Day: December 16, 2016

Christmas Eve Parties

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You know when you mishear something?

Well, I was at my upholstery class and we were chatting in a Sussex Housewife sort of a way when I mentioned that I was thinking of having a poker party on Christmas Eve.

Someone said, ‘Blimey that’s rather retro and risqué ‘

‘Not unless it is the strip version,’ I said.

‘Well, there’s not much to strip,’ she said.

‘What?’ I said.

‘You’d just unwind it,’ she said.

‘Unwind what?’ I said.

‘Well the sheet, the tablecloth, whatever,’ she said.

‘What??’ I said.

‘The toga,’ she said.

Now I had not thought about a toga party for a long time – and it did bring back a range of memories…..

Two days later, I was in a charity shop as is my wont, and I was looking for a pair of curtains (unsuccessfully as it turns out, but charity shopping is always a lottery.)

Another woman was also rootling around looking at a large white sheet/tablecloth/duvet cover and we got chatting.

‘I’m going to a toga party,’ she said.

‘Really?’ I said.

‘Yes,’ she said, ‘ We do it every Christmas Eve.’

Blue Trousers

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‘By the way, it’s a black tie event,’ said my best beloved as he headed off to somewhere in Bulgaria leaving me with a very busy week – and nothing appropriate to wear.

I had just sold on eBay the only dress I had which could have passed muster at a black tie event and now had three days before the event and really no time to go shopping.

As you may recall, dear reader, I am a dedicated charity shopper and the thought of paying money for a posh new frock I would not have just cause to wear for the next ten years, seemed just silly.

But one of the first rules of charity shopping is that you cannot go looking for something specific, in your size, in your style, and available on that day – it just doesn’t work like that.

But, optimist that I am, I thought I would find something.

As I mentioned, I did not have a lot of time – book sorting, dog walking, refugee good cause meetings etc etc take up time, even for a Sussex Housewife.

So, I raced around the charity shops of Petersfield and took stock, as it were.

That looked nice, but not on me. That was nice too, but sadly wouldn’t go over my shoulders or pulled the other way, past my bum. That was a nice colour, but that was all that was nice about it. That looked like something my gran would have thought nice. And so on.

In the end I went back to my wardrobe and rootled out a rather lovely garment that I had worn for a friend’s wedding evening do.

It is a bright green turquoise with yellow embroidery – bear with me, dear reader, it is striking, but not garish. It is long and has what we used to call, in my youth, a Mandarin collar – do they still call it that?

Anyway, it is long with buttons from throat to nearly the floor but it also had slits up the side from nearly the floor to nearly the hips. I am not Elizabeth Hurley.

On the previous occasion, I had worn it with jeans and rather liked that jeans-with-posh look but even I know that jeans at a black tie occasion at an Oxford College celebrating its bicentennial was probably a step too outrageous for me to carry off.

Never mind, I thought, as a speed-dash around the charity shops again failed to provide me with navy skinny trousers, we can get to Oxford in good time and I will find something there.

I guess you have an inkling where this is heading.

I could not find navy skinny trousers in Oxford for love nor money.

Well actually, in panic, I did find them, for (a lot of) money.

Suffice it to say, L K Bennett, not even in a sale.

And they are glorified leggings.

( Very, very good leggings and a delight to wear but even so, dear god, what a price shock to the person not used to paying more than £5.50 for a good-label item.

I am now wearing them at every possible opportunity. There’s that thing that if you wear them more often then each wear has cost you less, and eventually they feel like a bargain – I am not, dear reader, at that stage yet.)

That night, I put them on and my striking Mandarin collared ‘dress’ and went down to the pre-dinner drinks.

I did a head count to find fewer than ten other women in the room and not one was wearing anything different than you would wear to an office meeting with your immediate boss. I have dresses like that!

Was I gutted? well yes and no. I did feel the best dressed woman there – and though was wearing bloody expensive posh leggings I needn’t have bought, I also had a very stylish charity shop find on too  – and I will bet no one else in that room could have said that.

Leviticus and Box Sets

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French telly is a lot of men in black polo-necked sweaters either in films where they smoke Gitanes and then strip off to ‘delight’ young women, or they keep their sweaters on in news programmes to talk ‘meaningfully’ about the issues of the day.

Or at least that was my experience, and what is more, they spoke so fast my fledgling French understanding couldn’t keep up.

So, there was the time when I thought someone was complaining about almond croissants and was infact talking about feeding growth hormones to cattle – hormone de croissance.

So, instead of French tv, we watched box sets on our very small television.

( The television was bought some years before in Brussels as a stop gap until we got something bigger which we never got round to buying. And, when the remote got lost in the move and I thought it was a chance to buy something just a little bit bigger, the Best Beloved sent to North Korea or somewhere nearby, to get a replacement – and it turned up….)

There were two stand-out favourites: The West Wing and The Wire.

( The Wire, in case you don’t know was the parallel lives of drugs dealers and the police and we spent quite a lot of time leaning forward and saying to each other, ‘What did he say?’ After all, a very small television with poor sound does not help with black Baltimore ‘patois’ for two middle aged white people.

The drug dealer did a qualification in business and the police went out and got drunk – but of courser, dear reader there is much more to it than than that and I highly recommend you find yourself some wet-winter-time to settle down and watch it.)

Friends of ours in similar situations used to ration themselves to one episode a night – or in some puritanical households, to one a week.

But the BB and I are greedy and used to egg each other one for ‘just another.’

We watched The West Wing – all through, all seven series, several times.

Good Lord, I wish Jed Bartlett was the current president of the US and Josh and Toby were in charge and C.J was handling the press corps, but we have what we have.

There is one scene when Jed who, in case you don’t know is the President, is doing a press conference and one journalist doesn’t stand when he walks into the room because she is against his liberal policy on gay rights.

Here it is: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1T9vmN62wf8

After that, dear reader, you shouldn’t be back here reading this, you should be out buying the brilliant West Wing box set.

(And in case you want more ammunition here are some others you can use http://www.tickld.com/x/the-next-time-someone-uses-the-bible-to-say-homosexuality-is-a-sin)

 

 

 

Cockroaches and Balls

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The other day seemed to be one of those when the strangest donations come to light in the Oxfam bookshop.

A lot of our donations are repetitive and can I say, just sometimes a little boring, but now and then you find something interesting and odd in many senses of the word.

I am sure there is a book about any and every subject out there somewhere and many seem to find a (hopefully, temporary) home in Deepest Sussex.

Before now, I have found a book on making your own horse-riding equipment and one on how to chop and stack wood the Norwegian way.

So, the other day I found a coffee table book on Anatolian Vernacular Architecture. Not a usual find and one that is, perhaps surprisingly, worth a bit and now is listed, should your heart be beating a little faster, on Oxfam Online.

And then I came across a collection of old Spurs books. I am not a football fan but I was rather taken with the delightful History of Tottenham Hotspur FC 1882 – 1946. Spurs was referred to as the Hotspur Athletic Club – how charming is that?

And then, my cup runneth over when I found this:

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Now isn’t that splendid?

And if that wasn’t enough, I found this book which was the answer any anyone’s Christmas book present dilemma. It is the book, I thought, that anyone would want in their stocking. This is it:

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I tweeted to that effect and it got a few likes and re-tweeted gently around the Oxfam network, and it made me laugh.

Low and behold, I was at home this afternoon when my Oxfam manager rang me and said, ‘I’ve had someone on the phone – something about social media and cockroaches – is that anything to do with you? ‘

Someone wanted the buy the book! So over the phone, I directed my manager to various alternative possible places where I could have  stashed it.

( You should go behind the scenes at an Oxfam bookshop one day to understand that things are run on stashes, piles, boxes, shelves, bags and things stuffed into all sorts of places.

Every now and then I get round to sorting out an area and find all sorts – the skeleton of a forgotten volunteer, for example.)

Anyway, he found it, we put the price up a bit, and I wait to hear who bought it. If I’d been there with the customer I would have asked for the whole story about who was going to be so delighted on Christmas Day but I guess, I will never know.