So, what has Ailbhe been doing with her life?

[ailbhe]

I recently had email from someone who hasn't spoken to me in ages, and realised that I need a life-summary for all those people.

Myself and Rob now live in our terraced house with three cats and half a dozen houseplants, all of which are thriving on neglect and overabundance of care in turns. Downstairs, we have the library, which contains a tree, two armchairs, the TV et cetera, and a few books. Behind the library is the dining room, which is, I suppose, the main living room - it contains a kitchen table, six kitchen chairs, a sofa, a nice oldfashioned dresser, the drinks cabinet, a scratching post, and a box of bottles for recycling. There are four houseplants on the dresser, and a couple of vases of flowers on the table - I made the vases myself, sort of, from whiskey boxes and skip-fishing carpet and orange juice bottles.

Behind the dining room is the kitchen, which is a galley arrangement with very little in the way of worksurfaces. Behind that is the rear hallway, in which is the pantry, the catfood, the litter tray, and the doors to the bathroom and the outside world. The bathroom is unremarkable, and unaltered since we moved in, apart from the unstoppable accumulation of junk and one houseplant. The outside world is our back garden, of which we are moderately proud - it supplies us with grass, lemongrass, strawberries, blackberries, irises and some other things. We supply it with pussycats and the occasional haircut.

Upstairs - which are narrow - is, first, the spare bedroom, which contains the children's books collection (won't fit in the library), a spare single bed, and my desk. And all our household filing. It's not bad to look at; there's a cheerful chair-rail height strip of wallpaper with primary colour trucks dumping primary colour sand against a primary colour sky and some bright green trees. My PC is under my desk and my monitor is on top of it, along with Rob's old hifi, some stationery, and an old, half-eaten packet of digestive biscuits.

Next is Rob's office, which is jampacked. I know for sure it contains three unreachable kitten hideouts, one potplant, nine computers, and an IKEA Ivar rack. And a lot of Lego.

Finally, there's our bedroom, which is coming along nicely. We only have one wall left to sand, plaster and paint. Then it will be a uniformly soft yellow, with light, sunshiny curtains (white with yellow and green lily-type pattern). The alcoves on either side of the fireplace now have real curtain rails and we can actually hang our clothes on them, and I have begun buying suit-covers to cover the things which don't get taken down and worn very often and might therefore gather dust. We have some great yellow bedding with blue daisies on it, a teasmade, a radio-alarm clock, and a wicker chest at the foot of the bed for spare bedding. When I grow up I'll replace it with pine.

We don't go out on the town much, if at all. We read a lot. I go to ballroom dancing lessons on Wednesdays, and we keep planning to go swimming on Tuesdays, but it doesn't happen much. Sometimes we eat out, but usually we cook at home. We intermittently watch yet more of Babylon5, which Rob has on video, and we're nearly finished Season 3 for the second time, now. We keep meaning to go to the cinema, but that doesn't happen much, either. Sometimes we invite people over and feed them and force them to play board games or card games. We're very fond of our cats and spend too much time pandering to their every whim, except when we get sick of them and throw them out into the cold to calm down. Yes, we let them into our bedroom. Yes, we let them sit on the dining table between meals. Yes, we have a houseplant spray for ironing and cat-deterring. They all clearly understand the word "No" and don't climb the curtains any more.

We're getting married on 5 July next year; we are saving up to pay for it, as we both loathe debt. We've managed to get the guest list down to 80, by cutting vast numbers of friends and acquaintances. It's a civil ceremony and we haven't quite decided on all the music and readings yet. We're still searching for a really good reading for the final one; something about beginnings, I think. I might ask if I can use Darkhawk's post, as used by lizw and djm4. I liked that.

Before we get married, we hope to visit my mother in Ireland so that she can make my dress. And before that we hope to visit Rob's Mormor in Sweden. And before that is Christmas, when Rob's parents will visit us and my sister will come to stay for a few days. And before that is my birthday, when I will go to IKEA to celebrate, and buy another dresser for the dining room.

And before that is tomorrow, when we will see some neighbours.

Comments

[rosefox]

What's a teasmade?

What's the difference between a potplant and a houseplant?

[sashajwolf.livejournal.com]

A teasmade is a gadget similar to a coffee machine with an inbuilt alarm clock, designed to have a cup of tea or other hot beverage waiting for you when you wake up. They were very popular in the 1970s, but are now unaccountably out of fashion.

Puns aside, I don't think there is a difference between a houseplant and a potplant.

Houseplant, potplant

[ailbhe]

No difference I can see. I suppose one could have a potplant outdoors, where a houseplant sort of has to be indoors.

What's the difference between nude and naked?

Re: Houseplant, potplant

[songster.livejournal.com]

A houseplant grows well indoors, a potplant grows well in a pot. That's not necessarily an identity, though of course there's a large overlap.

Houseplants don't have to be cold-tolerant, while they *do* need to cope with less light.

As for nude/naked, nude is planned for, naked isn't. Possibly.

Re: Houseplant, potplant

[mikz.livejournal.com]

I'm glad somebody else knows the difference! The other difference, of course, is that Americans get confused when you talk about pot plants. =)

Also, I suspect that nude is when you have no clothes on, and naked is how you feel when you're only wearing socks. =)

[mikz.livejournal.com]

I've always dreamed of living in a terrace house. Maybe I'll get a chance to live in one in Sydney for a while next year.

Your home sounds nice, especially the Lego!! =) Next time I'm in London, can I come over and play board games too?

You'd be welcome

[ailbhe]

But we're not exactly in London.

Trivial Pursuits, Settlers of Catan, Risk, Scrabble, Chinese Chequers, or something else? I can't remember what we have.