I walked the walk

Well, today I’m finally recovered enough to actually post about the Moonwalk. It’s interesting to note how much space is devoted to preparing for a marathon while what to do after tends to get skipped.

I made it round in less than 7 hours. I can’t recall if I feel better than I did last year or not. The weather was better; just fresh rather than cold and wet.

My sister was a total star. Not only did she make it round in less than 6 hours, but she had spent all day Saturday at college!

I’d also like to award a star to her lovely husband who allowed himself to be woken up at 4 a.m. in order to come and pick up at 6 a.m. Thank you, Mr T.

Also a big thank you to Dear Heart, who has been looking after me all week. I’m quite keen to get back in the kitchen.

I don’t think I’ll be walking again. Trying for a faster time every year doesn’t really interest me. However, I intend to keep walking every weekend and I think I might volunteer to be crew next year.

My Mother’s Wedding Dress

I’ve just finished reading My mother’s Wedding Dress by Justine Picardi. It wasn’t quite what I expected. I’d read a magazine article had written about the book. It featured lots of pictures of clothes she had worn in the past and her reminiscing about how she felt when wearing them, why she bought them and how she felt about them now. I expected the book to be more of the same.

Instead the book was both angry and bewildered in tone. Picardi was clearly affected deeply by her sister’s death (and who wouldn’t be) and this theme of loss is one that runs throughout the book. She also seems to be rather obsessed with feathers.

However I intend to use what I expected the book to be about as inspiration for future blog entries. It made me think about clothes in books I read as a child. My favourite Enid Blyton story was The Enchanted Cloak (from Tales after Tea). I had a purple crocheted cloak (where is it now?) that I called by the name and used in endless games.

I remember the Fossil sisters in Ballet Shoes (Noel Stratfield) needing dresses for auditions. I remember Pagan, in Lace, taking her dead father’s clothes from the attic and finding a use for them and Maxim’s wonderful French style. I think Lace was the book that made me wear black and white for years because it claimed it was the best way to stand out I newspaper photographs (for maximum impact, wear stripes!). This was clearly before newspapers all had colour photographs. In fact, I’m sure I would of embraced a catalogue that came with my copy of Easy Living this month. All the clothes in it were black or white. I doubt I would have actually bought anything but I would have kept it next to my bed as a style bible.

A golf themed gift

I though I'd share the present bag I made for Dear Heart's Dad's birthday with you.

He's a keen golfer so I made this bage with a picture of a golf ball bouncing towards the hole. It held a 'Jobs to do before Golf' notepad.

Monthly updates

Have not been abandoned - I'm just trying not to be so hard on myself while training for the Moonwalk (sponsor me at www.bmycharity.com/v2/babeinabra).

Additionally I appear to have hit a couple of snags with meeting some of the other targets. See, I need a pan of some kind to put my t-shirts in in order to dye them. I've been unable to locate one so far and can't see any point in buying a new pan just to dye things in. My parent's are moving house so I've out them in the alert for any suitable receptacles that they may be binning.

The 'not buying' is becoming much more of a habit. I've been buying more food from the market and shopping for small quantities of food when we actually need it rather than doing a huge shop once a week at Tesco. I still count my blessings everyday.

Come the start of June my moonwalk obligations will be out of the way and I intend to revise my targets and post the new list here.