The parcel departs

Phew! One major effort later and the completed "Trickster Jane" costume is on its way. Catie's really done well on this, pictures here and here. The Lolita skirt is over the Pettiskirt, once there's a person in it it will fluff out into an explosion of flounce and pink! The motif shown on the top was just a pinned on paper print used to gauge final size and position before printing onto the cotton. I hope her friend is happy, I'm sure she will be - apparently she was crying with happiness when she saw yesterdays picture of the Pettiskirt.....well you would, wouldn't you! The parcel is wrapped in an "interesting" manner - proof if any were needed that my once awesome Origami skills are extremely rusty....it's supposed to be a box could you tell?

Thank you for all your kind words yesterday, it was a terrible day and not much fun for anyone in my vicinity either. I didn't think I could insult people that creatively without resorting to Spanish ( the king of languages when it comes to insults and cursing - why use 4 letters where 4 elegant paragraphs will do).

As I posted in one of yesterday's replies, I couldn't face taking another of those damn pills so I took one of my old ones. Today has been much better and even found catie and I having, slightly scary to onlookers, hysterics over our plans to build an outside writing room/craft workshop at the back of our garden. I've been planning it for a couple of years and want to build it out of recycled materials. Unless I can find a free source of drinks bottles it won't be practical to build it using the PET "brick" method as at our current rate of consumption of fizz it will take me six years to collect enough for the walls! Pity as i was going to call it Casa Botella in parody of my favourite Gaudi building (why so many people prefer the Sagrada Familla to Casa Batllo I'll never understand) admittedly Catie says this joke qualifies as a crime against humanity. I've gone off the geodesic dome idea (sorry Barnes Wallis) but i might use it for a Sweat Lodge another time....so it looks like we've decided from a practicality point of view on the option I rather prefer aesthetically anyway - A Yurt! We're starting to amass the bits now. I'll have to take it very slowly, one step at a time as I have got a lot worse physically lately but if it takes us till next year to finish it so be it. Off to the Council's reclaimed timber centre tomorrow or the next day I think to see what bits they've got going for a song.

The difference between the Mr Hyde of yesterday and Dr Jekyll of today can perhaps best be illustrated by my reaction to the post office clerk today:

Clerk: You can send it on the 24 hour delivery service or the 48 hour service.

me: 24 hour delivery please.

clerk: ok.....24 hour service......that should take 2 days.....

Today I thought it was funny ( and very British), yesterday I would have head butted the security glass and reflected colourfully on her intelligence and parentage. For those who remember the misery of the Thatcher years and the brilliant Alan Bleasedale plays that captured it, just think Yosser Hughes and you have a perfect representation of the state I was in yesterday. For those that don't remember those days or at least the grim British experience of them here's a clip from one of the Black Stuff plays that pretty much says it all (Yosser is the pale faced, moustachioed guy at the end - played brilliantly by a very young Bernard Hill now famous for Lord of the Rings, Titanic etc) it's a long clip, sorry, but if you have a few minutes its worth it. Who would've believed back then that things would be so much worse now, it wouldn't have seemed possible and yet here we are facing the first General Strike since 1926 and about bloody time.