The Life of Pie

A Love Supreme

Due to a complete inability to manage my annual leave, there will be no holiday fun for me this summer (2 days remaining until September - the humanity!). So my brief trip to London last weekend will just have to constitute my summer holiday.

I was down there to attend a course about cochlear implants which went rather over my head, but I went down a little early to visit a chum and have a head-clearing ponce around. Sorry sorry sorry for not catching up with more folks when I was down, but it was a rather condensed trip, plus I felt the need to do some solo pottering about to contemplate my boringass life and how I might render it mildly less boring. Anyway, part of my less-boring life plans involve more trips and chumfests, so if I bumped you this time, chances are I shall be darkening your door sometime soonish.

It was quite a rock ‘n’ roll trip. On Sunday we went to the Rise festival in Finsbury Park. I think it used to be a Billy Bragg stylee rock against racism thing, hence there was a lot of reggae involved. An interesting observation is that if you are bombarded by reggae for long enough, it does start to become quite infectious. We were mainly there to see the band evidently included to represent white people’s culture, The Aliens (fae Fife!) who, in short, are reconstituted Beta Band. They were pretty good; quite psychedelic and cool looking. I don’t think the whole audience really appreciated them though. If smelly racists want an effective strategy for deterring non-white people from coming to the UK, they should just play The Aliens really loudly throughout the land and watch black people turn away in consternation.

We did contemplate hanging around for CSS and Jimmy Cliff, but it was very hot and as I didn’t have any sunblock I was becoming more tikka coloured by the minute. Plus, being a free event to which punters could bring their own booze, it was rapidly starting to take on an Altamont type atmosphere as every dodgy sort in London gravitated into the park. So we left and went home to watch Infernal Affairs ("Which one's Marky Mark?") and Dead Calm ("Billy Zane looks just like Marlon Brando!") instead. Well, we are in our thirties, there’s only so much rock ‘n’ roll action we can handle in one day. Also, port-a-loos are totally unacceptable.

On Monday I had some alone time so I went to see the totally ace Supremes exhibition at the V&A – my favourite London museum, the café is so glam, although I did a very unglamorous thing in the café which was to knock lots of my bean salad onto the table, the floor and on myself. The Supremes exhibition is good. It largely consists of loads of their outfits and some memorabilia. The theme they’re going for is placing the Supremes and Motown in the wider context of the civil rights stuff that was going on and the history of black music in the United States. Obviously the best fun was to be had in the museum store, where I got loads of Supremes nonsense, including a fantastic DVD.

It was bloody hot though. I was glad to get back to freezing Scotland and cease sweating uncontrollably.

(Questionably-interesting fact: see the seemingly rubbish url for this blog (wakeme…)? It’s actually after a Supremes song I was listening to when I set this up and was stumped for url ideas.)

Things I might not remember so I'm making a note of them now...

My granny’s house is for sale (Download grannys_house.pdf). Well it’s been someone else’s house for a few years now. I think I may go to see it and pretend to be a prospective buyer. This may be a bit mean given how desperately people are trying to sell their houses at the moment, but I’d like to have a nose around and see if it still feels the same at all. It doesn’t look the same, it’s been Anne Maurice-d into a much lighter, brighter house altogether. This is a shame and I’m worried that seeing it in its new incarnation might bleach my memories of it, so I wanted to jot down how I remember it now…

My strongest memories of the house are from childhood when I’d stay over at weekends. It was like a little holiday. I’d arrive at tea time, dropped off by dad. Through the clouds of menthol cigarette fumes, I’d enter into the haven of telly, Coke and Snickers bars, although they were called Marathons at that time. Coke and Marathons pretty much comprised the two major food groups in my granny’s diet – there was always a shopping trolley full of cans near the door and a good stock of chocolate bars in the fridge – sometimes she’d slice the cold bars with a sharp knife and arrange the little slices on a plate.

Much of the time it didn’t really matter what was on telly, often we’d watch snooker for hours on end, but even though I didn’t pay much attention to the game itself, I loved the late-night masculine atmosphere of smoke and hard drink. There was also the added entertainment of my granny’s running commentary which characteristically included rather a lot of prejudice (Steve Davis) and favouritism (Jimmy White).

The best telly would come on later: Hammer Horrors, early Mummy films, Quatermass and the Pit, obscure films from the 1960s and 1970s, rampant with sexism and often featuring Oliver Reed as a rapist (obviously). The peak experience would be the Twilight Zone. It was perfect and even now it’s sometimes the only way I can relax; watching my Twilight Zone box sets.

We would watch telly until broadcasting finished for the night then we’d head off to our beds to read. I would read one of my granny’s battered Virginia Andrews books, usually the rude bits in the completely insane Flowers in the Attic. Often it would be really cold. My single bed would be warmed up in advance with an electric blanket, so hot you could have baked bread in it. On top of the blankets was a pink nylon flowery bedspread. My hands would be cold though, but fortunately the paradoxical fingerless glove was widely available at that time. On the glass-topped coffee table next to the bed would sit a cold glass of creamy milk and two dark chocolate digestives.

My granny just did whatever she wanted and that was consuming sugary food and drink, talking about her customers (she was a collector for the Provident) and watching TV. Life's great pleasures. The house was built in the late 1950s I think and my granny and her family were the only people who had lived in it, so it had that great atmosphere of being of another time but not really: I still love the optimism of little utilitarian, modernist touches and the mash-up of late 20th century decorative styles. (I inherited 2 wooden models of a rhino and a lion, plus 2 little vases).

The front door was sheltered by a fairytale inspired curly canopy in (again, I think) aged copper. In the dark hallway, a soon as you entered, there was a cupboard under the stairs where the coin-operated meters lived. It was in front of this door that the Coke-filled trolley would sit. The door to the cupboard was like all the other brilliant doors in the house, including those to the curiously small fitted cupboards and wardrobes which were in almost every room, coated with thick layers of paint. Thin doors with three horizontal panels and little round doorknobs positioned quite high. Concrete floors and steel rimmed single glazed windows. Panelled stair banisters and supersteep stairs.

Predictably, the reason I think often about going back (it was something I thought about a fair bit before it went up for sale) is because I didn’t go there enough while my granny was still alive. Like many self-obsessed young adults I was up to other things and didn’t go to see her too often in the last years of her life, which I feel bad about. She wasn’t always the most relaxing person to be around in social situations, she held a lot of (understandable) anger towards the world which she had no problem verbalising as fairly constant negativity. Now I’d find her rants funny. It was actually only towards the end of her life that I appreciated how unintentionally funny she could be: the last time I saw her before she went into hospital, she informed Miguel and I that the recently deceased Joe Strummer had never sold out and had stayed true to his punk roots. She had seen Bob Geldof saying this on the telly.

The Red Shoe Diaries

Last week I went to a potentially glamorous, but actually tedious, event at Holyrood Palace. Once a year, do-gooders and useful citizens such as myself are invited along to a garden party hosted by the Queen and Prince Phillip (the latter being my favourite royal, although if Harry dons his Nazi outfit more regularly, Phil may find himself eclipsed). I had been in two minds about going; it’s a bit square isn’t it? However, I thought it might be an interesting ‘experience’ and I got a cheeky half-day from work plus an excuse to buy relatively expensive shoes.

The dress code proved a tad stressful; ladies HAVE to wear a hat and it’s a bit difficult not to look like a fool in a hat. I purchased a red 1940-ish one from eBay for ten quid. My mum and I toiled over making a co-ordinating dress, but in the end it didn’t look right with the hat etc, so I dug this Zara jobbie out of the boxroom (the one I have has a massive belt). The dress we made won't go to waste though, I do like it - it's black with red cherry print. I also got a rather fab pair of shoes (below) from local shoe designin’ genius, Helen Bateman (I SAW Helen herself in the shop and she was wearing the very same red shoes, cue some footwear-based humour of the “hey, nice shoes!” variety).

Garden “Party” is something of a misnomer; there was no booze! It was really just a load of hanging around waiting for the Queen, then eating little sandwiches sans-crust. But the fresh lemonade and iced coffee were nice. My shoes, while beautiful, were a bit troublesome as the heels kept sinking into the grass, plus I’m not used to wearing heels, never mind standing in them for 4 hours, so my feet were on fire by the end of the party. I have since invested in some Scholl Party Feet gel pads. Oh and I didn’t even meet the Queen.

Cutie Pie

Blimey, I have been out of online action for a while. This is largely because I have been inhumanely busy with work and the last thing I could be bothered with after a very long day of computering, was more computering.

You’ll see that the name here has changed, as I fancied a change and even went as far as getting a new, less preposterously-cumbersome URL, but the hassle of exporting everything was too great, so I decided to stay with this one and just change the title (it reflects my childhood name of “Pie” - my mum still starts emails with “Hola, KP”).

A rather significant recent life-event is that I have a new nephew! His name is Lewis and he is incredibly hairy, to the point where he appears to have sideburns. He’s pretty heavy, but also short which makes him look like a cute wee hooligan at times. My other nephew, Jamie, turned three and I gave him an assortment of Miffy goodies. He has such good taste in children’s characters.

Why?

Why have I not encountered this amazing poster before? I must have a decent-sized print of it! I will try Sundazed themselves, but if that fails I stalkerishly also have the email address of the man who designed it. Although... it's possible that the copy I found on the interwebs might have adequate resolution to print nicely.

There’s a real paucity of prints from that Younger Than Yesterday-era session from which the main photo is taken. I'm sure there were cooler shots to choose from - Crosby seems to be channelling Larry Grayson with that stance and Michael Clarke's chords need ironing - but overall it’s great. 

Since my latest Spanish trip, I’ve really resolved to get to better grips with the language. And now I have the ideal resource! A new book about my beloved Byrds, only available in Spanish.

Lesson #1: Más jóvenes que ayer = Younger Than Yesterday!

Bargain Hunt

Being a fan of ridiculous 70s pottery, I bloody love charity shops and sometimes my fondness for raking through other people’s manky old stuff really pays off. Check out these amazing patterns that I purchased for the remarkable sum of 20p each! Oooh! That first Butterick one is may fave. I think that the short-sleeved version, if made up in red, would be just like the dress that one of my favourite current telly ladies, Joan from Mad Men, often wears. The first version with the big collar thing would be good for posher occasions.

The wrap-dress pattern in the centre looks like a good and easy-ish option for summer. You can't quite see it in the picture, but the previous owner has pencilled a little cross next to the sleeved option and written "green". That lady had great taste. I’m not overly crazy about the Simplicity one, but at 20p I’d have been insane not to buy it. I fear that the jacket would render me a bit “1990s mother of the bride” but the dress element could be nice if lengthened a fair bit. Before I totally knackered it in the wash, I did have a black dress that was similar, with sequin trims at the neck and cuffs, and sheer bell sleeves.

I’ve been a very lazy cow in terms of dressmaking lately. However, I am at home with a very disgusting infected tongue (not from licking anything dirty!) and generalised feeling-rubbishness at the moment, so I may start a new dress tonight. I also recently got a totally great pattern for a top that, if it works, I’d love to make loads of. It’s long-sleeved, early 1960s with a wide-ish roll neck. I have 3 metres of rather nuts fuzzy psychadelic pink and white fabric knocking around, which I think may actually lend itself nicey to such a top. OK I MUST do some sewing tonight, in the interim, you can see my catalogue of previous sewing escapades here.

Hay Carrumba!

Firstly, apologies to anyone who felt a bit put out by that whole “You need a password to look at this load of shit-talking. Don’t know it? Then you’re not really Kellie’s friend and therefore unauthorised to look at the super secret content, which possibly means she is bitching about YOU!” I realise it looked a bit bad and quite a few people were worried something was up (I secretly love the attention though, so thanks). It was merely a case of exhaustion-induced paranoia. I was poised to go on holiday for a while, was feeling a bit insecure about things in general and was also thinking this was so rubbish no one would notice it was hiding for a bit. I’m thinking of doing some bloggy relocating/revamping, but I need to work out the specifics first.

So yes HOLIDAYS! I was in Spain for 8 whole days and it was ace. My favourite trip ever really. Firstly, because I really, really needed a holiday – I had been way too busy at work, plus I desperately needed some headspace as I was having very unhelpful thoughts indeed. Secondly, for the first time I really did actually feel at home. I’m completely comfortable now with the mad ways of the Spanish and actually realised how much I’d missed all the stranger-kissing, food-fetishism, siesta-lazing, late-night meet-ups and EVEN my previously most feared social situation: the pop-in. I also attempted loads of chat with a fairly decent rate of success. We got up to loads, so I shall break the travel report up into chunks by location:

Madrid

The weather was pretty nice, what I’d class as Phil Collins Weather (i.e. no jacket required). Miguel was “NOT happy AT ALL!” about my choice of gaping handbag. This is because all Spanish people assume that all other Spanish people are a bunch of thieving gyppo bastards. “Because they are!” reasoned Miguel. However, I was not robbed – I think because I had such an easily robbable bag, it looked like I had nothing worth stealing, which was in fact true.

Miguel’s sister and brother-in-law live on the very edge of Madrid. Seriously, beyond their street it’s just … dust. So it was interesting to have a nose at the outer reaches of the city instead of just focusing on the touristy bits. It’s a very lovely flat indeed though. It was a bit of a trek to the train station, which was a tad problematic as my shoes decided to rip the skin from my heels. So the priority once in town was to get new trainers. I ended up with some aesthetically-pleasing, if unsupportive, New Balance ones in pink and dark purple.

We also did something which is as close to “romantic” as we ever get as a couple: we went to a slightly rubbishy place for lunch (Vips) which we had frequented on our first joint Spanish adventure in 2001. Aww. Interestingly, a LOT of people were checking Miguel out in a rather obvious way, which I put down to his evident coolness, but it actually turns out that he looks like some TV presenter guy, whom I’ve still to look up and check out.

Salamanca

On the trip north, we stopped off for the day in Salamanca, which was very sunny but freezing. The folks there were getting ready for their Good Friday processions of religiousness which was quite interesting to look at. We had a look at the square and realised why Vantage Point (it’s crap) was filmed in a shopping centre in Mexico – the Spanish would not have been too keen on the old square being blown up in the name of a ‘24’ derivative drama. We had loads of free food in bars, but it all went a bit wrong when one bar got shirty with the bro-in-law and essentially said that the free stuff was only for locals and not annoying tourists from Madrid. My feet started really hurting and I got pissed off.

Asturias

On the drive north towards Asturias, you trundle along several massive tunnels cut through the mountains, on exiting the last tunnel you might wonder just how long that tunnel was as it appears you have ended up in Wales. But it’s not, it’s glorious northern Spain, where it pisses with rain constantly, but it’s very beautiful and green and mountainous.

Miguel’s family live in Gijon which is a fair-sized town where it is compulsory for everyone who is related, or went to school together, to live in the same apartment building (this is TRUE!). It sounds like it might be a nightmare, but it’s quite handy really and it means you never have to go to far to pop in to town or to go visiting, unlike in Edinburgh where any visit is a massive logistical operation and needs to be planned a month in advance. 

Our first day was rather surreal in that we went to a kind of pre-funeral wake thing, as Miguel’s great uncle had died. Then we stayed at Miguel’s granny’s ace house, which is like living in the set of The Others. It’s in a tiny village called Cartavio and is amazingly cool – I should put up a picture soon. It’s a really old massive farmhouse built in sort of Cuban, colonial style. Unfortunately its massiveness meant that it was also freezing at night. The huge number of blankets that were necessary meant that I got into a tangle when trying to put my book away before lights-out and managed to hit myself in the eye with the corner of it, which left an impressive looking cut for the rest of the holiday.

The weather overall could be summed-up with the word “pishing” but apparently it was snowing in Edinburgh, so we didn’t suffer too much. I even got two massive mosquito bites. The rest of the holiday was a big old laugh, just lots of meat-eating and hanging around with family and Miguel’s chums. Gijon has a great new aquarium that we went to with a pal and his cutiepie kids which was top fun. (I bought nephew Jamie a big fluffy shark there which he loved.) I’m still very impressed with Marcos and Issac’s respective pads (nosing at people’s houses/possessions is one of my favourite things to do). I got a bit of a smelly cold at the end which was rubbish, but overall it was an ace holiday and I think we’ll be back sooner rather than later.

Today I…

• have a big sticky plaster on my left index finger as I cut myself with a massive serrated bread knife when trying to split a bagel yesterday. It was carnage, blood actually ON the floor! (I had a severe case of clumsitus yesterday. I also spilt coffee on the living room rug then knocked a glass of water all over various new magazines.) The plaster is transparent - “Virtually invisible!” according to the box - so I can see the sweat forming underneath.
• almost didn’t come to work. I was lying in bed at 9am feeling very sorry for myself, poised to text my boss when I realised that I had to go in to submit a bunch of shit to the printers. I am now at work, having a particularly unproductive day.
• wondered what kind of fool I look, writing here about shoes like I do and never anything important. 
• was impressed that the girl who works in our Starbucks has not only already received many Valentine’s cards, but that one card-contributor utilized a coffee-themed poem (I like coffee, I like tea, I love you, do you love me?)
• will have a much needed facial after work. The girls in the salon were rude and inept when I went in last week to have my eyebrows done, so I’m assuming I’ll have a rubbish time tonight and pay £50 for the privilege.
• am regretting getting a haircut that emphasises my facial fatness.
• am trying to remember that I have a relatively good life and am an arse for being a moody cow.
• felt very sad for other people who have had extremely sad-making things happen to them.
• bizarrely got an email from someone updating an online guide to Marseille, saying that they might want to use one of my photos, this one, after spotting it on Flickr. How unexpected. Obviously there’s no money involved.

The hole's the goal

Now all of fashion - and in particular the shirtwaister dress - is my domain as I have conquered THE BUTTONHOLE! I'm kicking myself for procrastinating the tackling of buttonholes for so long, they are actually dead easy as the machine essentially does it all for you, even a cheapass £99 one like mine. Tip to anyone thinking of sewing: cheapo machines are better as they are smaller, lighter and easier to use not coming will a billion different settings you'll never use.This top was a bit of a pain to make as the fabric was 60s vintage and frayed like mad, there were also a lot of darts involved for such a simple looking top. The pencil skirt I started today in purple tweed could not be a more different experience though, it was dead easy - I even inserted a PLEAT in about 15 minutes. Almost finished, I shall photograph the entire ensemble when complete, which should be very soon.

Yesterday, apres-fancy-chomping in a tiny cellar with a good chum, we had a good old poke around the shoppes and agreed that the fashion on offer was very uninspiring in an interseasonal far-too-cold-to-wear-any-of this-shit-even-if-we-wanted-to kind of way. HOWEVER, the same cannot be said of the footwear observed. Helen Bateman is a great store that on first impressions may appear to be catering mainly to the cheesy bridal market, but they also create completely amazing, beautiful shoes you won't find anywhere else. Check these Belle de Jour numbers! I want them! In this particular order: snakeskin/purple; red with pink buckles/trim; and most likely to actually co-ordinate with anything, brown. They're £85 though, which throws something of a financial spanner in the works. Mind you, that's way cheaper than the likes of LK Bennett, whose shoes I don't think are particularly great - rather too flimsy, narrow-heeled and pointy for my liking - also what's with a British shoe company using soft Italian leather soles that just turn to slime in the inevitable rain? I haven't tried HB's Belle de Jour jobbies on yet, but oooh check that chunky heel! I've also long fancied these red courts (the great thing about HB is that their styles don't disappear too quickly).

Good old M&S has some rather glam new shoes at a more purse-pleasin' £39 in red and black suede. These are incredibly comfortable (and I am a hard taskmaster when it comes to shoe comfort!) being of the granny-appeasing 'footglove' genre and would look ace with a 50s wiggle dress, or even a 40s tea-dress. I normally have a bit of a problem with bows on shoes (you won't find a single ballet pump in my shoe mountain - I hate those wee pathetic looking bows) but these are chunky enough to be more 'womanly' than 'girly'.

Any insane/wealthy stalkers looking to buy my love should note that I'm a size 5 (Euro 38).

Blue Monday

According to the public-transport-user’s primary source of global information, The Metro, today is officially the most depressing day in the calendar. Complete lack of motivation is a year-round thing for me, but at least I can feel slightly more justified in getting up 2 hours late for work (one hour late for the flexitime deadline) today. I did actually contemplate calling in sick but thought I should save my sick days for more extreme circumstances. Anyway, I’m not enough of a layabout not to make up the time, I always do.

My reason for extreme lateness is that this week the usual annoying arse on Radio 6 is on holiday and I needed to lie in bed listening for a while to fully appraise the skills of the relief DJ, who was a lady and OK, but I found her discussion on “Why do hot women date ugly men?” rather tired and a bit offensive (given that I am dating well above my attractiveness threshold myself, although I have historically dated beneath me and it’s still a mystery to me why... perhaps in my youth I over-estimated how shit life was supposed to be and was just trying to get the inevitable relationship horror over with. Anyway, I'm glad I got my crap boyfriend phase out of the way early on, sans wedding rings or accidental offspring).

If anything though, today has been marginally less traumatic than any day drawn at random from the previous two weeks. First week back at work after the holidays was a mixture of a bit of fun and far too much actual work as I was helping out at a massive technology show in London.

I’d anticipated much more skiving potential than I actually got so I was totally knackered. Horrifically, I had to spend a lot of the time standing and talking to people. Most of the time this was OK, but the experience was marred by two complete gits who were well out of order when the computer I had to hop onto started playing up and they patronisingly harassed me with cuntish remarks like “You’ve not been doing this long have you?” and “Perhaps you could show us something you do know about?” Oh they were so rude and under normal circumstances I would have told them to fuck off, but I was wearing a t-shirt emblazoned with my sponsor’s name and didn’t want to get into trouble with them so could only give the condescending bastards my best unamused stare.

I’m moaning too much now, even for me, so I shall end on a cheerful note, which is that I managed to get a quite-nice winter coat in the Coast sale. It was highly bargainous at half-price, plus it’s rather cosy, actually fits and is a fab colour (more of an indigo colour than in this picture and obviously about 50 times wider). God, if not for the occasional aesthetically-pleasing garment, day-to-day existence would be very dull indeed. Oh and I went to see No Country for Old Men at the weekend, which contained some amazing moustache action. Oh and on Friday night I discovered that I wasn't the only member of my book group not to have read all of the impenetrable 'The Left Hand of Darkness' plus we chomped amazing macaroni and had a go on a Wii. So, life is pretty, pretty good really. (I still feel pissed off though, so The Metro must be right about it being a doom-filled day).