Further Adventures of a Squirrel

There is only a few days until our big Garage Sale. The garage is about as clean as it has ever been although there are still a few pesky spiders lurking about. We have moved all the stuff we are keeping down to the far end and we have rigged up a kind of false wall to keep it separate from the stuff we are selling. Although there were a lot of things already in the garage that we were planning on getting rid of, we still have a lot of items in the house to be moved out there.

As I am off work at the moment, I am having to do most of the work. It is keeping me active and taking my mind of all the shit at work so I don't mind. Plus it means I can get everything organised how I want it.

As the day draws nearer the nerves are starting to kick in. I have advertised on Facebook, FreeAds and Gumtree, and I have put up ads in a few of the local shops but I have no way of knowing if I have done enough. I keep thinking I should have leafleted neighbours and maybe put up a few posters on lamposts or something but it's a bit late now. I am going to put out signs on the day. I can only hope it will do.

I suppose the worse thing that can happen is that no-one turns up. On the bright side we will have cleared a lot of unwanted stuff out of the house which in itself is some achievement and long overdue.

One Man's Junk...



So sometimes I have these great ideas....

We have way too much stuff in this small two bedroom house. It's all my fault, of course. I have a tendancy to keep everything. I probably am a borderline hoarder (without the cats!). Clint hates it and if he had his way, would see everything loaded up on a trailer and taken to the dump. Not because it is all rubbish but because he would love to live a minimilist lifestyle. If he had his way, we would also be eating off disposal plates so he would never have to do the washing up again! Sometimes I have to reel him in a little and put my foot down.

The main reason I don't like to let anything go is because I have a selective memory. I can remember all kinds of trivia (I'm great at quizzes) but when it comes to personal stuff like birthdays and names of people I went to school with, I am hopeless. So my excuse is that I have kept this stuff to remind me. That isn't the only reason, I also don't want to just throw out things that someone else might have a use for. I'm big on recycling and saving the planet so it is important to me that we at least try and find new homes for most of it.  

Lately Clint and I have been talking about maybe making a fresh start somewhere else and so the incentive is there to finally make the effort to declutter our lives. At the beginning of the summer, we had every intention of doing some car boot sales. We were going to go through each room and sort everything into Keep or Go piles. As usual real life got in the way and box sets of Grey's Anatomy had to be watched and before I knew it summer was almost over and we hadn't even made it to one. I did find out that we have more stuff to get rid of than I first thought and that a lot of it is too big to fit in my little Peugeot 206 anyway.

 

So I had this great idea.... we'll have a garage sale!

 

We have a huge garage and a lot of the stuff we need to get rid of is already in there so it makes sense, right? Surprisingly Clint has been quite supportive, although I know he thinks no-one will turn up. I am not sure myself either but I am going to give it a go. The whole garage or yard sale idea is an American thing that hasn't really taken off over here. The Brits tend to load their stuff up in their cars and park up in a field with hundreds of other cars. We love a car boot sale. But with the amount of items we have, a garage sale makes much better sense.

With the decision made and a date chosen, I have begun the mammoth task of clearing the spider population from the garage and preparing everything for sale. I have two weeks until sale day and I am probably going to need every minute. I have set up an events page on Facebook and I will put ads in a couple of the local papers next week. After all the work I am putting in I hope people turn up or I am never going to hear the last of it.

You're My Favourite Drug

Last night the Mother-in-Law-to-be and I triumphed over the tube strike and made it to The Borderline, Soho to see Jace Everett again. (I apologise for the photo but a lot of rum was being consumed and the camera on my phone is pretty shit!)

Lesley has become my concert buddy the last couple of years and she is such good company. She has been dragged along to see Tom McRae a couple of times and she also came with me to see Jace and the band at the Jazz Cafe in Camden in 2011. 

I have blogged a little about Jace before after I did a 5 hour round trip to see him and Dan Cohen perform in Bristol. That was back in 2010. The duo experience is, of course, totally different to seeing Jace perform with a band. As much as I enjoyed the unplugged show, it is with a band that Jace truly shines. 

Last night the set kept to more of the Blues-ier songs which personally I prefer. I love Jace's country songs but it is the darker, deeper songs (I call it Black 'n' Blues) that gives me the shivers. When he sings in his low register he has the sexiest damn singing voice I have ever heard.

There were a small number of people that had only really come to see the guy who sings the theme tune to that vampire show. A few of them called out "True Blood" after he had performed 3 or 4 songs. (Note to those rude twats - the name of the song is Bad Things. At least have the decency to get the title right!) The majority of the audience were proper fans though and there was a really good mix of young and old.

There was a good mix of new songs from the Terra Rosa album as well as the older favourites such as One of Them, Burn for You and Little Black Dress. We even got to hear a couple of songs from Dan Cohen's new record. 

We both had a great night and can't wait till the next time.

Stealing a line from I Gotta Have It...

Jace Everett - you're my favourite drug!

Plotting My Escape

I keep starting my blogs remarking how long it has been since I last blogged and end them promising that I will do this more. Then real life takes over and I find I am not making the time to write as much as I would like. So I am not going to make any promises any more. I'll write when I can and that's the end of it.

What has been happening? Same old, same old, mostly. The day job continues to get in the way of my dreams and plans; money is still tight and getting tighter; I still need to lose around thirty pounds and I waste whatever free time I have planning my escape rather than doing what I need to do to make that escape a reality.

So where is my sanctuary of choice at the moment.... well it's a bit of a toss up between Ocean Falls and Bella Coola. Both are small towns in British Colombia, Canada. I found Ocean Falls by accident when doing a random google search for remote properties for sale. I love the idea of living somewhere that can only be reached by boat, helicopter or float plane. How cool is that? There are no roads to this place. Okay, the community that still lives there is small and it is one of the rainiest places in Canada but it is also incredibly beautiful. There are abandoned buildings in various states of disrepair. Where the people have vacated, the rainforest is gradually reclaiming the land, creeping over buildings swallowing them whole. Around 300 miles north of Vancouver, it may be a bugger to get to but I think it may well be worth it.

There are a couple of websites dedicated to Ocean Falls. Here is a link to my favourite. There is loads on information on how the town came to be and what it is like now.
http://www.traveloceanfalls.com/
I have never been to Canada but the more I find out about it, the more I would like to go. BC especially piques my interest. The rugged, harsh beauty of the whole territory is amazing.

Bella Coola is also in BC but is a little more accessible as it has road access. Travelling by road makes the distance from Vancouver around 625 miles taking around 10 to 12 hours to get there. It is a drive I am more than willing to endure. Although it is relatively close to Ocean Falls, its location receives substantially less rainfall.
http://www.bellacoola.ca/

My dream is to make that drive someday. I don't expect I'll be doing it any time soon (unless the old numbers come up on the lottery) but you never know.

Resoluting Anew

A whole year missed.
It's amazing to me how time slips through our fingers. There is never quite enough of it to go round. I have so many plans, so many things rattling around in my head and the list of things to do only gets longer.
It has taken me a long time to realise that when I am depressed, I close myself off. I withdraw from everyone including my loved ones and family. I haven't seen some of my family for almost a year and I haven't been visiting my mums or anyone for months. I made a promise to my Dad before he died that I would make more effort with the family and I am failing miserably. It's not because I don't like them, it's more because I just can't stand to be around people right now.
It has been a difficult year, C has been in and out of work and money has been tight. Due to new, but totally inadequate, computer systems at work I have been taking opportunity to work loads of overtime. This has been leaving little time for anything else. When I do have time, my head is so overloaded that I don't have the capacity to think so I fill the hours with mindless tv. I can't hold a decent conversation with anyone and when I try, my mind wanders and I end up standing there looking like an imbecile. My brain is so fried.
C is thinking of going back to school. I think this is a great idea but it scares me a little. The responsibility of earning the money to pay the bills is going to remain on my shoulders for quite a while longer and I don't know if I have it in me to continue working the hours I am. I want him to find a job that makes him happy though. I can't stand having two depressed people in the house.
A long time ago C made me a promise that he would make me smile every day. He has managed to maintain this for ten years. He has a wonderful playful nature, a childlike quality that I lost in myself a long long time ago. If not for him I would probably be reliant on medication.
I admit I am jealous. I would love to be able to go back to school. I would love to be doing a job I enjoy, whether it is writing, teaching or running a little second-hand book store. It's not because I am sick of accounts because I still enjoy the work. I just have become so jaded with the company I work for.
So what am I going to do to pull myself up? Well, I am not really one for New Year Resolutions but I need something to get me living again. There are so many things I loved to do that I don't get time to do anymore. So many hobbies that I have neglected in exchange for a paycheck. So I have signed up for a dance class! When I was little I dreamt of being a ballerina. I desperately wanted Ballet Lessons but we could not afford it. So Mum enrolled me in a Ballroom and Latin class instead. I was so disappointed I wanted to cry but Mum was so proud of herself for finding what she thought would be an affordable alternative that I didn't have the heart to tell her it was Ballet or nothing. So I went for her sake and soon found I loved it. It only lasted a couple of years until we moved away but I remember fondly my dance teacher Percy who was always impeccably dressed and smelled so strongly of breath mints.
I searched for dance classes in the area and found that there was a beginner's class due to start next week in the very hall where I used to go all those years ago. It seemed like fate. So I begin a ten week course next week. It might well be a fool's errand trying to recapture those happy moments from my past but I am hoping this will give me the kick I need to focus on the happy moments in my present and look towards the happy moments to come in the future.