Objects trouvé

What is really good about packing and having to go on a treasure hunt around the house in pursuit of elusive objects is finding everything.  I had a ghastly list that included sunglasses, a teeny weeny portable printer .... Well you never know when it might come in handy, and a pack of make your own postcards and a tiny set of paints, some long lost flipflops, sun cream, mos spray and a working watch.  I have everything except the working watch.  I have found 16 non working watches but they all need new batts.  Maybe I do have a watch batt somewhere.  No I am just too tired to look.  I will ask at Dixons tomorrow at the airport.  Well, I mean I will buy one rather than ask them if they know where I have put mine.

Globe trotty

I travel quite a lot; not perhaps as much as an international business man but about three or four trips abroad a year.  This will be my third this year, second on my own. I have never thought to have copies of things like passport, insurance doc or credit cards.  I just fly away without a care in the world but suddenly it has dawned on me that I should take some precautions.  If I lost my passport I would be stuffed.  I would only be able to describe it as a small red EU book containing a dreadful photo of self. I did so much prefer them when they were big and black.  I have therefore made Mr Smith delve into the archives of his filing system to furnish me with an insurance policy.  He sighed a lot but for once I am being sensible here.  A novelty, I know.

Anyway, now that I know my remains are fully covered for repatriation I can pack.

I have a horrendous 'to do' list to which Mr Smith has added items of extreme fatigue,  but he is getting me some spending money.  $50 should be enough.  I don't think so.  Oh well, I will get more at the airport which annoys him as it 1p more expensive. I have cleaned the kitchen but now he wants me to cook meals .... But I am going away!  I think I am supposed to put them all in freezer packs and mark them: Monday, Tuesday, May this choke you.

Now I really must pack.  Perhaps a list would be helpful.

Foody woo

Thought about it long and hard and finally decided to use up all leftover dried fruit and make a second Christmas cake.  Now there will be cake for all.  There is always the dread of it not cooking or cooking too much.  I never know; it seems desperately hit and miss which I suppose adds an element of fun to the proceedings.

We went to Roehampton Club for lunch and moaned about everything from the stupidity of the booking system to the awfulness of the pudding.  All we got was backchat.  Most annoying.  Now I feel full and angry.

Tomorrow is packing day when I lay everything out, decide it's all awful, go shopping for new stuff and repack.  My big kit bag is full of very heavy art materials.  My brain is full of very heavy paintings.  I have such great ideas that are just bursting to get out.  Shame I can't paint on the plane.  I will read my book and watch dreary films and eat tiny little compartmental meals as usual and put a great deal of energy into ignoring the person sitting next to me.

Making whoopee

I just realised I haven't made anything today.  Not like me.  Well, I have made a loaf of bread that I can smell baking away as I write and I have worked on a painting all morning.  It should be finished tomorrow. Thank heavens for Graham Norton without whom my Saturday mornings would be oh so dull.  I didn't last through Tony Blackbum because I was cold and hungry and needed lunch.  I did intend to go back but ended up having a lovely afternoon nap dreaming of the Caribbean which is where I am off to on Tuesday.  An adventure.

I swam this morning.  I felt invigorated.

I have just found all the cherries at the bottom of the cake.  Mr Smith was right after all, things were not quite as well distributed as they could have been, but for God's sake don't tell him.  I made my Christmas cake today.  So there's something else I made. Hope it's ok.  It seemed hopelessly uncooked after 2 hrs (it's only small) so I gave it a lot longer.  Oh well, by Christmas it should have matured nicely.  Last year I made my cakes in August and by December they were Amazing.  Just as well I made two as the first one got demolished the week before Christmas.

I need to do my Christmas shopping.  I might proceed to the shops tomorrow ... Oh no actually there is no time. I will have to go on Monday.  I will do all the stocking fillers and see if there are any other bits and bobs I can pick up for the fussy idiots who pass for male members of this family inc. dog.

Mr Smith is taking me out to lunch tomorrow.  How exciting you might think.  Wrong. Hold onto your hats.  We are going to the golf club to use up the remnant money on my card. His generosity knows no bounds and next year I am paying the sub.  Woohoo.

Even dots

The Lovely Claudia and her mother came to play and I painted roses on cakes.  These are SO easy.  Even the really bish ones look good when you see them later.  I tend to pick off the tops as there is something a bit off putting about all that food colouring.

Yesterday I seem to have spent the entire day taking and collecting my car from Wandsworth which Mercedes call Chelsea.  That was when I wasn't eating chocolate. Bad girl.  Make of the day: a Dundee cake.  Mr Smith had accused me of making dry Dundee cakes in the past.  I think it is supposed to be quite dry but I changed the recipe as Mary uses too much flour.  It was perfecto but Mr Smith complained the fruit had fallen to the bottom - so I pushed it into his face.  Actually there is a good even distribution of fruit throughout, it has not sunk remotely, so there Raisin Face.

Dorothy, Kirsty and me.

I followed the yellow brick road to the V&A Hollywood costume exhibition.  It was very good.  I met blue haired Lauren and got mistaken for Kirsty Allsop.

Make of the day: Some stretchers and a gold plastic heron in my vegetable garden whose legs I had to mend with wires up the insides ... Oh so clever.  He keeps falling over ... Oh not so clever... So now I have a lying down plastic heron in my vegetable garden.

Have your cake and stitch it

I met Lauren Blue Hair at the V&A and gave her some cakes I had sewn.  Well actually I baked them then painted the tops.  She is running an event with StitchLondon tomorrow night.  I can't go but was happy to donate cakes as well as some yarn. I wish them every success with their event.  Lots of people will be sewing away furiously to make a giant jigsaw puzzle of stitched messages. www.stitchldn.com