Lady Liz

And here she is - sailing into view at last- after such a long time. I think she looks great and the seat is actually quite robust fabric – still not ideal for large pizza eating teenagers to lounge on while they watch TV or anything remotely like that but durable enough I think. All my furniture is more decorative than durable - created for effect I guess. Like lots of lives!

I know that some of you will have been thinking I have just forgotten about the whole furniture thing because I have not posted anything new for so long but not so.  I have just been trying to recover from breaking my finger which has admittedly taken a while. It has also not healed that well so I’m a bit despondent about that, but on most other fronts life for me and the “Gang of Three” down in Thorndon is getting a bit better.

It’s funny the way those terrible clichés that get thrown at you like exploding missiles – time heals – you will recover- strong people like you always get through – eventually have a soft landing. Of course, clichés only become clichés becuase they are used so often and they are used so often because there is some truth in them.

Last week we have heard a lot from Lucy Hone who has found a way to survive the terrible grief of the death of her daughter Abi. She has had very extensive media coverage but still seems to shine on her own and maybe she has been picked up so completely by the media because we all want to hear what she has to say and we want to buy her book.

The death of her beautiful and by all accounts, wonderful daughter must have been unfathomable but what she says about how she tried to come to terms with it makes such perfect sense to me. It is like a war- it is a fight- survival requires a conscious fight back and it can be done. This much I know is true. And that you cannot compromise what you have for what you will never have again. These are wise words indeed.

So for now – if you want to buy Lady Liz you can  - for $220 – and I have not actually sold Blankety Bill either so he is for sale too. I managed to find another identical blanket (amazingly) and have another chair exactly the same too. So I can make a matching pair if anyone is interested. Chairs made out of cosy blankets seem really attractive as Winter starts to bite.  L

PS Sorry about the hopeless photo - there's a couple more on my website.

The Strawberry Statement

I don't know why I called this chair that - it just popped into my head but for those of you who are old enough to recall it, you may remember that The Strawberry Statement was a little cult movie from the early seventies about nice college kids getting what we would now call radicalised - we didn't have that word then though did we? It had fantastic music Neil Young, Buffy Sainte-Marie, I think John Lennon and a few others I’ve forgotten. Anyway, I guess you had to be there and there are dwindling numbers of us who were.

So this wee chair has a rather grand name but was just a grotty old mustard vinyl chair that I found in a skip covered in paint splashes. Now, looking good and he’s going to come and live with me at Foxta del Sol (unless someone wants to buy him for mega money). No one has bought Blankety Bill so I guess I'll have to give him a little outing on Trade Me. Someone out there will love him and want him at their place eventually.

I will be having a little break from my furniture reconstructing because two things have happened simultaneously to conspire against me doing the things I really want my do.

 Firstly I took a new job - I know I swore I wouldn't but I  couldn't help it - it's really hard to hold out for being poor- there seems to be a wilful angle to it all – “Oh no thanks- I won’t take that job- I’ll just sit round at Foxton and be poor”. Somehow it doesn’t quite add up.

 It will be a very very busy job and full time. Playing about with furniture is just not going to feature. So far so good - not.

Then on Friday I tripped over and landed on my finger which alarmingly completely snapped in half.  So now, painful, swollen, strapped, unusable fingers on my left hand. The hand I use for everything - and I mean everything - can't even clean my teeth. Upholstery will not be possible at all. One thing about upholstery is that you have to have is strong hands – looks like I am in a bit of trouble for a while.

Funny though, the finger I broke is my ring finger. I ended up spending a long and painful afternoon at A&E getting my wedding ring cut off with a faulty ring cutting machine. I wondered if Brian was controlling it I some way, making sure that if I am going to be taking my wedding ring off, it was going to hurt. And it did. L

Sometimes in life things just don’t go as planned- in fact the only thing you can really know about a plan is that you need to be able to change it. As John Lennon said- Life is what happens when you are making other plans.  So Blankety Bill didn’t quite work out as I had envisioned but as can happen sometimes, he came out better than I had ever imagined. I found this gorgeous good quality and not prickly or thin blanket and used it to recover the baggy old chair I had bought. I had intended to do two as I have another one of these chairs but didn’t have enough blanket so he will have to go it alone til I find another one. These chairs are not uncommon – I think from Ikea but looking more interesting and really comfy- especially with the little extra blanket rug to go with it.

Xmas has come and gone along with the holidays. I did go on my big walk- I was going to walk the Te Araroa trail to Foxton but it started to rain, so after about 70kms, I got the train home!! It was great though- got to camp in my tent and do a bit of distance walking. It’s a bit funny being an old lady walking around urban areas with a pack though- all these families having their lovely holiday on Waikanae Beach must have thought I seemed a bit odd- I noticed no one seemed to meet my eye- guess they thought I was some kind of outlier nutcase- tramping along their holiday beach. But I didn’t really care.

I fact I have realised lately that I don’t actually have to care about anything. All the things we fear, the things that keep us in place - like fear of losing our loved ones, fear of having no money, fear of losing friends and family, fear of looking a fool- all these things have happened to me anyway. My worst fears have been realised and I am still the same. It’s a very liberating thought– there isn’t anything to be afraid of after all.

I hope you like Blankety Bill  - you can buy him for $220 or you can talk to me about it. I am going to make Blankety Betty too – thinking about a grey blanket if I can find a good one. There are more photos of him on the photo pages of my website.

Happy New Year to you all – I hope the holidays were good and you are all having a great summer. L