This morning, I was so bored I sorted out my wardrobe (it was either that or do the ironing). I decided I would try something I'd read in a magazine - you put all your hangers facing the wrong way and only turn them round when you wear whatever's hanging on it. After a year, you get rid of anything still facing the wrong way. I have a hunch I'll be forced to send my size 10 dresses to Oxfam, plus all the things I'm hanging on to 'in case they come back into fashion,' (not that I particularly do 'fashion' anyway). I do regret some charity donations, though. I once owned loads of clothes bought from Karen Millen's first shop. Now a well-known clothes designer with a chain of stores everywhere, she started in a little place in Pudding Lane, in Maidstone. My friends and I used to buy things from there, and chat to her as she sat at her sewing machine in a room behind a curtain. When I was absolutely certain that gigantic shoulder-pads would not be coming back (and neither would my pre-baby figure), I got rid of it all. And then she became famous. How inconsiderate. (On a similar subject, my grandmother would never watch The Antiques Roadshow, in case that hideously ugly vase she'd just binned turned out to be worth millions.)
I must have a similar sort-out of the bookshelves. Every so often, I take a few bagfuls to a charity shop, which means I have room to stand all my remaining books up and put them in order (I'm starting to realise this blog is making me sound like I have no life. There could be a point there...). Then I buy more books and they have to be triple stacked again. Anyway, yesterday, wasting time while The Husband and Son Number Two had eye tests, I discovered that the cheap bookshop had a sale. (I must now apologise to The Husband. I'd asked if he had any change he wanted rid of, which he didn't, so gave me a £20 note. Bad move. Sorry, dear...). I love cheap bookshops - they stock all sorts of rubbish you don't see anywhere else. I came out with a bagful, including The Encyclopedia of New Religions, and Apocalypse: A History of the End of Time (a bargain at 99p, and probably for good reason).
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I really shouldn't be buying new books, as I had a load for Christmas that I need to read for my next OU course. But I started wading through Kiss of the Spider Woman by Manuel Puig, and the first chunk seems to be someone relaying the plot of a film they've seen. When people do this in real life, I want to smother them, so I really don't want to read about it. Or maybe the book's just too clever for me. There are probably people reading this thinking, 'Oh, how sad. She doesn't get it.' I may have to put 20th Century Lit on hold for a year, just to give me time to plough through that and Sunset Song, by Lewis Gibbon, who doesn't like speech marks and uses a lot of Scottish dialect.
Actually, Advanced Creative Writing is looking more appealing. I loved my first Creative Writing course - it didn't feel like work at all (apart from poetry, which felt like slow torture). In fact, apart from one story, I was very lazy on that course. I did no editing at all (yes, I lied to my tutor: 'The editing process made me reassess the phrasing I'd used... blah... blah... blah... '), just bashing out words in the order they came into my head. I loved the whole thing - I could lie and exaggerate to my heart's (and my tutor's) delight. More, please! The OU sent me an email recently: they're thinking of offering a MA in Creative Writing, and would I be interested? Provided the bank account wouldn't miss the required several thousand pounds, certainly. Anyway, I have two courses left to do before that, and they'll be literature and creative writing, I just can't decide what order to do them in. I have until April to decide, as that's when I need to enroll.
I've just finished reading a rather amazing book, about death and mental illness, bought for me by a friend who knows I like that sort of thing. It's called The Shock of the Fall, and had the rare effect of sucking me in and making me forget I was part of reality. Potentially depressing subject, but written so well. I've sent a copy to The Daughter, it was that good.
Anyway, I must go. I have many, many books to read, and am going to start on my trashy cheap reads. When I find out when the world's ending, I'll let you know.
I must have a similar sort-out of the bookshelves. Every so often, I take a few bagfuls to a charity shop, which means I have room to stand all my remaining books up and put them in order (I'm starting to realise this blog is making me sound like I have no life. There could be a point there...). Then I buy more books and they have to be triple stacked again. Anyway, yesterday, wasting time while The Husband and Son Number Two had eye tests, I discovered that the cheap bookshop had a sale. (I must now apologise to The Husband. I'd asked if he had any change he wanted rid of, which he didn't, so gave me a £20 note. Bad move. Sorry, dear...). I love cheap bookshops - they stock all sorts of rubbish you don't see anywhere else. I came out with a bagful, including The Encyclopedia of New Religions, and Apocalypse: A History of the End of Time (a bargain at 99p, and probably for good reason).
I really shouldn't be buying new books, as I had a load for Christmas that I need to read for my next OU course. But I started wading through Kiss of the Spider Woman by Manuel Puig, and the first chunk seems to be someone relaying the plot of a film they've seen. When people do this in real life, I want to smother them, so I really don't want to read about it. Or maybe the book's just too clever for me. There are probably people reading this thinking, 'Oh, how sad. She doesn't get it.' I may have to put 20th Century Lit on hold for a year, just to give me time to plough through that and Sunset Song, by Lewis Gibbon, who doesn't like speech marks and uses a lot of Scottish dialect.
Actually, Advanced Creative Writing is looking more appealing. I loved my first Creative Writing course - it didn't feel like work at all (apart from poetry, which felt like slow torture). In fact, apart from one story, I was very lazy on that course. I did no editing at all (yes, I lied to my tutor: 'The editing process made me reassess the phrasing I'd used... blah... blah... blah... '), just bashing out words in the order they came into my head. I loved the whole thing - I could lie and exaggerate to my heart's (and my tutor's) delight. More, please! The OU sent me an email recently: they're thinking of offering a MA in Creative Writing, and would I be interested? Provided the bank account wouldn't miss the required several thousand pounds, certainly. Anyway, I have two courses left to do before that, and they'll be literature and creative writing, I just can't decide what order to do them in. I have until April to decide, as that's when I need to enroll.
I've just finished reading a rather amazing book, about death and mental illness, bought for me by a friend who knows I like that sort of thing. It's called The Shock of the Fall, and had the rare effect of sucking me in and making me forget I was part of reality. Potentially depressing subject, but written so well. I've sent a copy to The Daughter, it was that good.
Anyway, I must go. I have many, many books to read, and am going to start on my trashy cheap reads. When I find out when the world's ending, I'll let you know.
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