A new low

June 26, 2011

As a teenager, I was a massive music fan and an obsessive CD collector. I spent all my money in Our Price and HMV and ordering obscure indie music from catalogues. I ended up with over 400 CDs which I carted from one house to the next.

When Mattgreen and I moved in together, we merged our collections. We sold the duplicates. The rest we carted from one house to the next until finally, utterly broke and desperate, I resorted to selling them on Ebay.

Here is a blog post from my blog-before-Spankcracker:

Tue Sep 10 2002, 15:37:03
selling my treasures
this afternoon i put up all my old radiohead cds for sale on ebay.
sob.
we need the money.

i know you're not meant to be sentimental about things you sell on ebay but i hope they go to good homes, people who'll enjoy them as much as i did. some of them i bought from record collectors because they were already deleted 7 years ago.

Oh dear. That was a bit self-pitying wasn't it?
Thankfully, the days of selling CDs because we're desperate for the money are long gone.

However, the need to get rid of the piles of surplus CDs from our house has become ever stronger. There's been a huge cardboard box in our bedroom since time immemorial. Both of us are desperate to get rid of it. So each week we try to list a few more on Ebay.

This has been going on for years now. At first I didn't think it was worth the effort, but as time goes by, it adds up, and the cardboard box has grown steadily emptier. Occasionally we're rewarded with a CD selling for more than expected, like a Chumbawamba CD with a picture of a lady's fanny on the cover going for more than I originally paid for it*, but the greatest reward is seeing all the crap leaving our house in neatly packaged parcels. The people in the village post office absolutely hate us both.

Obviously there are some which don't sell, and we've been piling those up in a separate pile to take to the guy on the market in town who sells CDs. We figured we'd sell him the lot just to get rid of them. Mattgreen took them down there today and the guy went through them.

What the guy said: "I mean, they're good titles but they're commonly available at record sales, so I don't really need them, thanks"
What he actually meant: "I don't want your shitty Stereophonics and Dodgy albums. Get this fucking Menswear CD off my stall, it's lowering the quality of my merchandise"

Oh dear.

* I'm not even kidding:





Snippets

June 24, 2011

This morning, at the breakfast table.

Izzy: Can I enter that competition to design a school meal?
Me: (looking at entry form) It says it has to contain carbohydrates, protein, fruit or veg AND dairy. And the ingredients should come from Sussex. That could be tricky.
Izzy: What carbohydrates come from Sussex?
Me: Potatoes? And grain I guess... for bread.
Izzy: I know! Couldn't you just have boiled potatoes... and chicken. And peas.
Me: Hmm... bland... who are you cooking for, my parents?

This afternoon, in the garden. I can hear the children in the garden behind ours playing.

(sound of irate mother rushing out into the garden)
Mother: NO!! DO NOT WEE WEE ON THE TRAMPOLINE!

This evening, on the phone to tax credits helpline. I am on hold, talking to Mattgreen while I wait.

Me: If there's one good thing about not being eligible for tax credits any more, it's that I'll never have to listen to this shitty hold music again.
(Man answers. I go through all the stuff. He tells me I can ring back if I'm eligible in the future)
Me: Not likely unless I ever have another baby, God forbid.
Mattgreen: (shouting in the background) Then you'll be able to claim single parent allowance!

Three finger salute

June 22, 2011

Tuesday night. I am at Cubs, talking to one of our Young Leaders. He is explaining that in order to get his Queen's-Platinum-Forceful-Handshake-And-A-Clap-On-The-Back (or somesuch), he needs to help the Cubs earn one of their badges.

Me: Which badge is it?
YL: It's the one with a panda on it.
Me: Which one is that?
YL: Errr... I think it's the Naturist badge.
Me: (laughing) That would be inappropriate!
YL pauses, looking at me in confusion. I can't stop giggling.
Me: (spluttering) You mean NATURALIST.
YL: (still not getting it) Yeah.


sub·tle /ˈsətl/ Adjective. (esp. of a change or distinction) So delicate or precise as to be difficult to analyze or describe

June 19, 2011

Last week we were watching Isabel doing country dancing. She came over between songs and asked if she could have a drink. She looked in the bag but it wasn't there. "I filled it up but I forgot to put it in the bag," she moaned.

"Oh well, nevermind," I said. She then turned to another girl who was standing nearby drinking her drink. "I forgot my drink," Izzy said sadly, "I'm soooo thirsty," she added, gazing longingly at the girl's drink.

The girl said, "Do you want some of mine?" and offered her the bottle which Izzy eagerly accepted.

Mattgreen chuckled and muttered, "Subtle as a house brick. She gets it from her mother," to the parents of the other girl. We all laughed.

The girls went back to dancing, and Mattgreen told me a story I had completely forgotten. It was probably about 2001 and we'd arranged for my parents and Matt's dad to meet for the first time in a pub in Buckinghamshire.

Apparently my mum turned up being all bubbly and said, "Oooh I've been ever so busy this morning, I've been making fishcakes!" So I said, "Are you having them for dinner tonight?" and she said, "No, I've put them all in the freezer. What's in your freezer at the moment Alice?" and I answered, "No fishcakes," rather mournfully.



Hello blog.

June 15, 2011

Hello.

Remember me? I'm that person who sometimes writes my blog every day. Sometimes every week. Sometimes not for ages. Sorry about that.

The last few weeks has been a punishing regime. First I was stressing about going camping, to the point where I couldn't sleep and was grinding my teeth. Then we went camping. The next day, I went to visit my parents for a few days. The day after that, I went to Oxford for the weekend. Then we had builders in demolishing our chimney. Then I had a session with the dog trainer. Then I went back to work for a week of hideous stressful office politics and other bollocks. Straight after that I went to Cub camp, which involved shopping for thirty, monstrous sleep-deprivation and buckets of rain. Then I got sick, then it was Mattgreen's birthday, then this week I baked five separate lots of cakes for various occasions and this weekend coming we have visitors.

I keep typing ideas for my blog into my phone and not having time to actually write a post. And when I do have time, I'm so exhausted that I lack the mental energy to summon actual words.

I know that I do this to myself and that I'm my own worst enemy. I am prone to saying, "Yes!" to everything and then killing myself trying to live up to unrealistic expectations. I know things are getting bad when I fantasize about having a car accident so I can spend a nice peaceful week or three in hospital without any pressure.

Not good.


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