Sunday 18 March 2007

breaking in

Almost settled into our new house now. It's all good. I am sitting in my study where I've been all day, working. It was a hard decision whether to wallpaper the wall which the desk faces, or the one I presently have my back to, but in the end I decided upon the latter. And now I am quite glad that I did. Behold:



Wallpaper is a right bastard to get to stick and to trim to exactly the right dimensions. There was even some swearing. But it's all fine now.

I am going on about it partly in order to prevent people coming into the house and saying "when you get around to stripping off that manky old wallpaper, this place will look pretty good." But I bet somebody still does say that.

The people who sold us the house have stopped by a couple of times. On seeing the floorboards, one remarked wistfully "Oh but that carpet wasn't very old!" (We sold the carpet, by the way.) The vertical blinds they had put up just before selling the house are now coiled up in the rubbish bin, which pleases me greatly. You would think this might have told them something about the wisdom of 'renovating' a place you're about to sell by putting in fittings that are only twenty years out of date instead of thirty-five. But no; we've since seen them installing a rubbish second-hand kitchen in another place they own, and I also saw the lady raking about amongst the unspeakably ugly sale table curtain fabrics at Lincraft.

Anyway. Basil is settling in very well in general. He has enjoyed helping us with various tasks, ones involving ladders most of all.



He also seems to have arrived at some form of detente with the bad neighbour cat. Initially they did a lot of this kind of standing-off in the yard:



Always in that configuration, too: Baz upright and silent, bad cat crouched and yowling, bad cat staring at Baz and Baz looking at a point thirty degrees off. After a few days of this there was a full-on violent confrontation which I happened to witness, first acoustically and then with my own horrified eyes. Basically Basil beat the crap out of bad cat, who seemed to just lie down and take it. When Basil came inside shortly afterwards there was bad cat hair snagged under all his claws, which were also broken and torn from the bitchfight. I haven't seen bad cat around since, though I've heard its bell ringing.



I had better get back to work. As well as writing a lecture for tomorrow I have to finish breaking in my new shoes.



For those I am blaming Jacqueline and her latest iteration of the Camper meme....

23 comments:

flexnib said...

Go Baz!!!

Anonymous said...

Ah the wallpaper - the ex in my life very nearly wasn't - I stood in her sitting room for the first time and decided to comment upon the difficulty of living with the interior decorating tastes of the previous very elderly widow. Actually, she'd just finished re-decorating the flat....
The continuace wallpaper commentary is a very good idea.

jac said...

Love the wallpaper. Excellent shoe choice. And Basil is king of the neighbourhood. Everybody wins!

genevieve said...

That's some cat. Great shot of the claws. And the shoes. And the wallpaper.
My daughter still rhapsodises about some triffid paper we took down in 1985-ish. But it was nowhere near as stylish as yours.
Very fine soiree last night, Laura. Thanks for organising it. I had a grand time, wish I'd stayed for noodles now.

GS said...

Some of us are old enough to remember (only just) the 70's and that wallpaper is bringing back some flashbacks of my childhood (I'll write about fried rice served with white sliced bread next).

Bugger Camper, those shoes make me envious. The bastards won't make their shoes in half sizes :(

Meredith Jones said...

I think Baz and Bad Cat might end up as friends. Many's the good friendship of mine that's begun with a long stand off then a bitchfight.

lucy tartan said...

Some of us are old enough to remember (only just) the 70's

I remember the 70s very well indeed thank you.

Val said...

Love the shoes!

Great to see you at the exhibition on Saturday. Don't forget to send the details of that workshop in Doncaster you were talking about. Tried to find it by googling but my search skills appear to be getting rusty already!

Zarquon said...

Don't let the grass grow under your feet.

BwcaBrownie said...

Pls tell Mr Fufkin that thongs on ladder is not good OHS practice. Please take care.

Ditto wot evybodee else said above though: groovy shoes and groovy wallpaper = The Sills Bend Style Statements Supreme.

and Dear Baz - that cat next door has bobcat ears, though he looks a bit submissive and maybe you will be pals soon I hope.

lucy tartan said...

It was great to see you too, Val. The only email address I have for you is out of date so I will try to send it to you another way - but it won't be for a few days at least, I just asked Dorian and there is nothing on paper about it yet I understand. Anyway it will be at Manningham Arts Centre so if you liked you could give them a call for the date at least.

Anonymous said...

As the real estate agent said to me: you don't have to renovate it all right away. You can leave some things for later.

And she was right; you can be comfortable in a new place without making it over in your image immediately. I left the stairs covered in pea-green carpet, and they've proved to be a great scratching post for the cats.

Look at Baz's claws: hehhehheh.

Love the shoes -- they'd look great on a tango floor tho they wouldn't slide (campers don't slide, they stick -- a problem for tango, probably not rock-climbing).

Anonymous said...

Bookbinding with Carolyn Fraser
Manningham Arts Centre
Saturday 5 May, 10am-4pm
$99 includes all materials.
Each participant will go home with a beautiful cloth-covered book.
www.manningham.vic.gov.au/artscentre

working...blogging...working...

tigtog said...

Oh, loving the shoes. I never mentioned that after your last Campers shoes thread I made sure that the one fancy Parisian shop we went to over Giftmas was Campers to get a pair for my tigling, who finds fittings difficult. They are a fabulous pair of Twins that she adores, and that don't give her blisters. Thanks for the recommendation!

Ariel said...

Hehe (re. Basil). He's king of the 'hood!

Great shoes. (swoon swoon)

Oh, and wallpaper.

Ampersand Duck said...

Why don't the images work for me? I've just got gaps. I know I've seen the wallpaper, but I demand. to. see. the. claws.

But why am I whinging to you? It's probably my bad computer being wilful after my week's absence. It seems rusty.

Anonymous said...

I feel you should know that I bought the exact same shoes for my beloved for her birthday on the strength of your past Campers happy post. Oh, the power of visual suggestion!

Ampersand Duck said...

Oooh, full visuals tonight. Wow. Love the claws (and the shoes).

Just Like A Woman said...

Yay for Baz, putting the Badcat in it's place......when the cat's settled, you know everything's gonna be perfectly fine in the new abode.

I too am very impressed with those damn fine shoes. I have a severe shoe addiction but I had never heard of Camper until I read about them here and made a beeline for the Chaddy store..but alas didn't see anything near as nice as yours. They should pay you a commission for spreading the Camper message throughout the blogosphere.
Emily

Anonymous said...

To repeat CW:

Go Baz!!!

Anonymous said...

Nice to see you all at the blogmeet.
I have a confession: somewhere in my cultural life I've missed out on knowledge of Campers entirely. I used to wear Docs in my youth until I came to the realisation that, despite their advertising, they really aren't comfortable shoes.

Maggie had a BadCat-type experience with my outlaws' Staffy. When she came out victorious noone could have looked more shocked.
Cast Iron

Susanne said...

Oh, that wallpaper is gorgeous! I can't wait until I buy my own place (someday...) and get to find wallpaper as cool as that.

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