Category Archives: organising /good ideas at the time

New year … an enigma wrapped in a resolution?

Being fifty-something, I’ve grown cynical about new year resolutions.

My resolve usually gets boxed up around the time of the Christmas decorations (during the second week of January) and remains elusive for another year.

This year, I decided to bypass the pretence of intent, to cold-shoulder the ten-step success schemes and turn a deaf ear to the media-led calls to take January by the balls.

I planned to ignore all the questions about resolutions and 2013 plans … and hope that nobody noticed.

“Stay calm and carry on” would fit nicely. Lazily. Steady-as-she-goes-ily.

Then a parcel arrived, just a few days shy of New Year’s Eve, and jolted me back to resolutions-ville.

The one device it contained summed up a simple plan that I can think I can live with for more than just a couple of weeks … hopefully for a year and much longer.

solarscales

Yes, my brand spanking new solar-powered bathroom scales are a sign.

They encapsulate two key initiatives that demand my attention:

  • to be healthier
  • to be kinder (to the planet, to myself, to others).

Why do I need new bathroom scales, you ask? My previous ones were confiscated by my personal trainer about two years ago (it was a condition of her training program). Since I stopped training with her about 18 months ago, I have been in weight limbo … guessing, via all the usual sure signs, that I was regaining the kilograms but never really confirming it (until I sighted indisputable photographic evidence). I haven’t been able to bring myself to face my ex-personal trainer and retrieve my old scales. I know … I should confront that reality, but let’s not go there.

My new reality is here and it has a blinking (solar-powered) sun-face to remind me, each morning, that we can all do our little bit to help care for the environment.

So, my forward goals are nothing like “they” say your goals should be – no quantitative targets, no timelines, no KPIs (no, I won’t be reporting progress here – that’s a journey of accountability that doesn’t need to be shared).

Just my simple re-align the mindset stuff:

I want to be more, while weighing less.

I want to tread lightly on the planet, and tread a little lighter in my own shoes.

I want to smile broader, but be less broad across the beam.

I want to be more hippy (“keep true to the dreams of thy youth”), while being less hippy (if you know what I mean).

keeptrue

What are your plans for the coming year? May you shine bright and brilliant throughout 2013 … I look forward to reflecting some of that light back to you.

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Partners in crime (comrades in rescue?)

Being fifty-something doesn’t mean that date night isn’t interesting.

Quite the opposite. Take last night for instance.

Mr P and I headed into the city (on foot) for an Indian meal. As we readied to cross the highway we noticed a long (very long) piece of timber moulding on the footpath, obviously displaced from a truck as it screeched to a sudden stop at the traffic lights (Mr P says I’m jumping to conclusions).

Perhaps it slid from a car rooftop as it slowed (not enough) to navigate the corner (more conclusions, says he).

It looks like cedar (a giant leap, says he).

There and then, we made a pact: if it’s still here when we return, we’ll carry it home.

On we went, to the Kahn Curry Hut (No. 2) where we enjoyed Chicken Madras, Lamb Szabsi, Saffron Rice, Garlic Naan and a bottle of local Pinot Noir.

Perfect.

Out we headed into the fresh night air, for our usual after-dinner on-foot journey home.

As we crossed the highway, we could see our prize was still there, on the footpath for all the world to see. Though it was dark now.

We took one look at it, one look at one another, and sprung into action … he at the front (steering) and I at the rear (puffing) we hefted the timber up under our arms and made for home.

It didn’t escape us just how odd we looked, wandering down the road, late at night with this long (very long) plank of timber suspended between us.

It felt like a wicked collaboration of sorts and we jollied each other on with maniacal laughter.

In the distance we could see the dim (Dickensian) light of the local Irish pub and the telltale cloud of smoke signalling the smokers huddled on the footpath outside.

On a normal night, we would stop in at Irish Murphy’s for a nightcap. Tonight was not normal. We doubted we could trust these ne’er-do-well smokers with OUR prize so we decided to walk nonchalantly through the huddle, without making eye contact, and hoping for the best.

Of course, we looked more Three Stooges than nonchalant. Possibly, we whistled as we went. I couldn’t be certain. Still, there wasn’t a comment from the gallery and we walked on (just a little faster).

At the next corner, we opted to turn off the main road and head for the cobbled laneways that thread their way through our neighbourhood. Their tight twists and turns demanded mathematical precision … lucky Mr P was at the helm, yelling directions back to me in the rear, in the manner of a farcical slapstick comedy skit.

We had one more main road to cross. We waited on the curb (forever) for a lengthy break in the traffic to enable us to sprint across with our prize.

(Surely there’s an arcade game based on this exact same scenario.)

Finally we reached home and carried our loot into the garage for closer inspection under lights.

Even better. It DOES look like cedar. It’s a fine piece of timber.

Now, we don’t consider ourselves criminals. (Hell, our friends would probably describe us as tiresomely straight.) We see this as a rescue of a found object. We’ve saved it from the inevitable … those (other) drunks making their way home from the city would have thrown it on the road to be smashed into tiny splinters by gargantuan truck tyres.

We reasoned that it more than likely would have ended up over our front fence anyway, like so many finials and fence palings do on such Saturday nights.

Indeed, we have done a good deed for the community (and the planet) by rescuing this item.

Still, if you see us on Crimestoppers, captured on CCTV, mum’s the word. OK?

You know nothing.

Imagine the intro’: Inebriated fifty-something couple walks the plank in the urban jungle

Then they’d zoom in for the mandatory close-up of me looking furtively (OK, guiltily) over my shoulder. I knew I should have reapplied my lip gloss for that trip home.

Then another close-up of me laughing maniacally. If I’d thought ahead I could have applied some dramatic Cruella Deville style red lippy to help with that shot.

While I wait (drapes drawn) for the constabulary to knock on the door, I will, of course, make some enquiries to see if I can track down the rightful owners.

If I can’t unearth them within a few days … I fear it will be too late.

Mr P has plans to split the loot and “launder the money” if you will.

He’s already measuring to dissect the plank up so it’s unrecognisable as several of these masterpieces:

Discovering the promised land of the perfect poached egg

Being fifty-something doesn’t mean I’ve got all the basics down pat.

Many life skills that others take for granted still escape me completely: parallel parking, gears on bicycles, price haggling, cryptic crosswords and … wait for it … poaching eggs.

After years (nay, decades) of failed poached egg attempts which ended in soggy, stringy, watery misshapen messes, I had given up hope of mastering aesthetically pleasing, well-shaped, evenly cooked and appetising poached eggs of the type served up in cafes, restaurants, diners and eateries around the globe.

I’ve tried all sorts of tips and tricks: boiling water, simmering water, still water, a slurp of vinegar, a pinch of salt, no salt, swirling clockwise, swirling anti-clockwise … even suspending the egg in a twisted pouch of cling wrap.

Always a disaster.

Every time.

Until now.

I have discovered the secret to the perfect poached egg… the PoachPod.

If you’re familiar with PoachPods, you may look away now. Go directly to another blog. Do not pass go. If not, stick with me. I promise it will be worth it.

I found these four PoachPods in a thrift shop.

I wasn’t sure what they were, how they worked (indeed, if they worked) but, being a curious type, I handed over my one dollar investment (yes, for all four) and took them home to investigate.

YouTube came through with a very instructive PoachPod how-to, and I got to it.

So simple. Here’s the nuts and bolts of it.

Set a half saucepan of water to boil.

Spray your PoachPod lightly with olive oil spray. Crack in your egg (trying to keep the yolk whole).

Once the water is boiling, carefully float the PoachPod (including the egg) in the water.

It will remain afloat in the water. Magic.

Here’s four I prepared (at once) for lunch today, floating neatly in their saucepan of water:

Cover the saucepan with a lid and after about five minutes, use a slotted spoon to lift out the PoachPod (with the egg nestled safely inside).

Loosen the egg with a spoon and serve.

The egg itself has never touched the water. It’s formed a uniform shape within its little pod and is cooked through beautifully.

Here is Mr P’s lunch. No straggly wet egg whites. No soggy, forlorn toast.  (And, yes, Mr P only eats white bread. He’s a trucker.)

How awesome is that?

What do you think? If you already knew about PoachPods you won’t find my awesome discovery quite so awesome. And I’d like to know why you haven’t been raving far and why about your discovery.

I’m slow on the uptake – especially with culinary-related things/gadgets/skills/ideas – so it’s very probable I am amongst the last on the planet to learn the secret of perfect poached eggs.

If that’s the case, I’d rather not know. Right now I’m channelling my inner Christopher Columbus and feeling quite smug about it.

Now, if I can just discover a snazzy gadget to whip up some hollandaise sauce (or change the gears on my bike for me), my world will be complete.

Note: This is not a sponsored post. I have no relationship with the makers of marketers of PoachPod.

Note II: Mr Google tells me you can buy a pair of PoachPods for yourself for about $10 … or you could set sail for your local thrift store and hope for a fortuitous find like mine.

Psyching myself up for the family portrait

Being fifty-something, I’m starting to think that there are already too many photo’s of me in this world.

If I was never captured on film (or in pixels) again, the world wouldn’t shift from its axis and I’d be happy enough to be remembered by my pre-fifty-something snapshots. Which is saying something … most of them are shockers.

Let’s face it … who becomes more photogenic with age?

That’s why it was left to the younger generation to suggest we engage a professional photographer to capture a family portrait.

My niece E tells me she was inspired by this earlier blogpost of mine.

Maybe I should have thought that one through more.

How could we say “no”? E was organising it all, had picked a tentative date and had the perfect photographer worded up.

Next Sunday is the day.

It’s looming like an ominous, dark thunderhead on the not-so-far-off horizon.

I’m not ready.

I haven’t lost that 15kg I’d hoped to. (I know: there is not enough spandex in this hemisphere to fix that by Sunday.)

I haven’t grown long flowing Rapunzel-style locks.

I’m looking untanned (some might say pale and wan; I probably have a vitamin D deficiency, to boot).

I haven’t had that crown replaced on that molar (the one that’s been missing now for more than two years).

I feel a pimple coming on just near my lip (surely one outgrows pimples by fifty-something?)

I don’t have a stunning super-photogenic outfit in my wardrobe (not one that fits, anyway).

Still, we have a very loose dress-code, which I’m hoping will work in my favour.

I’m thinking black. Sleek. Slimming. Fade-into-the-background. Invisible.

Maybe a splash of colour to draw attention away from … well, everything.

In a group photo, getting the outfits right hardly ever happens. I just hope we can avoid something like this:

Or this:

Yikes!

Sunday is looming fast. I’ve mentally noted some tips for the day (to hopefully avoid some of those inevitable “why didn’t I just …?” moments after the event, when the portraits have been printed in super-size and framed underglass for future generations to view).

Come click-time, I’ll be:

  • standing tall
  • sucking my belly in
  • pushing my chin out and head forward (to unfold those extra chins and swan-ify my neck)
  • hiding my chicken-feet hands behind my back
  • turning slightly to the side (obviously)
  • attempting a graceful ballet-girl stance of some sort (but probably toppling over)
  • jostling for a position at the back (but probably toppling over)
  • fluffing some volume into my hair at the sides
  • checking I don’t have a cocky’s crest of spiky hair on top
  • slapping on some lip gloss (lots of it)
  • trowelling concealer all over that pimple
  • smiling as graciously, genuinely and widely as I can without revealing the toothy gap or emphasising the crow’s feet

Mostly, I’ll be looking skywards and hoping with all my might for the clouds to part and a shaft of Doris-Day-lens-perfect-softening-light to shine its loving little heart down on us.

All of us.

Bring it on.

Do you suppose she has a pimple on her chin? Photo credit: http://www.last.fm

Hit me with your ribbon stick (climbing back into the craft saddle)

Being fifty-something, I’m nothing if not persistent.

The horror of my near-death-by-scrapbooking experience is slowly fading. So much so that last weekend I climbed back into the crafting saddle … boots and all.

Inspired by the lithe young gymnasts at the London Olympics, I resolved to attempt a gymnast’s ribbon wand as a gift for my Great Niece, Miss E, for her third birthday.

Photo courtesy Singapore 2010 Youth Olympics Games on http://www.flickr.com

In fact, I decided to triple up the fun and make three ribbon sticks so Miss E’s siblings, 4-year old Miss A and 1-year old Master S, didn’t miss out on the fun.

I checked out some online DIYs, and it all seemed easy enough, so I took a deep breath … and gathered my materials.

Wooden dowels, ribbon (3 metres for each), screw-in eyelets and “spinners” – I upcycled mine from some old swipe card clips. You can also source spinners at fishing tackle suppliers.

I sprayed the dowels (each about 30cm long) with silver paint. No such thing as too much bling.

For each dowel, I screwed in an eyelet, split the ring on the spinner to attach it to the eyelet before threading the ribbon through the other split ring and stitching it firm.

I sealed the long end of the ribbon by holding it a few centimetres above a flame, for just a few seconds.

Tadah! Three ribbon wands, not quite of Olympic proportions, but certainly fun enough to entertain three little cuties for a few hours. I added a book and sweet little notelets, a hand-made card and I was satisfied with another crafty gift, wrapped and in the bag.

Well, not quite satisfied.

I was feeling pretty comfy in the saddle so I risked another project (without dismounting). Remember all those vintage Fowler’s Vacola jars my sister K presented my with? I upcycled six of them into Candles in the Wind … one for each of the ladies at the birthday celebrations, each complete with personalised leather initials/motifs.

That’s six Fowler’s jars down. Ninety-four to go.

The ribbon wands were a hit with the little-uns at the recent family birthday gathering.

Even Master S got in on the act to give us a ribbon wanding performance.

Not all went perfectly to plan. Seems the girls had caught some of the fencing competition during the Olympics broadcast … because there was a little light-hearted hit-me-with-your-ribbon-stick action. No one was hurt. Yes, there were tears.

And one of the eyelets kept finding its way loose under the pressure of all that twirling. Miss E got very adept at just twisting it back in and getting on with the show.

Some of mum’s “good” glue would fix it for good.

A little crafter in the making.

I think she got it from her mum (my niece E) who created a fabulous birthday cake for event. How clever is she?

Here we are (me on the far left) blowing out the candles with my fellow birthday buddies at our annual August/September birthday celebration.

That’s fifty-three down … and many, many more to go.

(And if you haven’t got “Hit me with your ribbon stick” playing in your head all day long, I have failed. Hit me. Hit me.)

Ambushed by memories … and loving it.

Being fifty-something, I’ve got half a lifetime’s worth of memories to manage.

Photographs, mementos, cards, keepsakes, touchstones … however you categorise them, I possess as many of them as the next fifty-something.

When I wrote about the memories sparked by this photo a couple of weeks back, I was amazed at the number of family and friends who mentioned it to me, sharing their own remembrances of the time when the photo was taken, or how it related to another time in their own life. That brought home to me (again) how memories stimulate thought, reflection and dialogue and how important (and rewarding) it is to keep them alive.

For me, that means not hiding them away in dusty albums or rarely opened keepsakes boxes.

I prefer to be ambushed by my memories, just as I was when the above photo literally fell out of a box and into my awareness.

That happens a lot around here. And I like it.

Maybe I’m just too lazy to sort and catalogue my memories into albums and beautifully crafted scrapbooks. OK … that’s not even a maybe.

But this is what’s been working for me. I have my memory starters secreted in places I access regularly. They’re like little booby-traps, that sneak up on me.

My Girl and Wonder Boy’s first birthday cards mingle with the DVDs in the drawer beneath the TV.

There are past family feast photos (laying in wait to eat into my emotions) in the bulging folder of take-away menus taped to the inside of the pantry door.

There’s a photo of Mum and Dad rubbing shoulders with the flatware in their “good cutlery” canteen that I somehow inherited.

Most of our own wedding photos are in one of those dusty albums in the top cupboard that requires a visit to the shed to retrieve a step ladder before I can delve in. But there’s one (a big one) that floats around the shed, being bumped from one spot to another, making way for DIY projects, tools, storage boxes. It’s even managed to ambush a couple of neighbours borrowing tools.

Hidden inside the antique games table, along with kings, queens, pawns and decks of playing cards, is the guest book from my late sister Gay’s funeral.

And lurking in my underwear drawer is one of Gay’s hankies. Every couple of weeks it rises to the surface as I rummage through my knickers, reminding me how Gay always carried a hankie. It’s a giggle every time.

On a much-used bookshelf, sandwiched between a modern classic and Yates Garden Guide, is an unassuming, black-bound bible with a special inscription from my grandparents to my dad on his eleventh birthday. (Wonder what was in his head when he was eleven?)

And in the basket where I keep my wrapping paper and gift cards is a special blue envelope with memories of James, our stillborn nephew.

So, when I’m doing mundane, ordinary things, these items leap out and into my head and my heart. They activate thoughts, reflection and dialogue and stay alive as part of my everyday life.

I still get surprised when I rifle through the “present-wrapping” basket or open the lid on the games table and unexpectedly find myself transported to another time and place.

I’d love to say I’d set this all up as a master plan – a strategically integrated memory map for my home. Truth is, it’s happened organically over many years. I just love how spontaneous memories make me feel, so I’ve left it that way.

And I love that that’s how recollections are in my head … they’re not chronologically ordered or categorised by event. They cascade out at will, when I least expect them, finding impromptu connection though a smell or a taste, a word or a song … or just a feeling.

They’re there always. Ready to ambush me. Bring it on.

Procrasti-glossary … the midlife guide to putting off until tomorrow

Being fifty-something (and a writer), what I don’t know about procrastinating might not be worth knowing.

Photo by CLIPH

My mindful midlife perspective has put the spotlight on a plethora of putting-off practices that can sometimes fly under the radar (unless you’re looking for them).

Here’s a little nomenclature to go with it … a glossary of modern-day procrastination derivations, which you might (or might not) find helpful.

Procrasti-noting

Carefully preparing a list of what needs doing appears (to the uninitiated) to signal an organised mind, a person who gets things done. In fact, the making of the list and the doing of the deeds thereon are entirely different beasts. These two animals rarely occupy the same timezone. (Refer also to: procrasti-planning and procrasti-collating)

Procrasti-baking

Many a batch of banana muffins hides a dark secret. That inexplicable urge to get your Betty Crocker on in the kitchen could be a poorly veiled ploy to avoid another task (for example, tax compilation or ironing).  Not sure where to start (or stall) with procrasti-baking? Check out this no-fail muffin recipe on my friend Alex’s Hello From Tassie blog and imagine the horrors you can delay until tomorrow, by baking today.

Midlife procrastinating fifty-plus fifty-something

Procrasti-mating

(No, not what you think). This one is most common mid-week, or mid-afternoon (on a Saturday). You’ll recognise it by the sudden sense that a friend needs your company. You drop everything (anything!) to rush over and check on your pal, stay for coffee, wine, a meal, possibly overnight … whatever it takes to get your mate through. She (or he) always returns the favour in what is now recognised as a chronic condition: “reciprocal procrasti-mating”.

Procrasti-bating

Not just for wankers. A sharp rise in the appetite for this delaying time-devourer correlates directly with the popularity of the Fifty Shades of Grey series. Enough said.

Procrasti-planning

This one is easy to diagnose by the excessive ratio of strategising to action. You can often spot the male of the species in the midst of a procrasti-planning episode at Bunnings. Look out for female procrasti-planners in fabric stores, furniture departments or endlessly browsing decorator sites online (some have been known never to return from Ikea). Joint procrasti-planning is a craft practised only by elite practitioners. It requires rhythm, precision and exceptional teamwork not to follow-through with the task. Look for husband and wife teams lazing on sunny decks surveying domestic plots for spots to develop no-dig veggie gardens, imagining rose arbours rising to impress the neighbours or sketching (sketchy) plans for formal parterre gardens. Procrasti-noting is now regarded as an early symptom of full-blown procrasti-planning.

Formal garden, Waterperry Gardens, Oxfordshire photo by carlotype46

Procrasti-updating

This incremental approach to procrastinating is an easy entry point for novices to dip their toes into the waters of wait-‘til-tomorrow without diving into the oceans of never-going-to-happen.  The step-by-step approach works through a series of assertions from “I’m thinking about it” and “I’ve got it on my list” through to “I’m half done” and “I should have that to you tomorrow”. It’s about shifting mindset from “can-do” to “could-do” and “why-do?” and finally on to the supreme procrasti-negating style of “not my department”.

Procrasti-creating

This is the free-form of procrastinating, the interpretive dance of delay. Here, you can improvise your very own, personal expression of adjournment using the traditional steps of dally, dawdle, linger and loiter intermingled with more contemporary moves such as schlep along, scrounge around or chill out. Transforming prolong and protract into an art form puts you one step closer to making the world your stage.

Dance 2 photo by Amanda Slater

Procrasti-blogging

This one is not for the feint of heart. It requires forsaking the mountain of paid copywriting projects in your in-tray for the sake of providing your blog readers with a vitally important (possibly world-changing) article that simply has to be written. This one is my personal favourite.

Now, armed with your procrasti-glossary, go forth and shilly-shally with the best of us.

The 10-minute take-10-years-off-your-hands sensation

Being fifty-something, my hands are not looking as young as they used to.

This favourite, super-cheap pick-me-up takes just a few minutes and makes my hands look like they did ten years ago, and feel like they did fifty-something years ago.

Yep, they feel as soft as newborn skin!

It’s a great at-home routine before a special event or meeting where you’re likely to be shaking hands (or holding hands).

And I bet you already have everything you need in your pantry.

For a ladies’ night in, grab a couple of girlfriends and a bottle of lubbly bubbly and get this thing rolling.

First put down a cloth (this could get messy), roll up your sleeves, twist off your ring bling and wrist candy and put them somewhere safe (especially if you’ve started with the bubbles already).

This is what you’ll need:

White sugar, olive oil and lavender oil. That’s it. I’m even using home brands. You can substitute your favourite essential oil for the lavender. I’ve done it with rose oil.

The quantities are up to you. I guess about half a cup of sugar, a good swizzle of olive oil (just enough to make the sugar sticky) and a few drops of the essential oil.

Mix it all together in a bowl and then start rubbing the mixture all over your hands and forearms. It’s crunchy (audibly!) and smooth at the same time. Massage it in for ten minutes or so and then rinse off in warm water.

Now … you see what I mean? Smooth as a bubby’s bum. The sugar exfoliates and the oil moisturises.

You can do your feet, too. In fact, you can do anything you like.

You’ll stay smooth for several days … and then you can just do it all again.

Cheers!

Credit: My nail polish is OPI’s My Private Jet, courtesy of My Girl.

Lumpy door sausages (or when form and function fail to meet)

Being fifty-something, I know that magic happens when form and function meet.

If only simply saying that were enough to make it happen.

My most recent crafty adventure (notably, an unguided tour) was a case of misfire, not magic.

Fact is, I have about the same proportion of craft misfires-to-magic as I do when I attempt baking.

Yes, this is a declared craft blackspot.

There. I’ve said it.

It won’t stop me trying though. Here’s how it went.

While scouring a thrift shop looking for silk scarves (following through on an idea sparked by the inspiring Wendy at that recent felt-making class) I came across these couple of colourful, machine-knitted scarves.

Not my style (and I have a gazillion scarves) but I envisioned something else … door sausages.

I know most people refer to these as door snakes, but to me they’ve always been door sausages. I think that harks back to a childhood memory of a door-gap-filler fashioned in the likeness of a dachshund, which we called a sausage dog in our house (we didn’t know how to say or spell dachshund; I had to look it up just now).

It stuck. Probably because door sausage sounds much naughtier and nonsensical than door snake.

I digress.

Back to the main game: I needed a couple of door sausages for my office. I’m really feeling the cold (I blame that on my old lady thyroid condition, which shoulders the blame for a lot of things in my life) and rather than run the gas central heating all day and waste all that energy, I’m huddling over a column oil heater while I work in the office most days.

I’ve noticed it’s drafty and that there are humongous gaps under the doors. During an energetic renovation, we removed multiple layers of carpets and linings and whatnot to reveal stunning 100-year-old baltic pine floorboards. We also unveiled door to floor gaps of up to 4 centimetres.

A small dog (or a tall dachshund) could slip under there!

When I saw those scarves, I envisioned the solution … and at $1 each, who was I to fly in the face of creativity?

Once home, I measured and found the longer scarf would suffice for both the single and the double door to my office. Even better!

I folded the scarf in half, machine-stitched a seam along one short end and the long edge, turned it back right side out and stuffed it full with cut-up remnants of and old drop sheet.

Perfect!

Well, almost. In hindsight (and hindsight has a lot to answer for) I probably should have invested in a commercial stuffing product, which would have delivered my door sausages a smooth, well-formed look. Instead, they are a tad lumpy and ill-shaped.

But very, very practical. They are malleable (like gold) and I can squeeze them in under the doors to get an airtight fit.  They just look a bit … well, lumpy.

I can live with that, because they work a treat and life is choc-a-block full of compromises.

With no drafts, extra sound-proofing and my column oil heater off more than it’s on, I’m happy for form and function to remain strangers, this time.

While form has been left out in the cold on this project, function is warm and toasty in the office with me.

Check out my new wheels

Being fifty-something, I’m always on the look-out for things that make life simpler.

When I spied my new wheels sitting in a corner in my local thrift shop, I saw “simple” written all over them.

But then came the FUD (fear, uncertainty and doubt):

Will I … be setting myself up for midlife mockery?

Won’t I … be too embarrassed to actually be seen out in public?

Will I … leave the wheels lurking, unused in the dark corner of the spare room?

Won’t I? Will I? Won’t I?

Get with the program, Sheryl.

I was in love … sleek black lines (slimming, right?), big rubber wheels, a sturdy frame and a capacious belly bursting with zips and pockets and Velcro.

For twenty bucks, this black beauty was soon mine … and I haven’t looked back.

Regular readers will know I love to walk everywhere. I can go days (nay weeks) without starting the car.

But some days, when I’m clutching a big shopping list, the thought of lugging my recycle bags up the hill to home is just too much. Some days, I struggle. Some days, I surrender and take the car.

With this new black baby, I can wheel my groceries all the way home behind me, even when the list demands milk and juice and kitty litter and copious quantities of fruit and veg.

The shopping trolley has come a long way since my mum’s. Hers was a boxy, vinyl job – square-shaped on four wheels and designed(!) to push awkwardly along ahead (like a pram).

It was perfect for mum to wheel her way around to the local shopping strip.

She would park it out front of each shop, loading in the produce from the fruit and veg shop, the grocers and the butcher shop as she went.

Those were the days when you could safely leave your trolley out the front of the shop without fear (well, you couldn’t wheel it into the butchers with all that sawdust on the floor, could you?)

Mum would have been delighted with this not-a-nanna-in-sight, totally-non-mock-worthy version. Like me, she’d have felt a sense of purpose towing it along behind … a woman on a mission (which she always was).

You can get up some real speed with a well-engineered trolley.

I imagine myself as one of those flash city lawyers strutting off to an important court hearing safely pulling the brief of evidence along behind in a wheeled suitcase. (Truly, I’m toting tomatoes, tampons and teabags).

Or, on a good day, I imagine I’m striding through an international airport with my sleek wheeled Louis Vuitton luggage full of carefully folded designer outfits, my Hermes scarf trailing behind in my wake as I hurry to catch my flight to the next exotic destination. (More precisely, I’m packing paperbacks, pumpkin, potatoes and a bargain-priced pork shoulder.)

Photo by Matthew Wilkinson

In reality, you’ll likely find me (and my trolley) at the farmers market, the supermarket, the deli, the library or simply striding up my local street.

Enough for now … I must (purposefully) get to court  catch that plane  snap up that red light special in aisle 6.