40 years and two loos

Last weekend felt the most ‘normal’ in a long while. We ate dinner out on Friday evening in one of our favourite local restaurants, which somehow we hadn’t managed to get along to since last autumn. The food was as glorious as ever, and it was great to see it so busy and to be warmly welcomed back. Then after an impromptu booking after seeing something on Facebook of all places, we found ourselves at the Barbican on Saturday night.

I hadn’t realised that the Barbican is celebrating 40 years, which doesn’t seem possible. Nor did I know that MOH hadn’t been to a concert in the hall there. We’ve been to away days with work, visited the conservatory and exhibitions and even been to the cinema there - and well, it seemed a good opportunity to set that straight. Checking out the seating plan we could book end of aisle seats in the circle and so we booked.

The event - Songs in the Key of London - was curated by Chris Difford (of Squeeze) and DJ and presenter Nihal Arthanayake, with guests who were familiar to us and a good few that weren’t. However, it didn’t matter that we didn’t know their names, every single performer was brilliant.

Marc Almond topped the names of those I was keen to see - I was, and still am, a huge fan of Tainted Love from back in the early eighties. Other names we recognised were Harry Enfield, Ruby Turner and Brett Anderson (from Suede). Harry Enfield’s name stood out among the list, and so did his performance as an ‘audience member’ recalling a ditty or two about London, with a predictable but still amusing rude ending.

With a run time of 150 minutes, it was no mean feat for the band who were also excellent. The other thing we noticed, that even for London, people were talking to each other much more than we remembered from pre-Covid days. And that was a really nice thing too. The hall wasn’t as full as the seating plan had made out, and the people sitting next to us apologised for moving into some of the empty seats, hoping we weren’t offended. We really weren’t offended at all.

Unsure when the interval would be, and knowing that any interval means a long queue for the loo, I decided to make an early move while the performance continued - though when I got back MOH said I’d missed a great song. But when you’ve got to go, you know…

What I wasn’t expecting was the multi-coloured doors in the loos, the concrete yes - but not the colour. And it was great. As was mostly having the very large ladies to myself (it being large still didn’t avoid a queue later on though - there are never enough loos are there?)

I’ve no idea what these are, or if they have a purpose other than for people to wonder about them:

It was a wet and blowy night and I’d pulled on a hat, but that hadn’t really saved the ends of my hair - so I ended up looking more windswept than I would have liked. I’m sharing this picture though as the night was also memorable for losing an earring - and not the one you can see. The pair to the half moon you can see is a full moon, which I lost somewhere along the way.

I noticed in the restaurant we went to before the show - Cote just outside the Barbican - and that prompted searching through hats, scarves, bags and all sorts to no avail. And even though the replacement pair I’ve ordered have arrived, I still just went to check my hat again. That’s the thing about losing things isn’t it, you just don’t know where - and yes, I know if I knew where then it wouldn’t be lost!

While we were in our second restaurant of the weekend, I couldn’t pass up the opportunity of checking out the loos. So here you go, some quite plain but elegantly understated snaps of the loos at Cote - the colour of the wall tiles was gorgeous. For this visit to Cote I ventured off my normal safe, tried and tested menu choices, and wished I hadn’t! We’ll have to go back to our local restaurant or get another ‘at home’ delivery to check that this was just a one-off.

Losing things is never great, and it unsettles our minds doesn’t it?

The strange thing though was that I had felt something cold against my cheek as we were walking, which now I suspect was my earring making its way free, as those hook through type earrings do. But which I’d forgotten. MOH suggested retracing our steps, but we’d walked a fair way and even if we did walk exactly the way we’d come then it was no guarantee, and there was a show to see, and despite the earring loss it was so good to be out and experiencing more normal things along with everyone else.

It was much needed, and as we know, a long time coming.

Untangling threads with history

We’ve been continuing to clear my MIL’s house, and sorting through what is no longer needed. It was the home that MOH spent his teenage years in, and holds many memories for the whole family, and it also has plenty of stuff, as family homes do. A fair amount of that has come back with us, and that includes some craft stuff which, as you can see, needs sorting.

What’s strange though is that now this untangling is soothing. Previously I’d not had the patience for it, and my dad and even MOH would help sort out tangles in wool, but over the past few years I’ve found the patience - and the satisfaction - of untangling reassuringly mindful.

A while back I bought a large bag of vintage threads, where thankfully the embroidery threads were neatly organised and wound around strips of cardboard. Remembering this I dug them out to add this jumble of threads to those.

And before long, they were unravelled and some new cardboard strips with notches cut out held the once tangled threads. Not all of the threads survived it, but a large proportion did, and they are much more usable like this.

I noticed though that the two strips of cardboard I’d added to, had much more character than my saved birthday cards. Or they do now, maybe my birthday cards will hold the same attraction in years to come, who knows.

The blues above are wound onto a card that once held ‘washing and boiling elastic’ and which ‘outlasts any garment never needs replacing’ - the mind boggles doesn’t it. The greens and yellows I added to the 'knicker elastic’ card which once held ‘the latest Improved Rubber Thread.’

Aren’t they a find? And I wonder if any of the packaging around today will seem as dated in the not too distant future!

A new, bigger rug - eventually

Just after Christmas MOH answered the door for a delivery and returned to announce he’d bought the house a present. Those words alone were enough to fill me with fear, but hoping I was wrong I braved it. My fears heightened when I saw it was a rug - MOH and I have quite different taste, and he proudly admitted that he’d copied the decor in his flat (which I liked) from one of the paint catalogues - fair dos and all that. Usually I opt for more modern styles than he does, but that’s not always the case. But seeing the package, the fear was real.

He was keen for opening it and showing me, but I’m wise to this now and instead he showed me a picture from his email confirmation. He knew from the look on my face, which clearly I didn’t hide very well, that I wasn’t keen. In fact I was so not keen that it didn’t make it out of the packaging, and spent all its time with us propped up next to the front door. He tried the ‘I don’t know how to send it back’ trick, but as he’d shared the confirmation email with me, I could help there and printed off the return label for him. He’s ever the optimist and left it to the last possible day before making arrangements for its return, and still it never made it out of the packaging, or out of our very small porch. I’m not sharing where its from, or the style/design because I’m still scarred.

NOT THIS RUG

I know his intentions were good, and his reasoning was pretty solid too - but even so, not that one, not ever.

Having broached the subject of a replacement rug in quite a unique way, we started conversations about replacing the one that was already there. It was cream-based and past its best, by a long way, I knew that and even a shampoo didn’t really help it. It was time to replace it - we were agreed - but I still really wasn’t keen on his tactics, or the actual rug. But anyway, there wasn’t going to be a new rug in the house until the offending one left, never to return.

And it went. And stayed went.

I’d been browsing websites looking at many, many rugs. He wanted a rug that didn’t show the dirt, I wanted one that wasn’t too dark and would lift the space. We looked, and became experts on the many, many rug sizes; measuring the floor to see where it might go - and finally we settled on this distressed Kamran Cayenne Red Rug from Ruggable. So while it’s lighter than MOH wanted, and the most traditional style I’ve ever chosen - the fact that it is washable is in its favour.

It’s a two part system - the top that you can see, which is light and flexible and a sturdier ‘under rug’ pad - which really acts like a large piece of velcro. There’s a knack to pairing them, and the video makes it look simple - it took me longer than I thought it would, and while I’m particularly fussy it took me a couple of attempts to get it matched with the overhang even - or at least with the pad not showing.

And before you make the same comment as MOH, yes it’s distressed and yes it’s meant to look like that. I know that I’m in for this conversation many times over with MOH, but you know it never gets old…

It’s a much bigger rug than we’ve had in this space before, and MOH is pleased he can put his feet on the rug, rather than on the wooden floor. He said walking on it feels ‘crunchy’ and that may settle down I guess. He’s already identified a potential downside of having a larger rug, and that’s it could be easier to spill things on - just as well it’s washable, hey?!

It looks pretty good, I think - and MOH agrees, which is just as well as I’m hoping we’ll get many years use out of this rug - and hopefully our next rug purchase, whenever that might be, will be less traumatic all round.