Chez Spud

I accidentally ‘fell’ in to the Crumpler store in London this week and was forced, against my will, to buy stuff. Don’t you just hate it when that happens? You’re skipping along the pavement thinking happy thoughts when BAMMM, a vortex engulfs you and twirls you in to a store where elves and pixies relieve you of your cash in return for bags full of things you never knew you needed. It happens to me all the time, I’m blighted like that.

Later, I caught MrSpud eying up my new Hard Suit Special Edition laptop case with naked lust and longing for it, although presumably not in turquoise? Then I saw him attempting to shoehorn his gigantic Dell lapbreakertop in to the hallowed temple of loveliness which is now contaminated with Windows poo as a result…cry, cry, cry. Meanwhile my MacBook was sniggering in the corner, presumably feeling like Cinderella watching the Ugly Sisters trying to cram their trotters in to her dainty glass slipper. 

‘How much was that?’ he asked, quickly qualified by ‘Oh, I’m not being funny or anything – I’m just interested’. So I thew him my best Paddington Hard Stare and told him, without bothering to half the price or any other such witchery which is my usual tactic when put on the spot like that. Anyway, I went to work this week for a change and thus I am entitled to blow every penny that those naughty little elves and pixies can snaffle from me. It’s only fair and proper that MrSpud should work to pay the bills, put food on the table, clothes on our back etc while I work to buy the pretties for myself. Also, I’m warming to my theme here, we are in the midst of a major world recession and the only way out of it is to keep spending. That’s a fact…the only way to drag the economy out of the doldrums is to spend our way out of it…only by buying stuff do we create the need to make the stuff which creates jobs. So, in fact, I’m just doing my duty [shrugs shoulders nonchalantly, hands open with palms up in manner of 'Trust me; I'm a spendaholic']

All of which is an aside as what really got me thinking, beyond my attempts to save the world economy all by my own (as Bertie would say), is my huge admiration and love for all things Crumpler. I am completely in love with of all their products and would ideally like to own one of everything in all the sizes and all the colours. Not because I am obsessed with the products (although they are fabulous) but because I am obsessed with the Crumpler brand and have the utmost respect for the quiet way they have built a cult following, by consistently developing products that ‘do the job’, look stunning and don’t cost the earth. Add the icing, which is a uniquely quirky approach to marketing and copywriting, and it’s a winner….Crumpler has consistently set itself apart from the field, differentiated itself in a very crowded market and I, for one, am a total sucker for it.  Because when those elves and pixies entice me in to the Crumpler store, or online, I feel like I’m in Crumpler World and am part of the Crumpler family…and that some of that Crumpler quirkyness might rub off on me and I can be one of the gang. And when I buy something, it feels like a little bit of ‘cool’ just fell in to my shopping basket.

And here’s the thing…I know the Crumpler ‘world’ and ‘family’ are just pure whimsey on my part, that I’ve spun off there on the back of some very well thought out marketing plan. And yet I can’t help myself. I know I’m being ‘sold to’ and that I’m ‘selling out’ by falling for it time and again, and yet I keep going back for more! Am I alone? Or are there brands that have sucked you in like this? Tell me!

My other big brand love is Moo and, when I’m not in Crumpler World I like to vacation in Moo Land. I could wibble on but actually I’m currently not on speakers with Moo who charged me £9.00 to deliver a pack of 60 postcards and 3 books of stickers. I’ve long been irritated by their vast postage charge, and the complete lack of incentive to bulk order; if you order more, you pay more postage, end of story. I think they are the only company I buy from regularly that sting me like this. I bought 5 Moo card frames as Christmas presents last year at £25.00 each. The postage FOR EACH was £5.00. So I spent £125.00 on frames and £25.00 on postage. Sorry Moo, but that’s just all wrong. Your products are fabulous, the branding is outstanding, Moo Land rocks…but you’ve got to get the postage charges sorted out.  Thanks very much.

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Final treasure…my pink, moire silk Anya Hindmarch shoes. I doubt I will ever wear these again as they are too high for me these days thus, in theory, they could be left to burn in the imaginary house fire. But they are so elegant and are beautifully made, so I might have to brave the flames to rescue them. I’ve worn them quite a few times and thus the internationally agreed measurement of ‘price per wear’ is acceptable.  I snuck in another treasure contender in to the photo…the shoes are sitting on a beautiful Temperely lace and bead top which I have never worn. Thus the ‘price per wear’ is totally unacceptable and it should be ebayed. But it’s too pretty so I am hoarding it.

Hope you enjoyed the Ten Treasures…next project TBA but will be a whole lot less fluffy than this one. Think, spikey…

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Ah my lovely, if rather neglected piano. My parents bought this for me when I was a teenager. We pooled our Christmas money from my grandmother, and pennies were pinched and savings made to find the money to buy this super reconditioned Mickleburgh upright.

I was a latecomer to piano playing, I didn’t start until I was 15. By then I knew I wanted to read music at university, but you have to be able to play the piano to do so. So it was a crazy mad dash to get from 0-60mph (or to Grade 8!) in 2 years.

Even at my ‘best’ I was average. These days I’m terrible, shockingly bad in fact, but I like plinky plonking and the children love messing around on it too.  Alas they don’t treat it with the respect this lovely old lady deserves. Bertie smashed the keys with a purple sparkly recorder last year and cracked the end off some of the keys, I nearly cried.  A few weeks ago I heard Diggy playing a lovely tune and was feeling all warm and fuzzy about my little maestro until Bertie shouted, ‘Mummy! Diggy is STANDING on the piano!’ I found him on tip-toe, reaching up for the paints/crayons/stamps I keep stashed out of his reach while tapping out a tune with his tootsies. Worse, he’d already got hold of a stamp and had stamped all over his face, arms and legs and, double worse, the keys of the piano.

I will have my revenge in the form of compulsory piano lessons from the age of 5  with double helpings of scales and arpeggios. Let’s see how you like it then, twinkle toes…

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I love love LOVE this headdress, I keep it on display in my china cupboard with a few other pieces of ghastly tat cherished items. I should probably get it mounted and framed or something but, ssshhh, sometimes I like to put it on and prance about a bit. I’m a big fat show off like that sometimes. You might have noticed that about me if you were a 30 secrets fan.

I bought it in Moscow in 2001. I went on business but the office I was visiting had built a free day in to my schedule, and then produced a bi-lingual guide who whizzed me around all the sights. So fabulous! In all the years I was travelling and working, this was the only time I had a ‘treat’ like this. When I look back at ‘the travelling years’ I feel like I went everywhere and saw nothing, it’s a regret of mine. And I bought very few souvenirs; I should have a house full of treasures from all over the globe, and photo albums full of wonderful memories of my trips. Alas I have neither! If ONLY I’d taken up photography years ago.

I asked my guide what she thought I should take home as a traditional Russian keepsake, and she helped me chose this lovely headdress and some handcarved Christmas tree decorations. Later I took her out for lunch, as a thank you, and told her she could chose any restaurant in the city. She took me to MacDonalds and was very pleased about it!

I felt quite alarmed the whole time I was in Moscow, not helped by being escorted off the plane on arrival by an armed soldier. I thought I was about to be shot, but in fact I was being given some kind of VIP immigration fast-track jobbie. Terrifying. I saw Lenin whilst there, and can confirm that he is dead. Just in case there was any doubt.

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This was my birthday  present from MrSpud last year and I adore it. I had been hinting for a ‘nice pen’ and then held my breath and hoped for the best, and this was a really excellent choice…complete with a sapphire to match my engagement ring (although MrSpud admitted he had no clue that this was the case, just a lucky fluke!)

As we all know MrSpud has a record of poor gift choices but, to be fair, sometimes he’s right on the money. For my birthday one year he booked us in to a very swanky hotel as a surprise. We went out for the evening, and he then suggested a drink at said hotel. But when we got there he shovelled me in to a lift and produced a room key. He’d even packed a bag of clothes and make up for me, and stashed it in the room. To complete the lovliness he’d hidden all manner of perfect gifts all over the room…perfume…champagne…champagne glasses etc etc. So, you see, sometimes MrSpud Gets It Right.

Let’s pass over the year I did all the Christmas shopping and told him the only present he had to buy was his father’s (beyond my gift buying expertise). So he did. He only bought a present for his Dad, and nothing for me, and then claimed, “But you didn’t tell me I had to buy a present for you!”. Hmmmm.

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I’m not sure that my wedding dress is a very sensible addition to the Ten Treasures list, given that I’m unlikely to wear it again (not least because I’ll never fit in it again). But it is very special to me, and symbolises the day I finally dragged MrSpud up the aisle and enslaved him to me every bit as much as my pile of bling. For, although I dig and poke fun at MrSpud and make him the butt of all my jokes, I completely adore him and my marriage to him is the foundation of the very blessed life that I lead. I thank the sun and the stars for MrSpud and feel so lucky to be married to him, apart from when he balls up his dirty socks and leaves them all over the house like love gifts. Then I just feel cross with him and give him the evils.

Oh how I wept on my wedding day; not tears of sorrow, nor tears of joy (OK one or two might have crept out), but tears of laughter. I was laughing my pretty white beaded arse off at MrSpud who, only a few years earlier, had earnestly vowed that he would never marry me nor ever have children. Ho ho ho…look how well that worked out for him. In his defense, he did offer to go out with me ‘forever’ but that just didn’t have the same kind of ring to it as the whole ‘in sickness and in health, as long as we both shall live’ kind of agreement.

My wedding dress is the only piece of couture clothing that I own and it was worth every one of the many pennies it cost. It sparkled in the candlelight and I felt like a million dollars all evening. I couldn’t breathe or eat in it but these are mere details that we should not concern ourselves with as it looked the business. SECRET TREASURE….a flower from my mother’s wedding dress is sewn in to the lining. My mother died long before I met MrSpud but I know she would have adored him, admired his cleverness, fondess for caffeine, his quirky sense of humour and his total devotion to his family.

The dress is hanging in my wardrobe hoping, against hope, that I might actually get round to getting it cleaned sometime soon. It’s been nearly 5 years now, you can’t rush these things. If I’d had girl children I might have considered chopping it up to make a Christening gown; another reason to be grateful for my boy children as I’m not sure I actually had it in me to hack that beautiful Italian hand beaded fabric about.

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Only a worry if the hypothetical fire happens at night, as I only take the pile of bling off at night..I just can’t sleep in jewellery. Full make up, skanky bitch style? Fine, no problem. But not my jewels.

So my engagement ring (the sapphire), wedding ring and the Ring of Shame or ‘Medley of Misery’ as I like to call it (the diamond one; it looks pink in the picture..it’s not: I’m not J Lo, I don’t dig pink diamonds). What’s a girl to do with a drawer full of ‘old’ engagement rings? Sell them? Cry in to your gin about them? Or break ‘em up and make one big gigantic sparkler?

I wear The Ring of Shame as a constant reminder to MrSpud that he owes me TWO pushing presents for delivering him TWO delightful children. He actually guffawed the last time I reminded him and said pushing presents are a ridiculous notion, like a ‘reward’. HELLO! Yes, that’s the whole point MrSpud: I grew and delivered two human beings therefore you should buy and deliver two big fat diamonds. That’s The Law.

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Zebedee

Voici Zebedee (“Time for bed? Boiiiiiiiiiing!”). He’s a bit battered and bashed because he’s been in my posession since the early 70s and, frankly, he’s been around the block a few times. But, then, haven’t we all?

Is the Magic Roundabout an international thing? I can’t think its utterly English eccentricity would translate well In Foreign? But then who can account for the lasting popularity of Benny Hill and Faulty Towers?  If you don’t know it…The Magic Roundabout was a children’sTV sho w in the early 70s. Beyond that, I am confuddled to describe it other than a load of talking animals on acid in a psychedelic garden. See, told you it was eccentric.

I would struggle to save this in a fire as it’s hidden under the bed, and I’m fairly sure I can’t get it out without dismantling the bed. Plus I’d have to fight the cat to get it as she sleeps on the box. Pity, as these sets are quite rare and can sell for up to £1,000. I wonder if I’d get more if I included the cat? Anyway, I don’t have a picture of the whole thing due to bed/cat issues, but you can see one here.

Zebedee has somehow escaped from the playground though. He appeared one morning a few years ago, mysteriously, and has since been mauled by small boys. Poor chap, first the cat, then the boys.

My grandparents bought this set for me, and then were quite keen for me to pass it on to my cousin when I’d grown out of it. I totally adored it and flat refused to pass it on every time I was asked to do so. I’m so glad I clung on to it, as this is one of very few toys I have from my childhood. All my other toys were lent to my cousin who, in a very entrepreneurial moment, took them to a car boot sale and sold them all when she was 12 to buy a clarinet. Sob! I want my Family Treehouse back!!

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USA: Land of the Free, home of appletinis...

I have a really large and special collection of Christmas tree decorations. My mother started the collection when I was a child, and bought me one, very beautiful decoration each year so that I would have a real treasure chest of decorations when the time came for me to have my own tree.

Terrible photo - taken with a P&S (gasp)

When she died, I inherited her huge collection too…so it’s quite a big box now, too many to actually put them all on the tree in fact so I have to rotate them a bit.

Taken with the Nikon...much better...

My Mum was big in to Christmas. And when I say big, I mean BIG. I used to cringe as I drove down the road coming back for Christmas once I’d left home, I think our house was visible from Outer Space. These days I would probably really appreciate it as the boys would like her over the top approach way more than my minimalist one!  Bah humbug.

Hang on! What's THAT doing in there? Taken with an Olympus (double gasp)

Some are very special…the grim plastic fairy with no knickers on which used to adorn the top of the tree as a child…the slightly manky looking fairy which a friend gave me for my 5th birthday…hand carved russian figures bought in Moscow…a little beaded angel from our honeymoon in South Africa…dressing the Christmas tree is like a trip down memory lane for me and I love it.

But the stars & stripes heart pictured above is my favourite one. I actually bought this one myself in New York. I have spent a lot of time working in the US over the years, and I miss it. But a little piece of the Land of the Free nestles on my Christmas tree each year…to remind me of the appletini years.

Wot no appletini?

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