Blah! Feeling really low and jaded! Duvet time! See you all in Spring.

And so, the WIckes, new improved flooring adhesive is officially crap. I have had to remove the tiles from the floor on best part of 2/3rds of the floor due to partial adhesion. This sets me back 2 days! I now have a different, industrial strength trade adhesive for the job at 3 times the price from screwfix. The local builders merchants had no idea of what to use, in fact, the pre-embryotic gibbon that served me couldn't communicate in a recognisable European language, I gave up to leave him swinging from the timber mouldings that seemed to interest him for the moment.
So, i now have the task of adhering the floor back, without room to mess up a second time and limited time to do this before staining and varnishing as the Curtain track fitter arrives Tuesday. Sometimes being single has its drawbacks, I have no one else to blame other than the pratts at Wickes that changed a perfectly good product into a crock of....

Why, in the world, why, do firms change products so that they cannot be matched up? A perfectly good floor stain and lacquer (water based) has been used on most of my parguet floors and woodwork. Now, the company has changed hands, the code numbers wiped from memory and I can't quite match the stain so that my ground floor rooms are identical. I can just about put up with that.
Then, the water based floor lacquer has been dropped and another product put in its place. No guarantee it won't react with the old one (so no touching up then) and, it requires the stain to be sealed first, then given 2 coats of the new lacquer at a cost, not of £30 for 5 litres as it used to be, £84 plus vat! Theu gave me some bollocks about wanting to compete with the old company (who have ceased trading).
Do I, mix my own stain from what is left and match the floor more closely, do I keep this as emergency touch up of the original floors and do I use up the remaining lacquer on the floor or go and buy a cheaper alternative from Homebase from a regular company like "Ronseal"?
Bastards!!!!!!!!!!!

This is a very surreal experience for me. I have never redecorated my own work in my life, so doing the lounge again is very strange indeed. It all started because everyone refers to it as the "White Room" and no one goes in there. Mostly because the smokers are confined to the conservatory and it always seems more cosy out there even in the dead of winter, blankets required! So I decided that the floor (ivory marbled lino) needed to go and be replaced with the parquet floor that runs throughout most of the rest of the house. I also thought that, as I liked the distressed ivory walls, I would keep those and accent the room with a black fireplace wall. This would set of the white marble fireplace.
I am not replacing the black leather 2 seater chesterfields as
a) they are the only size sofas that I can get into the room and
b) there is nothing wrong with them.
The large white monolith of a t.v and hifi cupboard also remains because I like it and it hides the t.v - a real conversation killer if ever one was invented. Even off, the draw the eye and stifle the tongue.
My Mucha prints remain as I love those two and, as I do not intend painting the other walls,would leave faded marks behind if I changed them - finding new prints of that size of anything would be an impossible task, forget that!
So, taking down the curtain track to clean 10 years of grime, the wall above the windows decided to shed its plaster. I now had to carefully remove paper and plaster to give a clean line for the plaster to work to. This done, plasterer arrived, £200 later, job done (apart from the fact that it looks like a relief map of the Himalayas in the edges - "Can't get the trowel in there missus", "Well get a smaller trowel plonker!")
Anyway, waiting for this to dry out I repainted the skirting boards, having stripped them back to bare wood as the only way to remove the evil mastic that bonded the lino to them before. This done, I laid a sub floor and then the parquet. Wickes, in their infinite quest to improve things have changed the formula of the very successful bonding paste to one of doubtful and suspect adhesion. ("It washes off yer hands with water luv", "Yes but it doesn't stick stuff to the floor - its intended purpose")
Anyway, floor sort of stuck down, waiting to sand it down, stain and varnish it, I moved the sofas and tv unit back into place ( I| can't get them out of the room so I had to work around them), it doesn't look like I have done anything at all! Weird, I will have to see when I finish but I have got a feeling that the room will continue to be little used.

Its ridiculous o clock in the morning. After a poor nights sleep last night I really needed a good night tonight but it clearly wasn't meant to be. Things can not go on like this.

Current Mood: tired

So the government are considering a Workers Memorial Day - probably a bank holiday, probably on the 28th April in line with other countries. Isn't this just going to "replace" the May 1st one? Bet you any money it won't be extra. Even if it is, surely another Bank Holiday closer to 7th November or late October would even out the breaks? Why do I think the first case scenario will be the one that wins? Me. pesimistic?
On another note, I have been feeling so down over the last few weeks, with no real reason. Emotions are constantly just below the surface and anything seems to trigger the worst of them. I couldn;t even read a book last night because of the tears....it's just a book, and its fiction and no reason to.... I know, there is an underlying problem but it can stay just that, underlying! I am going to go out to a couple of gigs in the next week so that will be good and there's always Reptile and maybe Inferno. Onwards and upwards!

Finally got my backside into gear and went to Reptile last night. The music was great as ever but not a lot of people turned out. I wonder what else was on or where they all were. It was good to sit outside and chat to David and Carlos, Donia and watch Jem (ex boyfriend from 20 years ago) trying to recapture the old "Vampire Cat" spirit in his flirtatious way. He did get a couple of "bites" suprisingly. Its a shame we had to leave early because his kidney infection flared up, I was just getting into my stride and was enjoying myself. Oh well, maybe next week at Invocation, if nothing else grabs my fancy but I am getting a little bored with that one. Possibly because its in the same place as Reptile - can a place carry off two identities? Hmm, pondering the venues' identity.....how sad is that!!!

Hmm, long time since I posted! Lots of things coming up that I want to go and see! Have to sort out a schedule;
Photography stuff- Helmut Newton (fashion photographer) Hamilton Gallery until the 13th June, Bob Carlos-Clarke (really cool stuff) Little Black Gallery, SW10 until the 3rd July.

Plays; "Time and the Conways" JB Priestley from 1937, Lyttelton, National Theatre - until 27th July, "Duet for One" by Tom Kempinski, Vaudeville theatre, the Strand until 1st August.

Wow, those looks pretty fab.I just hope I have the energy to do them and work and party!
I decided, after 4 weeks of continual headaches 24/7, to take myself off the Thyroxine replacement drug that I had been put on because my Thyroid gland had slowed to non functioning mode. I think I would rather cope with a slower metabolism and try to figure out a way to control that than the continual nagging pressure I was feeling all the time. I will probably start to run again this weekend, that has to have an effect (Yeah - it will kill me!)

No other news, you may all carry on with your business now, that is all!

After week of Ofsted inspection, 18 hour days, a protest day led by the students (post ofsted thank god) and various other strains, (it being my mothers birthday today and I haven't got the energy or the time to go over to see her - I want to spend some quality time with Mark), I came home to a house full of boxes (Lodger is moving out to live with her boyfriend) and a happy man who was, cooked dinner for me (one of my favourites), got the wine open, is wearing my favourite aftershave and a smile! He then feeds me, washes up afterwards and we watch a fantastic film "The Fall", before snuggling in bed!
I am now making him a morning drink and then will enjoy today with him before we go to "Reptile" together tonite.
Its mornings like this I realise that life is still fun and has nice suprises in store.

Current Mood: cheerful

I booked these tickets back before Xmas, It was an opera I had always wanted to see and never had the opportunity. Scheduled at the Royal Albert Hall and staged in the round, sung in English. I would have preferred the original French but,I still had to go.
The production was magnificent, the scenery/staging, well executed and the dancing, spectacle and performance first rate. The music was perfect, balance, pitch, delivery, all superb. I am so glad I went. We had front seats in the circle, totally unrestricted view.The fire juggling, the tumbling acrobats, carmen fighting with another girl in their gypsy white underwear and little granny boots, the 20s/30s fashions used in the opening scenes (very sexy), wow! The entire stage was shaped, as it was pointed out to me, like a giant yin and yang symbol and the finale played out in parallel between the spectacle of a mock bullfight and the struggle of Don Jose with Carmen - very powerful.
It was very hot in there however and I wished I hadn't gone straight from work and had time to change out of my corset, I had visions of tumbling over the frighteningly low rail into the stalls below.
Not the version I saw but it was the diva and the producer
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A9csbIYhH_M
Now all I have left on my list of wants is Madam Butterfly and Aida.