Due to spending the second week of my Christmas holiday in Edinburgh not drinking much (partly due to an alarmingly big gain at Slimming World after the first week and partly because my brain wasn’t coping with the booze very well, hence my decision to do Dry January), when I left to go home to Newcastle there was still a large undrunk quantity of the Thistly Cross cider that my parents had bought in preparation for my visit. They kindly brought some of it down with them when they visited earlier this month, which was highly appreciated.
Thistly Cross Whisky Cask.
Whisky Cask is my second favourite of the Thistly Cross varieties (and would probably be top if Ginger weren’t so rare and hard to find). The whisky taste is gorgeous and really gives the cider a delicious richness. I’m not a huge fan of whisky itself but I love this. One of my all-time favourites.
Yeah, so that turned out to be a bit of a waste of time, given that I threw 90% of them out today.
When I was packing up the old house, I knew that I’d end up chucking quite a lot of stuff out to make things neater, but I didn’t expect that I’d end up being so ruthless with my clothes and accessories. The thing is, I’m just sick of the hoard. The hoard is everywhere, I’m currently spending my entire time sorting through it and tripping over piles of it and moving boxes of it about so that I can access more boxes of it, and it’s causing me a lot of anxiety and stress, especially on ‘sorting days’ like today when my hoarding nature means that I have to go through every single thing and devote mental energy to agonising for a few minutes about whether I should keep it.
And with jewellery and hair accessories it literally is EVERY SINGLE THING I’ve ever owned in my life, because you don’t outgrow necklaces and scrunchies the way you do clothes, so my collection genuinely dates back to when my parents first decided they needed to tie my hair back in 1987:
New baby bro scheduled to arrive next month, gotta raise my style game.
Yes, I still have those green tartan ribbons. Of course I do. They’re not being chucked out (they’re in an inaccessible part of the hoard right now, so I couldn’t even if I wanted to), because if it dates from the ’80s, it obviously stays. (What, you thought I’d been cured of ALL of my issues?)
Thankfully, I’m coming to the end of the ‘sorting days’ as far as my wardrobe is concerned, but next month, there will be the study. Oh dear god, the study. Boxes and boxes and boxes full of old correspondence, and schoolwork, and the first fumbling childhood steps in my lifelong fiction-writing habit, and the most painfully private diaries and poetry – all of which will need to be carefully scanned and then frantically shredded (and ideally burnt, but I’m not sure the atmosphere could cope). Mounds of receipts and paperwork and keepsakes, which will need to be sorted and filed. Piles of old broken electronics, and the manuals for the old broken electronics, and the twisted and tangled mess of connector cables for the old broken electronics. Artwork and other wall decorations that I don’t like any more but have been dragging with me through approximately five house moves. Cassette singles I bought in the early ’90s, which I won’t throw out, but will instead stare at wistfully for ages, marvelling at their glorious age and endurance, remembering a different century, wasting time when I’m supposed to be getting on with the hoard.
I know I’ll get to the end of it sometime. It just feels like such a mountain to climb. A literal mountain of stuff.
But I’m going to climb it, because there’s no other way through for me.
We’ve finally come to the last of my birthday ciders! Again, I drank this one on the Tuesday after we moved into the new house. The reason Futurama is so prominent in the background is because we had to have the TV on the coffee table due to lack of space.
Vixin Cidre Apple.
Vixin is a French cider. Its website isn’t very clear about exactly where it’s made, but it tasted very similar to Normandy cider to me. I’ll be looking out for this one again, as I love traditional French cider!
I did parkrun this morning, for the first time in a couple of months. Between the move and the weather, I’ve just not been feeling like running at all since late January, so it was nice to get back to it. Lovely day too, and it was perfect running conditions.
I’m hoping that we’ve seen the end of the bad winter weather now, though there are a lot of ominous rumours about a white Easter next weekend. I sincerely hope it’s not, as Geth and I are visiting the in-laws and the last thing we need is Christmas-style travel disruption.
With the clocks going forward tonight, it would be nice if it could just be spring weather from now on. Fingers crossed!
Yup, it’s another of my birthday ciders. I drank this one the Tuesday after we moved into the new house – there was a lot of cider that week.
Samuel Smith’s Organic Cider.
What I liked about this one was that it tasted quite rough, a bit like real cider, but sweeter than real cider usually is. It was quite strong as well – very nice after a day of house stress!
I spotted this phone box with its door missing on the day I first did the Great Edinburgh Winter Run. Because the event is so busy, Dad had parked further up the Pleasance while I did the race, and so I was able to grab a picture of this one as we went past afterwards.
Red phone box, West Richmond Street, Edinburgh, 9th January 2016.
After a couple of days of dribs and drabs of small deliveries of house stuff, the big Ikea order arrived today! Most of it (I’ve already assembled the replacement lamp) is still sitting in the middle of the living room, as there’s no space to assemble the units or put them in their eventual places yet. And just when I thought I’d reclaimed that bit of living room floor. Oh well.
I also finally finished the wardrobe cull. It’s amazing how much stuff I realised I just didn’t like or want to wear, and in total I’ve probably got rid of about 75% of my clothes. To be fair, I am now spending a lot of time online, fantasy shopping for replacements, but I’m trying to be good and only (mostly) buying things I actually need.
Now that the Ikea order is here, one thing I can do is start putting stuff into its proper storage boxes. Hopefully I’ll have a properly functioning dressing room, at least, by the end of the week!
We’ve finally got to the last of the ciders I drank the night we moved in! Not to the end of my birthday ciders, though. Not yet.
M&S Devon Farmhouse Cider with Raspberry.
I remember this one clearly, despite my tipsy state. It tasted exactly like raspberry yoghurt, which was really interesting and no bad thing at all. I think out of all the M&S ciders, this is the one I’d most like to try again sometime.
I spent today getting on with my wardrobe cull. I got rid of a lot of dresses, underwear, scarves and hats, and a lot more shoes – I’ve now got the previous total down to 59 pairs. That’s a pretty big drop, and it means my new shoe shelves will look really neat and uncluttered.
Well, at least until I replace all the thrown-out pairs with new ones!
No, I’m kidding. Like with everything else in the house, I’ll be instituting a one-in one-out rule once my shelves are full, in order to avoid things getting back into the chaotic hoarding state that has made this house move so stressful. Neither Geth nor I have ever been in the habit of throwing things away, but that has to change from now on, for my own sanity.
I’m quite looking forward to seeing what it’s like to live without mounds of stuff everywhere!
I spent a lot of money at Ikea and other homewares suppliers today. There should be lots and lots of shiny packages arriving this week. It’s all stuff we need for the house, though, so I don’t feel guilty about it (I know I shouldn’t ever feel guilty about spending money on stuff I want as long as I can afford it, but broke girl habits die hard!).
I bought new shelving (the Kallax units for the boardgames, plus a couple of things for upstairs), a new kitchen bin (I’m fed up of the ridiculous balancing act required by our current small one), a lamp to replace one of the ones that packed in earlier this week, a magazine rack for the downstairs toilet, hanging shoe storage for our tiny hallway, a wardrobe rail to replace a broken one in the wardrobe that came with the house, a new rug for the dressing room, a chair and mirror for my dressing table (my old director’s chair that I got for my ninth birthday has sadly seen its last days), hooks and other stuff for making jewellery storage, and approximately 1,000 pretty storage boxes for the various shelves in the house. I’m so excited about the packages. All the packages.
I’m not done with homewares buying yet, but I definitely think that’s enough for this week.
