drawer

OK, so here's the thing. I cannot wait to have a house. Not in a I-must-have-a-house-and-make-homemade-bread-and-lentil-soup-in-order-to-be-a-real-woman kind of way. Just in a I-can't-wait-to-decorate-and-fill-it-with-random-and-cosy-stuff-and-have-a-cat-and-a-bedroom-bigger-than-a-shoebox kind of way.

To that end, for the last little while I've been collecting odds and ends for my Bottom Drawer. This wondrous concept was introduced to me by my ma a couple of years ago when we were in some shop and I happened to say something like: "Ooh, those plates are nice." Then she said, oh fateful words, "You should buy them for your Bottom Drawer." Turns out there's this whole world of pre-marital hoarding that I didn't know about - apparently it's a tradition so antiquated that even blessed Wiki doesn't have a definition for it. However, I did find one that described this concept as: 

               n (Brit) a young woman's collection of clothes, 
               linen, cutlery, etc., in anticipation of marriage.

Now, tragic as this inevitably makes me sound, I do in fact now possess a Bottom Drawer. Well, more a Sprawling Collection, but still.

To be honest it's less in anticipation of marriage than the more-comfortingly-imminent hope of owning a house. Or, at least, long-term renting one. So, in anticipation of said house-ownership I now have a delightful array of, well, mostly mugs, plates and bowls actually (for the aforementioned mismatched-chic). The last two trips I made to buy birthday presents for friends may have just happened to lead me into the home and kitchen section of Fenwick's and might possibly have lead me to the latest handful of really very reasonable culinary appendages.

So, say what you like, I shall continue this wee collection with which I can festoon my humble abode. And, if nothing else, I can live in the vain hope that perhaps it'll make me vaguely more marriage-material: "It's alright chaps, at least she comes with her own crockery."

wedding

First of all - a pair of police officers just rode by my window on horseback. How weird! I love that, policemen on horses - such a quaint gesture to a bygone age. Maybe that's all we'll be seeing, what with the new budget cuts: policemen having to give up their comfy Vauxhall Astras and strapping on their saddles instead, shrieking "yee ha" as they gallop down the streets after the local teenage scallies. I quite like that image.

Secondly, congrats to William and Kate! About time too. I watched the post-announcement interview when I heard, and it made for an interesting watch. They seem happy enough so I'm pleased for them, but I do feel sorry for that poor girl. All the Diana-related questioning will be endless, what with the ring and all.

The interviewer himself hardly held back, saying stuff like: "Obviously Lady Diana was a real icon and an inspirational figure; does that intimidate you at all? Is that something you think about?" What on earth is the poor lass supposed to say to that?! "Erm, no, actually, I never think about my future husband's dead mother, and I'm a heartless bint." Or, alternatively, "Yes, I think about it all the time. In fact, I cower and tremble at her very name and fear I'll never be the style icon and philanthropist that everyone persists in reminding me that she was."

Good grief. So the little thing was left floundering around knee-deep in "erm"s and "obviously"s, until looking helplessly at her chap before he, jedi-like, raised a hand and said: "There's no pressure there."

Still, everyone loves a royal wedding, eh? And it didn't go unnoticed that this wedding has been announced right in the midst of the recession, remarkably similarly to Charles and Diana's in the last big economic crisis. What with that and the Olympics in two successive years and the inevitable tourist inundation which will ensue, ol' Wills might drag us out of the drudge of the credit crunch yet. Bravo to that!