fun...
In other words it is trash.
Virtue has never been my middle name. Try as I might I can't be the kind of woman who lies in bed at night worrying about the amount of salt my son has consumed that day. Much as I adore housework I will happily abandon the ironing for an hour with the Loose Women. I scandalise myself on a regular basis, feel mildly confused by my ability to switch oh so very easily between great literature and The National Enquirer and occasionally, and I can't believe I am about to admit this, occasionally feel almost orgasmically happy on a Sunday afternoon with a plate of black pudding and The News of the World...
From the very beginning of BrocanteHome I have banned the word guilt. It is, I think, an emotion that doesn't become us. We can't be good all the time. We don't have to be the green living, organic consuming, low carb munching angels we feel obliged to be all day everyday. We can instead spend blissful, whole mornings in bed, reading something that will improve neither mind, nor soul, drinking a can of Tizer, and letting a Flake bar crumble all over our decollatage. We can entertain fantasies about Piers Morgan (Have you got it yet? He's my latest celebrity crush... this too will pass!), chuck the odd tin into the bin, buy something sparkly for a pound in Asda, and drown smile shaped potatoes in salt and vinegar and feel... proud.
There is no shame in trash occasionally. Consider me your mentor in a life less perfect. Perfection you see, is exhausting. Trash is life affirming, energising, thrilling, and a teeny bit naughty. So all hail the naughty girl in the pretty pinny! The yummy mummies at the school gate may not quite approve of her silly shoes and maybe her mum worries about her a bit more than she needs too... but the naughty, trashy girl knows what it is to be alive...
Oh bless me. I've got no shame have I? But there is a time and a place for virtue and today isn't it.
Some things escape my attention on a daily basis. Some things get tucked to the back of my mind and I leave them there on purpose. Some things are so deadly dull I simply can't be bothered.
I can't be bothered until all those things I've swept under the carpet cause a bump so big I trip over it everytime I walk through the living room and have to report myself to casualty with yet another shoulda washed the shower curtain broken bone...
Shoulda woulda coulda. But I didn't, I just jolly well didn't and I'd like to say I'm ashamed but most of the time I couldn't give a flying hoot because I'm too busy living to be worrying about the oh so dull minutie.
And then days like yesterday happen. Days when my plans go awry and twiddling my thumbs doesn't seem that thrilling. Days when all of a sudden I am possessed by the urge to attend to things most horrid, things most urgent and other things not very urgent at all . Days when I lift up the rug and have a good old stare at all matter of dusty horrors I've been avoiding dealing with. Days designed for catching up and cheese and french mustard on thick slices of granary toast. Catch up Sundays.
Yesterday was one of those days. A fuzzy wuzzy bit hungover from too much easter egg kinda day. A someone has chucked me off their friends list on Facebook kinda day (I'm too old for this nonsense! I don't even understand the concept of the silly pokey thing but think unfriending me is a bit extreme!! Blasted men, I'm offending them left, right and centre these days). A day when the best laid plans of mice and vintage mommies went to pot and I found myself with a child free afternoon and a scruffy house on my hands. Which struck me as a rather fortunate combination given that it was my "nesting" day... you know that day just before your period when nature blesses you with a mini version of the need to get the house ready just before the baby is born...?
Well it was that day. And as my presence watching football in a pub (??) was no longer required (Don't ask...but let it be known Paul that I bought NEW beautiful, flesh toned, cork heeled SHOES for the occasion but may forgive you regardless), I found myself in a frenzy of the might as well's...
Might as well finally write the application for The Masters in Writing I'm hoping to attend in September. Might as well bundle Finn's old clothes into the charity bag. Might as well walk to the recycling bin and admire the gorgeous magnolia bush at number nine on the way. Might as well delete loony texts off my mobile. Might as well pop all my matching underwear in oh so neat and tidy ziplock bags. Again. Might as well print out a months worth of housekeepers shopping lists. Might as well grate those leftover chunks of cheese. Might as well have an afternoon nap...
A girl needs to catch up on her sleep too you know.
Catch up days are fun, but I'm not sure they can be scheduled. Maybe they are only possible when they aren't an obligation?
I do so hate to feel obliged.
The ties that bind us to a marriage are not unlike those that tie us home. Emotion ebbs and flows. Sometimes we are guilty of apathy . Sometimes the four walls that surround us no more than a blanket we wear to keep out the cold. At other times we smother surfaces in hope and lavender and cannot leave well alone. And then there are the days when being at home is enough. When we give up striving for what isn't and lie still in the peculiar music of silence. At one with our house. At one with ourselves and unlikely aspirations.
Lately I feel as though the house is slipping away from me. If it it was a marriage I would want to call time on this willful neglect. I would say enough, nows the time to re-connect. I would turn our worlds upside down so we could be together, time to repair damage done by time, time by ourselves. I would say, I'm sorry, I won't take you for granted anymore. Won't expect you to thrive in the face of my indifference. I will look after you, I promise...
Whole weeks go by and though I go through the motions, follow basic routines and light candles every evening something is missing. There is no real interest there, other than for what the house can offer me: warmth, light and nourishment. No joy to be felt simply in it's presence only a lingering sense that life would be so much better if I had a new oven. If there was a door in the kitchen straight into the yard. New pillows puffed with the happiness of Spring....
Because a new season is almost upon us. The cosy bliss of Winter now exhausted and layers of dust thick enough to write a promise in, just asking to be blown away. Looking back through the archives of BrocanteHome I can see this coming weekend, this turning point, marked every year. The weekend I plant the first batch of beans. The day I brush Winter out of the garden. The evening I clean the bathroom twinkly white and spend hours brushing away the layers of dull skin coating my body.
Today I bought an armful of lilac tulips. A new block of parma violet soap. A pile of dusters thick as a dictionary, because Spring is tingling in my fingertips and I owe it to my tiny little terraced cottage to fall in love with it all over again. To prove my love with elbow grease and imagination.
I heal you and when I let you, you heal me.
"I USED to know a home, very plain, very simply furnished, very strenuous in its endeavors, and lofty in its ideals, which for abounding cheerfulness surpassed the common abodes of men and women. Looking back I know that there was a struggle with poverty, that the wolf sometimes growled at the door, and that the one shadow on the lives of the heads of the house was that they had so little to give away. But the fund of anecdote there, the jests that were as much the family property as the silver spoons and the old clock in the hall, the friends who came and went, the hospitality that was spontaneous, and the fun that was never wanting, made that home perennially sweet for its inmates, and makes it perennially fragrant in memory.
The Little Things.
The habit of being pleased with little things is worth cultivating by those who would be cheerful. If we wait for the greater gifts and scorn the smaller ones we shall often go through life with empty hands. A child's kiss, a child's good report on Friday afternoon, a bit of fire on the hearth on a chilly night, a letter from an old friend, a pleasure jaunt to park or seaside costing for the whole family less than a dollar, a new book, a picture bought with small daily savings—these are the items that add to the balance on the credit side of the home felicity. And when one has for years made it a rule to be glad and pleased when little delights have brightened the hours, one will realize that the capacity for a surprise or pleasure is greatly enlarged. The woman who found it a treat to go to Coney Island with the children for a picnic will be very far from blase if she ever goes to Mentone or Capri, or crosses the Continent and sits among the roses in a garden of enchantment at Santa Monica. Still beyond this, they who cultivate the talent for finding enjoyment in the daily little things, will be the stronger for battling with the sterner realities, and for bearing the greater sorrows, if ever they come.
The Joy of Light.
Among tangible aids to cheerfulness in the household, and these should not be overlooked, light and warmth take precedence. Exercise frugality in other directions, but have a well-lighted living room, and, if practicable, a fire that one may poke. The gloomy, vault-like chill of a half-warmed, obscurely lighted home has driven many a boy and man to some hostelry where lamps and fire beckoned. No place in a home should be too ornamental and too costly in its equipment for the use of the family. A stately drawing-room may be the privilege of a palace, where there are suites of other pleasant apartments, but people of ordinary means should live all over their houses, and have no shut-up room, into which the boys and girls may not intrude. Books and periodicals add immensely to the cheer of a home, and to the broadening and brightening of growing youth. That house is always cheerful which is open to' the voices of the period, which keeps a tally of new inventions and discoveries, and which is, to use a graphic phrase, up to date. The up-to-date house must own, not merely borrow from a library, plenty of books. Receptive to new ideas, cheerfulness comes to us as a matter of course. It is to the lonely, narrow, hopeless home that melancholy creeps a menace and a blight.
Avoid Ruts.
They who most prize home cheerfulness will carefully avoid getting into a rut. The bondage of routine fetters those who never have variety, who, year in and year out, walk in the same track and drop seeds into the same furrow. If the mother, the pivot of the domestic machinery, shows symptoms of wearing out, if she is not responsive as formerly, if she sits by herself, and the tears start at some fancied slight, the combined family should rally to her rescue. Twenty miles from home, or two hundred, the sovereign virtues of a change may restore her spirits and make her once more cheerful and brave. One un-cheerful person in the house, one who is the slave of the low mood, will, without evil intention, upset the equanimity of the whole circle. Low spirits are malarious. Very subtly, very wofully, they undermine the family health. The contagion of despair is more noxious than the germ of yellow fever, and more to be dreaded. Make a strong fight, and be sure it will not be a losing one, with prayer and pains, against the ill dominion of the blues; in other words, against the malignity of the lower self. If the individual does this, the family will feel the tonic of a brave endeavor, and will help mightily and unitedly to drive the demoniac possession away.
Plenty of Song.
One more tangible aid to good cheer at home is- music. Banjo, mandolin, piano, plenty of song, and the household will move without friction, in mutual respect, and a common devotion to the common weal. A music-loving family is almost sure to have good times at home. While a home ought to reach out from itself to other homes, and to keep an open door for friends and guests, it should never be dependent for its cheer upon any influence from without. For its happy times, its daily enjoyments, and its pleasures that are processional with the year, it should be sufficient to itself. If cheerfulness in the home is to be a factor in the home's development, it must grow from the center, not be fastened on the circumference. The song must be in the soul before it is on the lip. Good times at home, among the home folk, a simple, uncostly style of living that involves no undue anxiety, a house not too fine for daily use, and plenty of sunshine and love, will fulfill the republican ideal, and upbuild our nation."
By Margaret E. Sangster, 1919.
Christmas comes but once a year but please try telling that to every frazzled Mummy in the land. With just 34 days to go until the heavenly headache that is the festive season is upon us , sadly it is time to abandon scrumptious visions of chocolate box Christmases and get down to the nitty gritty of actually making it happen...
We have already purged our souls and surfaces. We have printed lists and downloaded planners to our hearts content. No doubt we have all clipped perfect Christmases out of airbrushed lives in our favorite magazines and done our upmost to curtail Christmas wish lists that threaten to bankrupt us... Yes we know Christmas is coming because the happy little elf living inside our heart is dancing with glee while our bones ache with pre-emptive exhaustion...
Tis time I'm afraid to get this show on the road and lay the foundations of a season we will cherish (and probably laugh about) for always...
Firm Foundations.
* Money is the root of all evil and never more so than at Christmas when the whole world seems to be screaming SPEND! But this year is the year to turn over a new leaf. To say tis the experience of Christmas that counts. The spectacle of it. Memories of mince pie making and dusk walks Christmas tree spotting. Tis the room filled to the brim with snow flake sprinkled balloons left by Santa on Christmas morning that will remain in a childs memory. The delivery of fresh flowers on Christmas Eve in your Mums. If you can't get every gift on your childs list then so be it. Give them memories to treasure, because they are the only things they will take into their future. So resolve here and now not to feel guilty about buying a bigger turkey rather than shoving another bit of plastic junk into your little boys stocking and CONCENTRATE on making magic...
* Plan, plan, plan and plan again. I am naturally a coast it and lets see what happens kinda gal. Money turns up and events on my calender fall into festive place. Most of the time. But along the way I suffer bouts of unnecessary festive anxiety I drown in spiked hot chocolate and then wonder why I find myself without sellotape on Christmas Eve, letting people down left, right and centre and only dreaming of all the things I think Christmas should authentically be. Enough already. Make a list. Check it twice and re-invent yourself as a woman with a plan. Should you see me wandering the streets with an earpiece and clipboard just nod and understand.
* Divide what needs to be done over the four weeks. Make your master grocery list and divide it into four shopping trips. Non perishables and household stuff this week, stuff that can be frozen (or made and frozen) next , sweets and fripperies the third week and all your fresh stuff the fourth. Etc, Etc...
* Now is the time to schedule a pre-christmas scrub. If you are using the planner the two day scrub is detailed there (and can of course be spread across five evenings etc). Christmas is a dusty affair and the last thing you want to do is lay it upon existing grub so trust me having a house thoroughly prepped will make all the difference to the rest of the month and go a long way to making Christmas feel as calm and pure as it should be... What are you waiting for? Tie a happy gingham pinny on and get going!
* This really should be the last week to order Christmas presents via mail or internet. I know there is a month left but who wants to leave Christmas in the hands of strike prone postmen or natural disaster? Who needs that kinda stress? So sit down in snuggly jim-jams, wail along with Bing and navigate the confusing muddle (Might be the time to give Shoeboxed a go?) that is trying to think straight when you are shopping online... Do it tonight!
Things To Do This Week.
1. Make your Christmas card lists. Badger men and kids for names they consider it essential to greet at Christmas time. Make sure you've got enough cards and seek out a pretty pen specially for the purpose. Perhaps a fountain pen with hunter green ink for a calligraphic flourish?
2. Make your mincemeat for strudels and unusual pies and freeze. Then while you are in cooking mode do something deliciously old-fashioned and Christmassy like make Marzipan fruits...
3. Plant paperwhite bulbs in all manner of scrumptious vintage china cups, vases etc for a delicious display during Christmas week (Three to five weeks to bloom indoors so NOW)... And people? Put them everywhere: they cost practically nothing and fill the heart with gladness.
4. Buy stamps. Pay or arrange to pay mithering bills. Confirm times of church services, nursery pantomimes and hair appointments. Service the car. You know. Do the dull stuff...
5. Make some Christmas morning Jam to be served with warm croissants and christmas gifts... Choose a breakfast cocktail (cranberry juice and champagne?) and write it on your menu planner or fill homemade vintage paper crackers with white chocolate for a snowy Christmas morning treat... Who needs Dinner when Christmas Day breakfast is going to be such a treat?
Goodness, tis all very well filling your Christmas Planner with all manner of scrumptious ideas, delicious recipes and inspired gift ideas, but if you find yourself in a demented rush to buy seven types of Christmas Pudding and every roll of Baroque style wrapping paper you come across before your pumpkin has even gone mouldy, mark my words you will live to regret it in a home not yet prepped for the injections of fripperie and nonsense the festive season thrusts upon it...
And so before the splurge must come the purge. In a world where even babies are now considered jeopardy to our dubious green credentials, we have something of an obligation not to add too frivoulously to the mountain of debt and badly chosen gifts that Christmas always leaves in it's wake and perhaps more pertinently, for our own sanity, we need to clear the decks on every level, emotionally, physically and spirtually before we will be really up to donning our party hats, stuffing the turkey and dancing the Christmas polka...
So just for this week, curb your festive enthusiasm and lets detox house, home and proverbial hearth and take stock of what we've got before the countdown to Christmas really begins...
1. Food first (because I'm greedy). It's time to live out of the freezer. While this may make for some wacky meal combinations for dinner, it is essential if you are going to find the room for cranberry muffin dough, chestnut butter, and other swoon making indulgences. Start now. Have frozen carrot omelette with fishcakes for supper tonight.You know you want to.
2. Take stock of the basics. Flours, butter, lard, sugars, spices, dried fruits, alcohol etc, etc. Use up the dregs, clean out tins and jars and leave open to air dry. Seek out Christmassy tins and line with greaseproof paper ready for festive baking sessions and give all baking and roasting tins and trays a thorough good seeing to with a baking powder and lemon scrub...
3. Get Christmas decorations down and see how the festive land lies. Are your lights working? Have all your baubles survived hibernation? Forgot you had that? Thought you had more? Don't leave it to the last minute to be disappointed. Throw away what's past it's best. Decide what can be recycled and re-invented. What needs to be lovingly wrapped back in tissue paper for another year and replaced to grace this years tree. This should prevent too many "just had to have it" incidents in your local Winter Wonderland....
4. Get the arguments over with once and for all. Establish your festive plans now and let all concerned know exactly whose Christmas dinner you will be devouring and who you want to be kising under the mistletoe. If you are having a buy nothing Christmas warn the family. Tell the person cooking you've becoma a vegan. May as well get the hissy fits over and done with so you jig your way into December on an atmosphere free cloud..
5. If you have read "The Secret" (and who hasn't?) you will know that if you want all your dreams to come true you've got to make room for them... So if you are eeking out the dregs of your last bottle of Chanel, chuck it all down your cleavage instead, et voila! room for more perfume in your Christmas stocking! Should also work on rubbish men, holey underwear and worn out dreams. Clear the decks and make room for oodles of scrumptiousness...
6. Lie to the kids. Tell them Santa only brings more gifts if there's room for them. Give them a box each and watch in wonder as it fills up with toys they are willing to sacrifice. Book a day in your diary to deliver the boxes to local charity shops and make another little ones Christmas special...
7. Trust me re-gifting isn't a sin punishable by a life long jail term. T'isn't even social suicide unless you are really stupid and re-gift something gruesome right back to the one who oh so generously bestowed it upon you in the first place. Scour the house for stuff you already own and are more than willing to offer to a more grateful home. Nobody but you will know.
8. Work out what you've got left over from last year. This goes for cards, gift wrap, tags, ribbon, stockings, Christmas linen, crackers, candles etc, etc. Buy nothing until you rooted around your imagination and used what you already have. If you've got an abundance of brown paper, joy of joys you are having a brown paper Christmas, liberally livened up with all manner of scrumptious vintage ephemera or some oh so chic french christmas ribbon...
9. Set yourself a challenge. Tell yourself your festive budget must be in line with funds raised through an Ebay marathon. Get rid of your junk and use the pennies sitting happily in your paypal account to fund Christmas. No more, no less. Now theres an incentive to detox the nonsense and save yourself a small fortune if ever there was one...
10. Use up all the old bottles of shampoo, bars of soap, air freshners, washing up liquid etc, in fact everything comsumable before you allow yourself to spend a single penny on Chrismas scented luxury. Yes you are contractually required to indulge yourself with the most scrumptious of everything in December but only when all the bottles you've got clogging up your bathroom cabinet are in the recycling bin...
If the world wasn't such a darn big place I would invite you over, set up the card table I don't own and invite you to partake in a game of Mrs Beeton over a cup of char and a nice slice of Madeira...
While we dwelled on ponderers like Where should silks be dried? and What fruit should be used in Batchelor pudding? we could toast our cashmere wrapped toes in front of a rosemary scented fire and swap the kind of stories of man shaped madness and culinary disaster that would make dear Mrs Beeton turn in her grave...
Let me begin with an apology... a little while ago somebody emailed me to ask my thoughts on creating a cosy room for her children, and I thought my thoughts and planned on committing them to paper and then promptly deleted the said email and did the Mommy concerned a rude injustice... and so here in apology, they are...
Because we are prone to the odd estranged spat, Mark and I have an ongoing feud about what constitutes a heavenly child's bedroom. I say that in the circumstances the only opinion he is entitled to is the proper way to wring his own neck and he says clearly I am determined to keep my little boy a cissy baby for the rest of his days and why on earth shouldn't Finn enjoy the nightmare that is the odd stenciled Power Ranger or three instead of floral pillowcases and vintage teddy bears?
(Come bite me Matey because over my dead body will Finley's room be anything other than an extension of the rest of our house, a homely, cosy place to rest his head at night and a warm, snuggly room layered in his own history...)
Now at the risk of sounding like one mighty stroppy Mama, I think you will probably guess that here's a thing I feel strongly about. When I worked as a decorator I would wander around houses suffused in style then find myself in a room covered in footballs, or Barbie Princess or Star Wars or Shrek that clearly had nothing to do with the rest of the house. Rooms upon which the door would always be kept firmly shut so the rest of the visiting world wouldn't have their eyes singed by sheer commercial ugliness. I won't have it, I tell you! I won't have it! It's not that I want to stifle precocious little dreams, but more that as a sensible person I feel the urge to point out that Ben 10 does not a sleepy paradise amake...
And so I would present the poor misguided parents with my five point plan for cosy kid's rooms and avoid the menacing gaze of five year old monsters determined to sell their childish little souls for a luminous dolphin duvet cover...
1. First and foremost remember that all rooms are part of a greater whole and shouldn't give you the aesthetic heebiejeebies when you enter them. Stick with your own decorating rules and refuse to be charmed by a sloppy kiss. No in the world of having a cosy bedroom means No. So stick to your guns and tell whiny teenyboppers they will be free to stick Bratz posters on their walls when they too are mortgaged up to their eyeballs...
2. If a room is going to grow with a child and not require the constant hassle of re-decoration, one must insist upon offering the little munchkins a blank canvas devoid of commercial horror or passing whims. Give in at your peril you crazy Mommy.
3. Treat children with respect and you teach them a valuable lesson. It is tempting to fill kids rooms with childish plastic storage solutions you wouldn't entertain anywhere else in the house. Don't. Avoid Ikea! Seek out cheap but sturdy vintage furniture, and teach them to understand that you value their personal space enough to want to give them proper furniture and expect them to treat it with respect.
4. Two things. Offer them something precious. Something they know you value. Your childhood jewelery box, the chair they like to snuggle up on from your bedroom, a vintage quilt. Give it to them and offer your trust. Try in this gift to instill in them respect for the history inherent in objects. Then give them something that respects their privacy: a tin for secrets for little ones, a vintage cupboard with a key for older children, a bolt on the inside of their doors for teenagers. An offer of trust is rarely underestimated by good kids and we should break it only in cases of moral life or death....
5. Trash. They are kids and whether or not we find it abhorrent, trashy stuff appeals to them. Some of the most charming rooms combine cosy vintage schemes with occasional child instilled flashes of trashy brilliance... Temporary flashes of brilliance that is, not objects of permanence like wallpaper or car shaped rugs. And not so temporary they leave marks on our walls if you please, so stick a poster to the wall or a sticker to the window on pain of death...
Once the ground rules are in place, we can then begin to create a room that nurtures their little souls. To me the ideal reference point for kids rooms is the old fashioned image of an Edwardian nursery. I only have to think of the nursery Mary Poppins charges were blessed with to smile a happy little decorating Mommy smile...
It's not that I'm asking our children to live in yesteryear. Certainly their collections of Doctor Who Monsters and Polly Pocket nonsense aren't to our eyes, as appealing as Victorian blocks and furry little dogs on wheels we would choose for them but most of us wouldn't deny them their current fads, we just don't want them to become permanent fixtures in our homes. We want our children to have rooms that become places of refuge. That aren't re-invented every other year in time with the latest Disney Blockbuster (Ratatouille Rats on your walls kids??) but layer upon the purity of their newborn nurseries all the things they have done, created, found and been given since they were in nappies. Rooms that teach them to treasure the things that matter to them and eschew all the values of an otherwise throwaway society that tells them objects, furniture, art etc, etc have no real value in a world where the whole lot could probably be replaced for a hundred quid...
And so in essence what I am trying to say is that in my eyes, decorating and looking after our kids bedrooms offer us an opportunity to teach them all manner of things I haven't got the time to explain here... lessons about respect and personal history, gratitude, care and sustainability. We have the opportunity to offer our children our trust, to show them the meaning of ritual and to help them understand, on a very personal level, our obsession with creating homes that nurture family life...
Puttery Treats For Children's Rooms.
Smell is perhaps the most important of of our senses and the soothing scent of lavender is probably the best choice for babba's rooms. Create natural surface and carpet cleaners scented with lavender and store them in a closet in their rooms. Buy bulb rings (the safest option for kids rooms) and put the lights on half an hour before bedtime to let a gentle fragrance fill the room and soothe them to sleep.
Warm their beds with a microwaveable wheat based lavender cushion, or a hot water bottled tightly wrapped in one of their old favorite jumpers sprinkled with a tiny bit of lavender oil...
Make their beds as scrumptiously cosy as you can with good old fashioned sheets and blankets. Seek out vintage English feather filled eiderdown's on Ebay because they are often the perfect size for kids beds and offer incomparable warmth.
On cold nights layer the mattress with two or three blankets and cover them with a flannel sheet for scrumptiously cosy beddy-byes. Show them where to find extra cosy crocheted blankets in their own rooms if they need them on cold nights...
Have a fabric covered pin board in their rooms from when they are very tiny and create an ever changing collage of their little lives.
Make their rooms a major part of their bedtime routine. Bundle towel wrapped babbas into dimly lit bedrooms after bath time and dress them in radiator warm jim jams there.
Keep an ever changing basket of bedtime stories by their bed. Have photographs of far away loved ones on their bedsides to say night night to...
Take them to antique malls occasionally and let them choose something for their rooms.
Have cushions on the floor cos kids like to lounge. Start a demented search for 70's zoo prints and 50's cowboy and indian scenes...
Give them their own photo albums. Buy something similar on a yearly basis so our kids end up with a shelf full of personal memories.
Seek out elaborate vintage gesso frames and create a gallery of their own art hung with all the consideration usually only offered to Picasso's...
User whicker picnic hampers, vintage suitcases or lloyd loom laundry baskets to give ugly Power Rangers a home all of their own...
Don't banish all toys they have grown out of to the attic. Choose one item per year to mark the passage of time and keep it in the bedroom somewhere. Stitch fussy wuzzy too tight jumpers into cushions. Stretch printed t-shirts over canvas and create a wall of art that brings back instant memories...
Help them create a comfort drawer all of their very own. (But ban anything edible!). Give them memory boxes and a very very special tin for a five year diary with a teeny little key...
Wrap babbas in an oh so special beddy byes blanket while they drink their milk on your knee. Write older children love letters and leave them under their quilts to be found as they turn back their covers...
Throw their windows open as soon as they get up. And teach kids not to make their beds in the morning but to pull all the covers back from their mattress. I don't care how it looks, it's healthier...
Seek out vintage children's wallpaper and line all their drawers with it. Don't forget to sprinkle baby talc underneath...
Use Christmas and birthdays as the opportunity to buy heirloom quality gifts they will come to treasure. Let Santa and his elves provide all the rest of the plastic junk...
Don't rigidly conform to sexual stereotypes in little kids bedrooms. Instead go for over all ambiance. Finley was recently thrilled to find his bed made up with a floral pillowcase usually to be found gracing my bed. (I just thought it looked kinda cool with his rabbit duvet, flannel sheets and patchwork quilt) He saw it as a gift. A little bit of me...
And once in a while make a big occasion of a candlelit bedtime story, snuggled up to high heaven in these scrumptious little sheets...
The cutest retro inspired pinny online comes from the Keeta Collecton on Etsy. Anyone for cranberry sauce?
Yes I know. It was unsanitary and unnecessary and lots of other "un" words you probably care to mention, but I liked it and now I'm sad. The bathroom looks bare, I've got cold toes and it the whole matter is going to require a spell of decorating I haven't got time for.
So opinions please? Stain the floorboards? Paint the powder pink cupboard a shabby shade of white? Paint the whole thing white? Buy new carpet???
I must have been a wretched wicked old witch in a former life. This morning my hairdryer spontaneously combusted and sent itself to a long overdue grave and a couple of hours later while enjoying Miss Potter with a teeny tiny mozzarella and red onion tart of my own devizing, the house started to shake and then the boiler went BOOM! Boom it went, and a nice glass of cranberry cordial spread a purpley pink pattern over my cream jumper.
If I was an ordinary human being with an ordinary job and ordinary money set aside for everyday emergencies these kind of crises wouldn't spread a rash of horror across my skin, but alas, my little chickadees, being thoroughly ridiculous, and the kind of single mummy electioneering politicians like to develop entire campaigns around, these are just the kind of traumas likely to finish me off. And so I find myself cutting my cloth to stretch to plumbers and mechanics and the possibility of dry hair one day in the future and wondering how in heavens name it will be possible for me to stretch an already stretched budget in order to live to fight another damned day.
I'm tired.
But babbas need warmth. And frankly, sadly, I can't live with wet hair or live without a car. And so it starts with teabags. I open the tin and there aren't any. Immediately my apron is dashed to the floor and I'm running past the church to the post office to buy more, before spinning on my heel back again without them because you know what I may not have my favorite builders brew extra strong Tetley teabags, but heck couldn't I win a prize for my drawer full of fancy schmancy rose and lavender and white and green and probably purple sprouting brocolli flavoured bags?
I have enough teabags to last me into the next millenium. I have flour, in many many forms and yeast and eggs and sugar and tinned everything and a freezer full of homemade chilli and scouse and pea and mint soup. I've got dried pasta, chopped chilli and garlic, herbs growing n my draining board, three types of rice, every type of dried bean you care to mention, jam and sun dried tomatoes, chocolate chips, oats and golden syrup. There is parmasan, chorizo and feta in the fridge. Bags full of frozen veg, cookie dough and sauteed onions lurking in the freezer. Food a plenty. Food that could keep me and one little munchkin going for an age with a little ingenuity and a little less of the almost constant urge to shop....
And so for the sake of snuggly feet and a car that goes I am declaring this my USE WHAT YOU HAVE WEEK. Use the dregs of shampoo in the bottle, forsake your favorite pink washing powder and grate some soap into some washing soda and be done with the matter. Actually read the magazines stacked at the side of your armchair before you buy more. Bake bread. Drink obscure tea. Raid the pantry and feast ...
Tonight I will start with a chorizo and bean bake, ingredients straight out the pantry no shopping required... and ok so it won't pay my terribly nice plumber Richard, but it is one step towards cosy toes isn't it?
Chorizo and Bean Bake.
Ingredients: One tin of beans (Any: flagolet, haricot, butter, any), one tinned of chopped tomatoes. Chorizo or any old kinda sausage. One sauteed onion. One clove of garlic or dried or chopped equivalent. Breadcrumbs. And chopped parsley to garnish.
Method: Shove all the ingredients into a casserole dish, sprinkle with breadcrumbs and bake for twenty minutes. Serve with a generous amount of fresh parsley and feel strangely virtuous ...
Life will go on, won't it?
The fun starts on October 15th. Wear your party hats.
But if the worst comes to the worst, choose a pretty flowery tin and fill it with supplies for survival: vintage hankies, paper tissues, Vicks balm, Karvol capsules (Oh I know they are for kids, but really thay have the most soothing smell when sprinkled on a hankie), eucalyptus and lavender oils, paracetamol and vitamin c.
Then put it on your bedside, don a silly bed jacket and refuse to move until you can speak without that hideous nasal twang.
I am in a positive frenzy of cleaning. Turning my house upside down in search of errant dust bunnies and crawling around on my hands and knees in pursuit of all manner of grubbiness taking refuge behind my furniture. Doesn't sound fun but it is. If I had one I'd wear a turban and a wrapover pinny and go into ecstacy over my spotlessly clean laundry room.
Should you feel the urge to join me, download the order of works from the planner section and lets get busy...
The time is nigh.
While the joy of regimented (school imposed) routine has brought brisk new efficiency to my domestic affairs, I cannot help but feel a little wanting.
Do you get that, a gnawing ache for sweet satisfaction somewhere? Weird frustration in your fingertips? Need a teeny tiny thrill or two to see you through the day? Feel the urge for something a little more scrumptious than jam on your cranberry toast? Like you might find yourself running around the house screaming like a pinny wearing hyena if something doesn't spark your imagination?
Me too.
So when the novelty of crisp new school uniforms has worn off, and the laundry basket has been attacked with the vengeance of a women wronged by fabric conditioner stinky enough to make her cry, and when even the thrill of an evening's dalliance with Marco Pierre White ain't enough to make her happy, (I can't hold it in any longer. Oh. My. God. Who knew he was soooo divine?), the Vintage Housekeeper needs a puttery treat or six to get her through the night.
Which is, I think a better choice than gin. Though I wouldn't say no to that either.
Take your pick.
* Set the table in sumptuous style before you go to bed tonight and throw yourself a little cornflake party in the morning.
* Feed the birds. Fill up birdfeeders, buy a diddy little bird house, make fat cakes, and provide our feathered little friends with a daily saucer of fresh water. Nothing is more enchanting than watching little birds dance around your garden.
* Clear away the last vestiges of summer in the garden. Be kind to your trusty tools by giving them a thorough cleaning and oiling (Use wd40 for the metal parts and boiled linseed oil for the wooden parts) and then reward yourself by going shopping for daffodil, narcissi, hydrangea, crocus and amarylis bulbs...
* Bundle rose bush cuttings and apple tree branches together and put them in a basket by the fireplace for sweet scented kindling.
* Turn vintage tray cloths into lavender scented envelopes for matching underwear sets. Pile them prettily in your underwear drawer.
* Make Autumn Chutney and eat with blue cheese jacket potatoes and cider in the garden. Blankets optional.
* Spend a day filling the freezer with chilli's, stew, casseroles and soups ready for cosy afternoons spent snuggling instead of slaving at the stove. Use Marthas helpful freezer labels to identify what's what...
* Thread laurel leaves onto string, add lavender and rosemary branches and swing the garland across the fireplace... break them off as required and add to real fires for fragranced warmth.
* Stuff the housework. Spray your pillow with a blend of orange blossom water, vodka, mandarin and bergamot essences and take an afternoon nap. Life is for living. And daydreaming.
* Choose a big, old, nubbly cardigan and hang it near the back door ready for early morning dashes to the laundry line.
* Now I know this might seem a teeny bit anal, but emptying out your pantry and doing a stock take will make you feel dementedly organised and the likelihood of you doubling up on stock cubes will simmer down to nil...
* Mimi please don't tell me off for this one, I'm sure it isn't good library etiquette, but go to the library and stock up on as many library books as they will let you take out (20 here) and stack them by your bed. Reserve Cold Comfort Farm, Graham Greene novels, all the Elizabeth Berg you haven't read... Nothing compares to literary abundance for when chilly Autumn evenings are drawing in.
* Order a compost bin. They are free in many areas of the uk, and now is as good a time as any to start reducing the amount of waste your household creates. Remember (green) virtue is a grace...
* Start using the Daily HouseKeepers planner page: Give it a go- today print out a weeks worth of planner pages, staple them together and voila! organizational central for the demented Vintage HouseKeeper...
* It's that time of year again. Take yourself on a creative excursion in search of a notebook that makes your heart sing: it's nearly time to start planning the Christmas to end all Christmases...
* Create a proper old fashioned utility cupboard. Stock up on household candles and tealights, a huge roll of string, replacement bulbs and fuses, glue, parcel/masking tape, drawing pins, wd40, salt for frozen paths, car de-icer, etc, etc.
* Turn the heating up and get naked. Scrub yourself silly with a dry brush then dive into the shower and drown yourself in something milky. Drag a scrumptiously starched white victorian nightie over your head, add woolly silly socks and get into bed. Going to bed stupidly early at least one evening a week will change your life. Lights out by 9pm please. (I do 8pm, but if that seems a tad mental 9pm will do...)
* Spray glue a really pretty piece of fabric across the base of your snuggly jumper drawer. You'll be going in there a lot over the next few months, make it a sight for sore eyes...
* Download or rent an audio book or two, and make washing the dishes a literary sensation.
* Get a notepad, sit down somewhere quiet and write down what your ideal day looks like. Not the one from your dreams, but the one you've got, but better. What do you eat for breakfast? What time do you go to bed? How much housework do you do? Do you find time for your art? Tv? What are you wearing? Do you iron your knickers in paradise?? Write it all down and resolve to do your best to shape your world the way you authentically wish it was...
In my dotage I am destined to be a barrell shaped, floral pinny wearing, big bosomed cuddly Grandma. Women of a certain age become elegantly slim or, for want of a better phrase, cushioned with love, and in my case, mayonnaise. So there is no hope for me. My fate is already sealed.
But for those of you who don't fancy yourself as a geriatric version of Ma Larkin, there is an answer that doesn't involve sacrificing madeleines for breakfast. Or chucky egg butties when PMT threatens to swallow you up in a fit of the titty lip blues. There is an old fashioned answer that won't mean paying exorbitant fees to posey gyms or jogging around the block, beetroot red and puffing like a steam engine.It's called elbow grease and trust me you can't buy it in the shops. Not even in old fashioned ironmongers that sell bonkers things like carbolic soap and carpet beaters.
Gone are the days when housework took three hours a day, every day (if it does you are doing it wrong or suffering O.C.D), but that doesn't mean we can't, should we be so inclined, throw ourselves, mind, body and oversized bum into turning our daily chores into an exercise class for one... So work up a bit of a sweat, go at a steady speed, don't sit down to debate the rights and wrongs of men with too many wives on Jeremy Kyle/Jerry Springer, stretch more than you need to, jig about with the hoover and your housekeeping music of choice and don't stop for a "rest". In short, think thin thighs as you pick up the kids toys, think toned arms as you dust the mantlepiece and try not to think of housekeepers knee as you scrub the kitchen floor. Do the things you can't be bothered to do like cleaning out the cupboard under the stairs and getting in the bath naked and scrubbing the grouting with a toothbrush. Put your bum into it. Make a song and dance out of it. Take the rugs and bash the hell out of them in garden. It takes effort, but if the thought of a perky bottom gets you through the daily grind, then I say all the better...
Make the bed - burn 39 calories. Mop the kitchen floor- 36 calories banished. Do the dishes- burn 24 calories. Pick toys up- and see 41 calories disappear before your eyes. Run up and down the stairs carrying and fetching, oops there goes a whopping 175 calories. And finally get out into the garden and deadhead the roses and consider yourself 36 calories thinner....
So erm, thats 39 + 36 + 24 + 41 + 175 + 36 = an extra slice of carrot cake for your elevenses...
And that my Darlings is the very reason why I'm gonna be Ma Larkin and you are gonna be Jane Fonda, aged 70 and three quarters.
I might be a good housekeeper, but I'm a truly terrible record keeper. I start shopping lists and promptly lose them. Ask me for the recipe of something delicious I have served you for lunch and I will disappear into a pile of cookbooks never to be seen again. Receipts evaporate and home inventory doesn't exist which makes content insurance a problem. If, (and it's a big if) I've even got contents insurance...
My whole life is conducted online. From banking to dating. I can't remember the last time I consulted a dictionary. Quotes for everything from car insurance to party entertainers are emailed to me and how people managed before Google was invented I will never, ever know. So while considering the technological state of the rest of my life I have decided to make use of all the really rather wonderful web 2.0 apps designed to make life at home a tad easier and finally get to grips with online housekeeping and a lifetime of organisation...
1) First things first. A personal calendar. A proper, multi-functional useful calendar that integrates with my email, and can perform all kinds of other singing, dancing, date-keeping and list-making functions... So that would be Google Calendar then. Don't bother with anything else, particularly if you are a Gmail user (and why in heavens name would you not be??)
2. Next a calendar that can be used by the entire family to combine events, celebrations, school holidays, meals, shopping lists, etc, etc, etc... in short do the whole caboodle at My Home Point.
2. A To-Do List. Remember the Milk. Because it is the best online. The easiest to use and it integrates really rather fantabulously with Google Calendar and Gmail.
3. A financial organiser. Wesabe. Although initially I found this difficult to get to grips with, I now consider it invaluable, love it that all my bank accounts are in one place, and truly appreciate the goal setting and budgeting aspect of the site. Try it.
4. A receipt keeper. ShoeBoxed. Because it not only lets you store paper receipts easily, it also tracks all your online purchases and receipts. Excellent stuff.
5. A home inventory keeper. Stuff Safe or My Things. Having both a printed version, and a version stored safely online makes absolute sense. And though it may initially take a little work, in the event of disaster you will thank your lucky stars you made the effort.
6. A housekeeping planner. ChoreBuster. Like your very own personalised FlyLady...sending you email reminders about what needs to be done and helping you generate a fair system of sharing chores.
7. Children's chore charts and reward tracker. Childzilla- because although it is new it has the most comprehensive features list, is child and parent friendly and makes what can be a headache, something kinda fun.
8. A recipe keeper... there are quite literally hundreds of options in this area... but I like We Gotta Eat. Because it is effortless to use, has no unnecessary extras and includes an online shopping list generator that is oh so useful.
So there you have it. No more excuses. Especially since the Brocante Toolbar (Click upgrade to get the new list on the toolbar) now includes direct links to all the apps on the list.
Our predecessors kept meticulous records with little more than a notebook and a fountain pen and life would be infinitely easier if housekeeping our way through life was a breeze...
An organised Vintage Housekeeper is a happy Vintage Housekeeper. Am I right or am I right?
I did quite the strangest thing the other day. I was wondering around the house, chatting to my Dad on the phone and trying not to kill myself on the elaborately designed Power Ranger boobie traps Finley constructs, when out of the corner of my eye I spotted a spider as big as my hand clearly about to make herself comfy on my powder pink velvet cushion.
Now on any other day this would have brought on the screaming abdabs, a safe perch on top of the dining room table and maybe an emergency call to the fire service (it's any excuse these days!). But, (and heres the thing), plainly my innate fear of things with hairy legs had took a holiday on this particular day, because without further ado, still engrossed in my Dad's theories on all things HTML, I leaned over, picked the spider up with my BARE hands and carried the little blighter into the garden, took the opportunity to dead-head the magenta rose bush while I was there and then went inside to pour myself a glass of blueberry juice.
Three hours later in a case of delayed shock, I keeled over in total horror. Oh. My. God. I carried a (watermelon) spider! I touched a spider! I risked having the yukky, hairy little thing run down my blouse and make itself at home in my knickers!! Plainly I momentarily lost my marbles and who knows where this kind of bravodo could lead. I'll be leaving a slice of ginger cake out for the mice next, buying myself a snake and holding flea races on my Egyptian cotton sheets. I'll be the talk of the neighbourhood. Little kids will gather outside my house to catch a glimpse of the Spider Lady and I will give up washing my hair so I don't disturb the nits.
Mind over matter Miss May. Mind over hairy, crawly matter.
So this week we are going to look in more detail at the questions on the House of Belonging Questionaire (download it here...)
The first question asks "What does the word 'Home' mean to you?" By this I mean what emotions does the word stir in you?
To many women, particuarly those who stay or work from home, the word conjures up feelings of claustrophobia: it spells servitude, a place where demands are made upon them and they find it hard to be themselves. To some it feels as if the house is a constant reminder of happier days: a lonely place we find ourselves banging around in, or a place where it seems there is nothing but insurmountable work to do...
To many of us our notion of "home" resides not in the place we live in, but in a house we have long left: the "home" of our childhood, the first house we bought after we were married or the house we brought our children up in. We do not feel at home, simply because we are not, and the house we do live in feels temporary, however permanent it may be..
The key to resolving how we consiously, or perhaps more likely, unconsciously feel about our home, is to identify our feelings, however complex they may be. So tonight, make a start by pouring your feelings onto paper: put your pen onto a piece of paper and write about your house and do not lift the pen off the paper until you have filled the page. Remember this isn't a test: don't worry about what you write; don't stop to re-read it or correct your grammer: just write and when you reach the end of the page you may be surprised to find the truth that is there...
My country is drowning. Rivers are bursting their banks, people are panic buying bottled water and old men are being ferried to hospital in rubber dinghies. And still the rain keeps on coming.
It is a scary business. We live, all of us, trusting the universe to keep danger, natural and unnatural out of our lives and for the majority of us, floods, bombs and broken hearts never darken our door. But this doesn't mean they won't. This doesn't mean that we do not need back up plans for bad luck or unnatural evil. This doesn't mean that one day we won't be the ones surrounded by the soggy fragments of all our yesterdays.
In order to live well, I believe it is essential that as housekeepers we make hygiene, order, ritual and beauty our raison d'etre. But none of these things matter if we have neither emotional or physical security.
Times are changing. People older than I am assure me that the world has always been a scary place: that there have long been threats to our security, natural disaster looming wars and neighbourly feuds, but somehow I can't help feeling that day by day, the threat not just to our security, but to the harmony of our nations, becomes more sinister. Perhaps only because now I am a Mother and fear is a natural instinct...
But as individuals, women and Mothers, we can do little other than to both practice, and teach respect for others to our children and do our upmost to make our homes the safe houses our familys expect them to be. That is all. We can't stop men intent on self destruction, water seeping under our door and atrocities in the name of religion, but we can do our best make our children feel safe within our own four walls: to give ourselves enough immediate security to sleep easy in our beds.
This isn't about scaremongering, it is about being prepared, so start by creating a safe box:
Choose a lidded tin box and then choose a place it can live, well protected, but easily accessible in the event of a crisis (Under the stairs?). Then start to collect the necessary
items:-
1) Copies of all family passports and birth certificates.
2) Copies of all essential insurance documents. (Scan them onto a cd)
3) Cash.
4) Extra essential medication, toilet roll, sanitary towels etc.
5) Lots of candles, matches, flashlight and batteries.
6) Tinned or non perishable foods.
7) Bottled water.
8) Bleach or water purifier.
9) Spare car keys.
10)Small first aid kit.
11)List of all essential and emergency telephone numbers.
12)List of all family members currently residing in the house.
13)Battery operated radio.
These are the essentials: the things we would need in dire emergency, but to this list I would add:
14) Copies of treasured family photographs.
15) Jewellery with emotional value.
16) A family memory book.
17) Any other small pieces of memorabilia with emotional value.
18) And some clean knickers!!
Make all the family aware of the box, let children choose their own bits of memorabilia and remember none of this will matter if the emotional insecurity hurting our babbas comes from an erratic home life or marital arguments over the breakfast table...
