How does that work?

[flick]

Izzat Ibrahim ad-Douri has freckles and a ginger 'tash. Is that common in Iraq...?

This morning, Mike and I did a dressage competition. GB was utterly terrified of the judges, which was somewhat irritating. Jonny did very well, and wasn't phased by it all, which was very good. (Jonny has also progressed to the stage where Mike can rest a set of running clippers on his neck without him freaking out, although we've not yet managed to tidy up is mane and get it out of the way of his saddle. On the minus side, it took Mike five minutes to get on him the other day, and that would have been longer if I'd not gone over and glared at him....) As it happens, there's another dressage comp, doing the same tests, at the other end of the lane next Sunday: I'm considering doing it in the regular saddle to see how much of a difference it makes.

That top I was muttering about sizing on arrived: I bought a size 10 in the end and it's not a bad fit. It's certainly not inches too small. I might even get something else from the same designer.

Does anyone have any experience of M&S furniture? Specifically, are the drawers nice and smooth or do they stick in an annoying way? There appears to be something of a gap in the market: lots of places do cheap fake wood stuff with drawers on tracks (eg, Ikea) and lots of places do cheap-ish actual wood stuff with drawers not on tracks, but actual wood and drawers on tracks suddenly becomes fiendishly expensive.

We went to see Travels With My Aunt at the Mernier, earlier in the week. It's really quite good, I do recommend it. Very silly, but rather fun.

We're now even more likely to having the new house from 31 July: the Scottish paperwork the next step up the chain has been signed with that date, so all we have to do now is get a structural engineer in to say "Nah, your surveyor was just worrying about nothing" and we're sorted.

I'm looking forward to that: at the moment, I'm not allowed to buy anything bigger than a duck*, but Mike says that once we've got that bit out of the way then I can start buying things as big as a greyhound**, which is very exciting. The bit where I get to start working out the optimal dates to order furniture so that the delivery times mean it arrives when we're moving in is even more exciting, but that's a little way off yet.

Next Friday is my work summer fun day. I can hardly contain my excitement. I'm not sure how they will top the fun-packed wonder that was the Christmas outing, but I'm sure that they'll manage. (It's all a big secret, I think: the gels keep asking me if I've paid any invoices that might give them clues. I haven't. Well, not unless we're going to a printing factory, or doing a bit of redecorating.)

* But not an actual duck. I have a mean husband.
** Ditto. I have pointed out that *he* bought something that was in fact as big as a horse, but he says that it doesn't count because it doesn't have to be stored in the flat. Hmph.

Comments

[lil-shepherd.livejournal.com]

I don't know about M&S furniture, but might I suggest a look at auction houses. Brown furniture (which can, after all, be painted) is cheap at the moment. Admittedly, when we were looking at furniture we went for newish G-plan and the companies who make good pine furniture to order, but we seriously considered going all Edwardian because it's beautifully made and, generally, costs less than new badly made stuff.

We keep meaning to have a look at the auction house at the bottom of our road...

[drplokta]

Actually, Jonny is slightly larger than a horse, if we use vgrumpybastard as the standard.

[flickgc.livejournal.com]

I am planning on doing that of some parts of the house (eg, my dressing room, the spare rooms bits of downstairs), but The Plan means that we need a new bed for us ASAP after moving, and I don't want to take the risk of starting to look too late and not finding anything suitable for a month / starting to look too early and finding the ideal thing but not being able to store it.

Similarly, all our clothes storage in the flat is built in, so we're going to need at least some stuff immediately if we're not to live out of boxes.

(Plus, Mike's got a definite thing about having nicely closing soft-touch drawers, which I can understand, which is rather rare in period pieces.)

That said, there are a couple of antique-ish places near the new house, which I'll probably have a look at before I actually buy anything.

[nwhyte]

He's 70, so the 'tache may be dyed...

[bellinghman.livejournal.com]

Ahem, how do you expect to get a full sized long distance coach in?

[flickgc.livejournal.com]

Hmph. Now you're just being clever....

[flickgc.livejournal.com]

Point, but the freckles....?

[bob]

An Iranian I know is freckly with ginger hair.

[flickgc.livejournal.com]

Huh, that is odd. I wonder how the genes got down there? Crusaders, maybe?

[del-c.livejournal.com]

Same way the genes appeared in Europe, I think. Pretty much all genes have always been everywhere, and ginger genes are definitely everywhere there are Caucasian (meaning not just "white") people. It's just they're most commonly expressed in North West Europe, in up to 10% of people.

Crusaders would do it, but anything else would, too.