The joy of packing

I can't believe it but I really, really enjoy packing. Moving house is a nightmare but I love packing for adventures.

Today is a good example. I have to pack three seperate items.

1) Gym bag for three visits to the gym
2) Weekend bag, that will keep me presentable until Monday
3) Overnight bag for today, with a laptop and champagne

The gymbag will live at work so that is the easy one. Although I'm going to the gym today. So I need to put at least one days worth of sexy pants in that, for the date tonight.

The weekend bag is tricky. I've got a work event so I need to wear a range of styles of clothing and then I'll be in London so that's a different dress code. I need the absolute minimum because, as ever, space is limited. I'll be presenting awards, hanging around with the 'salt of the earth' and walking a beagle. So yes, quite a range.

It's like a complicated logic puzzle of clothes and I love it.

Let's hear it for feminists dressing like ladies

I had a date on Sunday. It was lovely, and definitely worth the 200 mile round trip (I really do live in the wrong place). It was great because we went somewhere (Tate) and did something (Look at art) and I had so much fun that I can't really remember much about the show.

The girl is a feminist, which is essential for me, I can't abide simpering submissive types. Once you've had fem, you won't date men? No that doesn't quite work. Anyway, proper feminist but not in a hair shirt sort of way, she was tottering about in a pencil skirt with excellent lippy. She was dressed like this because she likes it.

I have to say, that speaking as a straight chap the rise of the whole 1940s burlesque trend has been very appealing. Especially when adopted by slightly fiery types with strong views on gender equality. Ding Dong

Everything must go

Flush from the heady success of selling some old tat on Ebay and making £37 whole pounds I am now going to flog extra things. It's going to be a collection of abandoned hobbies, sartorial disasters and books I never even read in the first place. I'm hoping that this will be exactly the sort of gumphf that the people of the Internet are just gagging to get their hands on and thus I can make perhaps even more than 37 whole pounds. Of course, I won't make that really, because I've got to post the damn things and I suspect that at least one of the items is going to cost a fortune to post, pesky books.

This clean out is in part inspired by the excellent Halloween party I went to, it was absolutely amazing. The entire house was set-dressed to amazing levels, there was even frightening wallpaper and the evening meal included carrots in the shape of skulls.

It was a small event, but very enjoyable and it's definitely set the standard for future Halloweens for me. After that I've been filled with a resolve to get stuff done and so I'm cleaning out even more tat and flogging it for reasons I can't really explain but mostly due to a desire to reduce the amount of tat I own.

Of course I have a sneaking suspicion that these funds may be diverted so I can by some slightly different tat, perhaps of the mechanical nature but that's not important. This is progress, yup it's time for a change.

Pushing people into trees

I've spent a whole weekend in London. The trip that wasn't supposed to happen, turned into a day which turned into a weekend which has turned into 'a few days'. It's Monday and I'm still here.

It seems that the lure of London is too strong for me, I really should be attending more social engagements but instead I have to slope off back to Devon because I'm rapidly running out of clothes. It's been a funny jolly back to London with the Hitchcock Blonde, we went to a gig (the band were awful, but the venue was amazing) ate dim-sum, looked at art and went for walks in the park and kicked leaves while trying to push each other into trees.

Well that last bit makes a bit more sense if you were there.

A dedicated follower of fashion

I'm a big fan of vintage stuff. Modern fashion leaves me rather cold, or at least I feel it's got a bit tired. The thing is clothes get interesting when something non-fashion related gets chucked into the mix like new material that lets you do things you couldn't do before or if something that requires specialist clothes catches a designers eye.

If you think about it most clothes, especially for chaps, have a route somewhere in a sport or failing that war, jackets tend to have echos of something else. The humble leather jacket comes from motorbikes which in turn was born out of pilots in world war 2. It's all like a clothing evolution.

When there isn't this injection of something new to freshen up the mix we are battered with a tired combination of 'tartan is back' and 'bright colours in the summer' and so on. Which is what we are in now. Boring boring boring.

Where am I going with this? I'm not sure really. I think I had a point, but it was lost in the second cup of coffee when I got distracted by a goose.

Victory!

The garage is cleared, it's now a shining example of a functioning garage full of exciting equipment for leisure activities rather than indoor rubbish dump. We finished early today because we slightly over estimated how much work was required. Huzzah!

Now that the garage is out of the way I have far fewer excuses for not sitting down and working hard. Or at least I while have once I've unpacked. The fast amounts of clothes I've brought back are still haunting me in their bags. Every day I unpack and sort out about half dozen of them and yet the pile seems never ending. I won't give up to the luggage menace, oh no.

Foiled by feet

As I was feeling a bit blue I decided to do some shopping. Not just any sort of shopping, oh no. Shopping for bike paraphernalia. The next on my hit list were some stout boots. After a chat with Piqued about the sort of boots I should get and the minimum I should spend I set off to the bike gear shop. The proper bike shop, not one of the silly scooter places.

This is normally a pleasant enough amble through the streets of Putney, Fulham then Chelsea but as I appear to have a mild case of man flu it wasn't as agreeable as I had hoped. By the time I arrived I was in a bit of a state so I had to pause for a while on a nearby bench to catch my breath. Going for a walk didn't seems so wise.

Once inside the shop I got down to the business of buying serious footwear. The nice chap in the shop with the beard soon worked out the sort of boots I needed and I asked to try a pair on. Sadly this wasn't possible because my joke-sized feet were outside the sizing range they have in the shop. So I have had to order a pair in which isn't nearly as healing but they will arrive on Thursday so it's not too bad and I suppose that is another part of my biking uniform sorted.

Now I'm just going to retire to my bedroom with my mild temperature and try not to die of man flu.

These are a few of my favourite things...

The lovely lady at The Urban Woo has just posted about shops, she was inspired by this post on Oye Billy.

Anyway, I'm stuck on some work so I'm going to be *ahem* constructive and write about my favourite shops ever too. This is excluding restaurants that can be saved for another day.

Fortnum and Masons
The best hampers in London (I've done scientific testing and everything) you can pop in to them of an afternoon and pick up a beautiful wicker hamper full of exciting goodies. It's surprisingly good value considering you get to keep the lovely hamper and it's a gift for any occasion. Get one, go to Hyde park and try not to have a spiffing time. Just try.

Geo F Trumper
Barber and perfumer since 1875, recently I went in there for a new fragrance and spent almost an hour discussing what I wanted my scent to say. That's customer service, they even threw in some free soap. It's like entering a different world, one that smells lovely.

The Real McCoy
On Fore Street in Exeter there is a little arcade that has the best vintage clothes shop in Great Britain, fact. If you want to get a spiffing three piece 1920s tweed suit or perhaps a flapper style dress for less than the cost of a Top Shop shirt then this is the place to go. Although if you are male and the same size as me then you are banned, it's my precious.

I think that's enough for now.