Public Image

There exist only 4 photos of me that I really like - I hate having my picture taken - actually, that's wrong; I don't mind being photographed, it's the results I don't like.  I'm perfectly comfortable with how I look in the mirror, but as soon as my features are immortalised in print I'm transformed into a squinting, lopsided maniac.  Now, though, I have to come up with a stunning image of myself to go on the back cover of Lost Prinsipels (Available soon! I promise!) that will complement the fab picture on the front by the highly skilled and scarily insightful Jon-Paul McCarthy.

 I do actually have a good, recent photo of myself.  Trouble is, there are people in the background, and I have no idea who they are.  I tried blocking them out, but I can't get the shading right.  Also, the colour of my scarf looks terrible with the cover colour.  {I tried making the picture greyscale, but it just didn't look right.  And the aforesaid strangers were still there, so I gave up on that idea.} 

The other picture of me that I really love is of when I was 16.  It's on my facebook page but, sadly, the quality is too poor to work in print.  I rather like my old school photo too, but that's one of those great long ones that, allegedly, people run round the back of and appear in twice.  If I can't remove a couple of strangers from a restaurant, I'll never manage to block out an entire school.  Also, it is too big to fit on the scanner.

That leaves me with my final photo.  I'm very happy with how I look in it, even if it is rather an odd pose, and the quality of the original image is quite good.  However, it was taken some time ago, and I don't think it really conveys much of my character now.

I suppose I shall just have to be brave and have a new picture taken.

Filing Systems

The trouble with being an untidy slob with OCD tendencies is that I tend to be inconsistent when it comes to my filing system.  Or perhaps I should say, 'systems'.  I currently have at least four.

Several years ago my daughter gave me a lovely set of 3 lever-arch files, complete with covers.  I use one for paid bills, one for my pay slips and employment records and one for anything to do with income tax returns.  I filed every document straight away, into plastic pockets in the relevant file.  After a while though, the 'bills' file was full to bursting, so I removed a whole load of the older papers, stuffed them in a carrier bag in my wardrobe and started again.  It has now reached that stage once more; the 'bills' file is too fat to go back in its cover...

....but my wardrobe is full.

My second filing system is what I like to call my 'open archive'.  This consists of all types of documents, filed in date order of when they were received.  It also incorporates documents relating to my family history research, and notes about current writing projects.  It actually works quite well, as I can usually remember more or less when I've dealt with particular things, and it has the added bonus that I can easily keep current items on top.  This is a very flexible, easily accessible system, that I highly recommend.  Its superficial resemblance to 'a pile of old papers' is merely coincidence.

An extension of the open archive, which has become a sort of micro-system, is a black leather briefcase that I bought for 1 Euro at a French boot fair last year.  It sits on the floor next to my desk, and contains any papers relating to my day job.  These, I have to admit, are not in any particular order but, since I never have to look at them, it doesn't really matter.

I have now, though, discovered what I believe may be the ultimate filing system.  It's neat, unobtrusive, easily accessible and ordered.  It has all the advantages of both the files and the piles.  Everything goes in on the day it's finished with, and I can satisfy my inner control freak with a thorough review and re-filing of the contents once a year.  Readers, I give you....... The Box!

Some like it hot

I rarely have a shower when I stay at my beloved's house.... Sorry, that sounds disgusting!  What I mean is, because we live almost next door to each other, it's much easier to go home and wash there.  However, it was one of those lovely, lazy Sunday mornings today, with no reason to get up before 10.30, so I thought I'd risk it.

"What's to risk?" I hear you ask.  Ah, well... his shower hates me.  It was born to a single-parent household, and it knows that I'm not really its mummy.  So it sulks, and won't do what I ask.  "It always works fine for me," my beloved stated, mystified.  But he only spends about 20 seconds in there with the setting on cool, whereas I like 20 minutes on hot.  I suppose that's the equivalent of demanding that it spring cleans its room, when all that's usually expected of it is that it leaves its dirty plates out on the landing. Anyway, all it was prepared to do for me this morning was aim a couple of rather pathetic, icy trickles of water at the wall, combined with a weak spray of scalding hot in the other direction.  Since it has a rather brief attention span, I rapidly soaped and swore, hoping that nothing from downstairs would distract it and cause it to disappear altogether.  It must be the only shower in the country with ADHD.

Part of the problem, I suspect, is that it is an only child; unlike my shower it has never experienced the sibling rivalry provided by an older bathtub.  There is a certain air of competition in my bathroom, as my bath and shower metaphorically sit up straight and try to attract my attention with their good behaviour and eagerness to please.  And I must say, they get on very well together, especially now.  Before I got my beautiful new combi-boiler, having a bath required so much advance planning that, by the time the water was hot enough, I'd gone off the idea.  Now, though, I can run as much hot water as I like, whenever I like!  My bath no longer feels miserable and neglected, and my shower has to be on her best behaviour all the time, since she now has some real competition.

We decided in the end that his shower probably needed a bit of attention, so we soaked it in bleach and poked it with a pin, whereupon it started behaving in a much more grown-up, gentlemanly fashion.  Tough love.

Water feature

Various people I know have had bad experiences with water over the last year or so, resulting in nasty brown patches on ceilings and a general sense of unease about water tanks in the loft.  My anxiety about this has finally overruled my reluctance to spend money I can't afford, so I'm replacing my perfectly good boiler (it's only 25 years old, for goodness sake, and only makes really worrying noises when it first comes on) with a new combi-boiler.

So today, while I've been at work, the engineer has drained all the water from the system and removed the immersion tank from the airing cupboard.  This has given me loads more storage space, but nowhere to dry my knickers.  I can live with that; I'll just need a bit more forward planning.  And more knickers.

He can't remove the (now thankfully empty) tank from the loft, as it's too big to go through the hatch - it must have been installed when the house was being built, before the roof went on.  Since pretty well everyone I know is also too big to go through the hatch as well, it's not a problem, because I won't be storing anything up there.  When I bought extra rolls of insulation three years ago we only just managed to push them up through the hole.   They've stayed there,  rolled up, ever since, in the hope that one day I'd meet someone small and co-operative who'd be prepared to ascend into the upper regions and sort them out.  I'd have done it myself, only I'm too short and weak to pull myself up from the top of the stepladder and, even if I could get up there, I'd be too much of a woos to jump down again.

So tonight I have a beautiful new boiler that isn't connected up yet, so no hot water and, more importantly, no heating.  I can't get to my wardrobe to put on more clothes, as my bedroom is full of stuff that had to be moved out of the spare room, in order for the engineer to reach the loft hatch and the airing cupboard.  I can't even get to my bed easily, so I shall now remove my gloves and migrate to a warmer place for the night.