An Art to Everything
Destination Perfection via the scenic route
Monday, 21 January 2013
WHAT'S YOUR JOURNEY?
At last, it's here. My brand-spanking new blog. http://thejourneygirlblog.blogspot.co.uk/
Tuesday, 11 December 2012
Right Brain Working Hard....
I know, I'm sorry i've disappeared after just a few posts, but it's for a really, really good reason, promise. Because I am working on a brand new exciting blog which I just cannot stop thinking about and anyone with an ounce of aspiration in their body will absolutely love! Whether you dream of running your own business, becoming an author, getting on the housing ladder or just finding that thing to make your life light up, this blog is for you. It's going to be bursting with bright ideas, pearls of wisdom, beautiful things, and interviews with kick-ass entrepreneurs and creatives who will make you put a sprint on. After all, it's ok to just not quite be there yet, as long as you are enjoying the journey - and everyone knows journeys are so much more fun with someone else to share it.
So bear with me while I get my creative juices flowing and my right brain working on overdrive. It will be worth it in the end.
Watch this space...
Digital Art
So bear with me while I get my creative juices flowing and my right brain working on overdrive. It will be worth it in the end.
Watch this space...
Digital Art
Monday, 26 November 2012
BAGGING A BARGAIN: VICE OR VIRTUE?

VASTIGE? IS IT CATCHING…?
It may sound
like a cream for an unfortunate skin condition, but in fact it’s one of those annoying
fusion words - in this instance, the knitting together of ‘value’ and
‘prestige’. Oohh, clever, clever (poke my eyes out now, please). So basically,
we’re all fed up with getting what we pay for - we want MORE and we want it for
LESS! “So what’s new about that,” I hear you scoff. Well apparently, because
the shopper has the upper hand over these big, grabby super-duper shops these
days, we’re more likely to get more for less than ever before! Yippee!
Now this is where
I have to give an aside, because although I do shop with big massive shops
often, I also love charity shops/ car boot sales/ tiny weeny antique shops and lovely
little independent boutiques who certainly don’t need us to try to drive down
their already bargainous prices any more. So if you do plan on becoming a vastigista
(ooh what a horrible word), let’s stick to haggling with the big guys and start
supporting the little guys a teeny bit more (I know from experience that you
can pick up a much more skillfully made, stylish and more often than not, cheaper
chest of drawers/ vase/ lamp/ table, in a well-chosen second hand store or antique
shop than in Ikea).
WHY MY BARGAIN HUNTING IS NOT A VIRTUE
I have to make
this clear – there is no halo on my head to polish. I am fully aware that this
is a trend born of frugality, savvy shopping and thriftiness. Unfortunately I
can’t claim such noble motivations. What I can only assume started out many
generations before me as an ‘every penny’s a prisoner’ type attitude, has
turned into a love of a bargain that is so strong, that if I see something
fabulous and outrageously bargainous, I simply cannot leave it in the shop –
even if I only have £6.32 in my bank account and it costs £9.99.
Cases in point:
1.
Thrifty
people do not need Osprey clutch bags reduced from £125 to £29.99 when they
already have a bag for every bag-requiring scenario.
2.
Penny
watchers certainly wouldn’t buy an occasional table that’s barely big enough
for a teacup just because it was a steal at twenty quid.
3.
Or spend
£17 on a travel card in order to cart four Ikea chairs across London during
rush hour, just because they were a fiver for the set and painted in Farrow &
Ball.
Whichever way you
look at it, this is not saving me money.
OH WELL, NOBODY’S PERFECT!
And as I have
established I am really, really not. Bargains. They are my biggest vice, my
legal high, but let’s face it, it could be worse. And may I reiterate, I’m finally
on trend! Woohoo! So next time someone asks me where I got my boxy Chanel-esque
Clements Ribeiro jacket from, I’ll no longer clear my throat and shiftily
mumble something about a little shop down the road, I’ll be lassoing it around
my head as I run up the high street naked (well probably not naked) shouting “TKMaxx
- £29.99!”*
*This blog is
not sponsored by TKMaxx and all opinions are entirely my own.
SOME OF MY FAVOURITE ‘VASTIGE’ WEBSITES TO BE GETTING
ON WITH:
If you enjoyed this post and think someone else
might too, feel free to share. You’d be doing me a MASSIVE favour! Thank you.
Image: Stuart Miles, Free Digital Photos
Monday, 19 November 2012
A Marmite Epiphany
EARLIER THIS WEEK WAS ONE OF THOSE IRRATIONAL TIMES when for no apparent reason I was
struck down by a lot of sighing, random sobbing at Christmas adverts, and obsessive
property-porning for million pound houses. In short, I’d morphed in to a total
nutcase. But while those close to me were seriously considering sectioning, I
was simply going through one of those ‘I just don’t’ phases. It went something
like: I just don’t have a mortgage, I just don’t have a car (well I have, but
it belonged to my friend’s granddad in 1998), I just don’t have grapefruit
spoons – I mean, who doesn’t have a grapefruit spoon? My solution was I’d feel
better if I adopted a dog. Now don’t go telling me that a dog is not just for moments
of temporary insanity - my dog mania goes waaaaaaay back. I’m the kind of person
who’ll swerve my car into a lamppost to oblige a dog who’d rolled over for a
tummy rub. Sadly, I’d never really been in the position to get one of my own.
Then suddenly, two years ago I jacked in my job, became freelance, moved to a
tiny semi-detached with a garden and an apple tree, and through the detection
of an inordinate amount of dog hair in the gap between the floor and the
skirting boards, discovered that the previous inhabitants not only had a
Labrador, but a Jack Russell too. Crikey! For once, ‘one day’ was right
spanking now! But then came the spanner in the works in the form of Mr Loves-to-move-the-goal-posts
- apparently we had to ‘wait until we had a house of our own’. Presumably, that
will be when we can get one of those reasonably priced warden-monitored
bungalows for the 65+. Sadly, that’s more than 30 years off, and I WANT IT NOW!
Things
were not looking good. I was as mad as a box of frogs, and something had to
change immediately or I was going to... ooh Marmite! I love a bit of Marmite,
and I’d left the jar on the side in the kitchen. There it was, calling to me: Marmite makes everything better. Marmite
makes everything taste better. Marmite... hang on (cue ground-breaking
epiphany). Contrary to a pretty solid marketing campaign, it’s just not true
that you either ‘Love it or Hate it.’ In fact, there was a time when I detested
it to gagging-point - I was a Marmite hater. But, quite fancying the idea of
being the kind of person who did love
Marmite, I therefore put myself in training. Now, as I new Marmite Lover, I
could quite happily eat it Winnie-the-pooh style, hand in jar. By this point
I’d polished off a couple of slices of toast and Marmite and quite fancied a jaunt
down the road to TK Maxx. I couldn’t go all red-eyed, miserable and make-up-less
because everyone knows that is exactly when you bump into old school friends, ex-boyfriends
and your dentist, so I decided to give myself a good talking to. If you can
learn to love Marmite, I said, you can learn to love the other crap stuff too. I wasn’t entirely convinced, but off I
trotted to TK for a quick browse and - Oh. My. Goodness. There they were! A
pair of shiny stainless steel grapefruit spoons for the princely sum of £2.99! I hadn’t
felt so light in my heart for at least 72 hours! I took it as a sign and
because there’s virtually nothing you can’t buy in TKMaxx, I popped a dog
collar in the basket too (just in case).
If you liked this post add my blog to your favourites, or EVEN BETTER pop a little mention up of it up on your twitter/ facebook/ google+. You would be doing me a HUGE favour and I would pay you back with many virtual hugs and good thoughts. Thankyou. x
If you liked this post add my blog to your favourites, or EVEN BETTER pop a little mention up of it up on your twitter/ facebook/ google+. You would be doing me a HUGE favour and I would pay you back with many virtual hugs and good thoughts. Thankyou. x
Monday, 12 November 2012
Porridge Perfection
I’ve
been away across the sea with the Northern Irish contingent of the family. It’s
been a crazy-mad schedule of toddler-hugging, new-puppy squidging,
tractor-driving, vats of tea-drinking and bottomless biscuit tin-fuls of
buttery homemade shortbread eating – I know, tough times. The thing is, it
ruins me. Once upon a crazy time, so many sheep and so few TK Maxx’s would have
scared the bejesus out of me - now I have a peculiar urge to buy a wax jacket
and live on a hill overlooking the Sperrins. Don’t get me wrong, Sunday nights
and Tax return season aside, I’m pretty darn happy thank you very much. But on
the plane home the prospect of wheeling my suitcase along the saliva-splattered
pavement towards my rented house that’s so close to the station I can hear if the
trains are delayed while I’m making my morning cuppa, made me feel like the
polish on my shiny South London life had all rubbed off.
BUT, then I opened the in-flight menu and things got infinitely better. Porridge…? Porridge, on an EasyJet flight?! And it’s that slightly posh Moma stuff they sell at Waterloo station. It must be good! Gimme, gimme.
BUT, then I opened the in-flight menu and things got infinitely better. Porridge…? Porridge, on an EasyJet flight?! And it’s that slightly posh Moma stuff they sell at Waterloo station. It must be good! Gimme, gimme.
Five
minutes later a hot paper pot is plonked on to my tray table.
Orange-faced Easyjet steward: Stir it round, put the lid back on and wait two minutes.
Orange-faced Easyjet steward: Stir it round, put the lid back on and wait two minutes.
Wow!
A-mazing! Pain-free porridge –
who’d have thought? You clever, clever, multi-talented Easyjet staff, you.
Five
minutes later….
Me:
Erm excuse me. But my porridge is a little, well, wet. And erm, pretty chewy.
Do you think you could possibly…”
Orange Easyjet steward: It’s supposed to be like that.
Really?
REALLY? Are you QUITE sure? Because it looks nothing like the picture in your
big fat lying menu brochure. (I should have thought nothing less from a company
that makes you pay for an extra bag then taps you for an extra forty quid
because you didn’t know you had to pay for the weight as well). If such miracles
as the two minute porridge pot really were possible, do you think I would spend
a whole ten minutes STIRRING my porridge on the HOB into creamy perfection every morning when
I really should be doing something important like putting the bins out or shaving my legs? Do you? Do you,
Punk?!
I
didn’t say any of this of course. I silently seethed in my seat, said 'thank you' very politely when they took the uneaten pot away, then I came home and made
this instead.
Top
Banana Porridge Brûlée
35g porridge oats
225ml semi-skimmed milk
One small banana, sliced in to roundels
Golden caster sugar
Put the oats and milk into a saucepan and mix well. Bring to the boil
over a medium heat, then reduce to a gentle simmer and cook, uncovered, for 5
minutes, stirring frequently. Pour into a heat-proof bowl or ramekin, scatter
the banana slices over the top and sprinkle with golden caster sugar. Dampen
the sugar slightly with a light squirt of water from a bottle spray. Now for
the next bit you really could do with a blow torch. I don’t have one (who
does?), so instead popped it under the grill until the bananas were all
bubbling, brown and crisp.
All better now.
All better now.
Monday, 5 November 2012
Fluking it
IT'S AMAZING
HOW OFTEN I THINK I'VE GOT SOMETHING DOWN TO A FINE ART, only to discover at the most inopportune moment that
said perfection was in fact, a fluke. Recently this was most hard learned in
(but not limited to) Article 1: Holding my Drink; Article 2: Cooking Steak (in
which my failure at Article 1 resulted in pan-frying my iPhone); and Article 3:
nose-parking in John Lewis multi-storey (luckily I drive a complete Article, so
feel more sorry for the steel girder).
The irony is that I'm increasingly
becoming over-run with how-to and self-help books telling me how to do things
perfectly. And after a particularly blunderous month, it's time to stop
rearranging said books by height/ colour/ binding/ publication date/ author,
and actually crack their spines. My Dad always said there was an art to
everything and found endless amusement in my artful predisposition for
disaster. Well, cue the new improved me of efficiency and perfection, because
with the help of what's on my book shelves I'm going to learn the right
(but probably more often the wrong) way to do everything. And if there
are a few Articles along the way, well, I think perfection is for boring people
anyway.
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