There's nothing better than coming home after a day of feeling irrationally grumpy (well, I think it may be PMS) to find they're showing Journey's End on BBC 3. For those of you with lives not familiar with the titles of every episode of Doctor Who, I'm talking about the final episode of season four, aka 'The Donna Season'. It's equal parts fabulous and rubbish, full of all the usual Russell T Davies schmaltz and sci-fi plot holes, but it also has two Doctors, Captain Jack and a genius turn from Catherine Tate (who exceeded all expectations as probably my favourite companion).

Ok, I'm turning the geek switch off.

For now...

On Monday morning at 9.15am, I waved goodbye to one of my best friends. She's the second person in twelve months that I've lost to Australia. Bloody Oz!

Jojo was my housemate for the first two years of Uni, and my best friend (well, one of them) and holiday buddy following that. Even though she was in Lincoln and I was in London, we managed to keep in touch, see each other fairly frequently and cause mayhem everywhere we went. I have such brilliant memories of our days as students, terrorising the staff in the pub round the corner, making margaritas in the kitchen, wondering whether our other housemate really was eating toilet paper...knowing she's not just a couple of hours away is a killer.

But, I know she's going to have the most amazing time. Her visa lasts a year, so she will be back eventually, but as much as I know the next twelve months will go by in a flash, it seems like an eternity to be without the girl who rides motorcycle, swears like a trooper, drinks like a fish and then goes home to tend to her vegetable garden and play with her cat.

I managed not to cry until today.

I said on my 25th birthday that in the next year I wanted to take up sewing again, using vintage patterns because I love looking like I fell out of a fashion history text. To help keep the dream alive, I am now (or soon will be) proud owner of the means to produce all these dresses...


There's a lot I've forgotten about sewing, mind you, so I'll be attempting the easiest one (top right) first. I can't even remember how to do a tailor's tack at the moment. I'm sure I'll pick it all up gain after a few frantic phonecalls to my mother, though. She's such a good seamstress she made her own wedding dress, and when I was 17 she helped me sew my leaver's meal outfit, which included a corset with 15 plastic bones stitched into it. Never again.

The problem with sewing is it's such a lost artform that, like knitting and crochet, it's now incredibly expensive. The pattern is £5 - £13 to begin with, and then there's the fabric. I can tell I'm going to miss the close proximity to cheap fabric stalls (I've yet to find anywhere in London that's as good as Birmingham market, even Walthamstow which used to be on my doorstep). Ebay is ok but by the time you add shipping, you may as well just go to Berwick Street where they mark everything up ridiculously.

Good thing my mother has four boxes of unused stuff, and I'm heading home this weekend!

I don't know whether this girl is angry at me for recommending Casting Creme Gloss (and saying 'DO A STRAND TEST') or whether she thinks we're actually from L'Oreal and she wants to berate us for turning her hair 'fuckin plum'. Either way, this was left on Kiss and Makeup recently, and I'm really quite worried that I'll get a call from the Lawyors [sic] soon. Really.

"I hate you fuckers! you ruined my hair you assholes! it was blond and i tried to die it chocolate brwn now its fuckin plum!i hope you all die in your sleeep you good for nothing bastards!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! i hate you so much right now AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH (8) state of you dickheads youl be hearing from my lawyors"

Obviously beauty websites attract only the really smart kids.

Thanks to the credit crunch and my insanely high rent, I won't be buying much this year. Especially if I want a holiday (*coughVegascough*). However, I'm highly tempted to whip out the credit card and get a pair of Nicholas Kirkwood shoes. Why? Oh, just look at them! In the words of Carrie Bradshaw, "Hello, lover." In these shoes, I could rule the world.

Shame I missed the sample sale at the end of last year. For now, I'll have to make do with my Rupert Sandersons.

Happy 2009! It's been a while.

I realise I don't blog here very often. Sometimes I wish I still had a secret, anonymous blog where I could actually say all the stuff I contemplate saying on here. The problem with that is there's always someone who'll work it out and 'out' me, and while I'm not sure anyone out there cares enough to stick a spanner in the works just for the fun of it, it's happened to me before.

It's ironic that the more I blog professionally, the less I can do it personally. At least, not the way I used to. It's all well and good for me to post pictures of whatever dressing table I'm now cooing over (for the record, it's this one) but I'm not so sure it's as good an idea to go on about how wonderful my boyfriend is (as much as he'd love that).

However, all that said, I'm going to attempt to keep up the blogging on here in 2009, even if it turns into even more of an interiors blog as time goes by. And on that note, I'm off to rearrange my bathroom...