Meet Stanley. Flat Stanley

Last Saturday morning, I woke up, slightly hungover, and remembered that I had to be in the City of London in an hour and a half, stuffing a guinea pig.

This was not a normal weekend. Let me 'splain. And first, let me warn those of a squeamish disposition that - while I will not include any graphic descriptions or pictures - this post does concern taxidermy. If it bothers you, I won't be offended if you move on. I'll be back with more humorous sewing stories soon.

I am an animal lover. I have two cats that I adore much more than I think I probably could any children (children are noisy and not furry - usually - and much harder to put in a cattery when you go on holiday), and I grew up on a farm where there was a constant stream of wildlife and pets zipping about the house and garden. I also have a soft spot for whimsical taxidermy. It's not like I have a squirrel army in my house or anything (in fact, until this weekend, my house was free of deceased animals. As far as I know.), but I have no problem with it.

Amanda of the gruesomely-named Amanda's Autopsies creates beautiful ethical taxidermy oddities and jewellery, inspired by Walter Potter, whose creations fascinated me as a (admittedly slightly odd), child. Whatever your feelings on the display of animals after-life, as it were, there can be no denying the skill and imagination in these pieces. I am most certainly not advocating killing interesting beasties purely to decorate one's mantelpiece and nor am I eyeing up my own pets to make into catcopters, but I personally think that - as with the case of Amanda's pieces - if given the choice between being snake food and having a whole lot of love and care invested in your remains in order to preserve their beauty, I'd rather the latter. If I was a rodent. And, lets face it, the rodent probably isn't that worried either way.

And as with anything I am interested in, if given the chance to learn how to do it, I will jump at it.

So it was that I enrolled in Amanda's 'Stuff & Nonsense' Taxidermy for Beginners course last weekend, and learned how to stuff my own guinea pig. Except it wasn't my own guinea pig, it was one specially provided; sourced, as explained above, from animals humanely killed for reptile feed.

The course took place in the stunning environs of St Barts Pathology Museum. Photographs of the surroundings aren't allowed as it holds medical specimens, but they regularly hold fascinating lectures in their rooms which look like something out of Sherlock Holmes and Hogwarts combined and I would highly recommend a trip if you get a chance.

Amanda and her equally brilliant assistant ably showed us the right way to skin our tiny charges, which is the most time-consuming part of the business. As we worked away with teeny tiny scalpels, any initial squeamishness soon dispersed and - believe it or not - it actually became rather enjoyable. I don't mean in a weird, psychopathic Ted Bundy sort of way, but in that oddly relaxing way that any delicate work requiring a lot of concentration can be. And when you think about it, it's really no different from skinning a rabbit in the kitchen, or even a chicken for Sunday lunch (for those raised in less rural climes!).

Once successfully peeled, we washed our tiny guinea pig rugs and left them to dry while we had lunch.

Weirdest. Lunchtime. Ever.

After lunch was time for stuffing - which involves wire and cotton wool. I shall leave it at that for those who might have got this far but still have a delicate disposition.

Once finished, we compared results.

Dear god.

I would like to say, in my defence, that I did not have great raw materials. I was concerned at first that, rather than being humanely killed, my particular rodent had in fact been steamrollered to death as he was somewhat battered. Turns out he was in fact probably squished in the freezer. Which also accounts for the freezer burn down one side of his face. Although I will put my hand up to the fact that it was probably my fault his foot fell off and had to be superglued back on.

I had created an abomination.

This is his GOOD side.

When I brought Flat Stanley home ("pleasedontletmeleaveitonthebuspleasedontletmeleaveitonthebus") Significant Otter laughed at him for a good five minutes. This heartened me greatly as I had been expecting screams.

The next day I decided something had to be done. There were two options for dealing with this horrific creation. I could either burn it, then bury the ashes at a crossroads or make some sort of outfit to hide the worst bits. I wasn't entirely sure that it definitely wouldn't come back to life to haunt me after the burning and burying, so I went with the latter.

What sort of costume could Flat Stanley have that would hide his hideous disfigurements? I will admit I am rarely thankful to musical theatre for anything, but just this once, it had the answer.

I give you - Flat Stanley as The Phantom of The Opera.

"Listen to the music of the OHCHRISTWHATISTHATTHING??!"
(Yeah, I know it also looks a bit Jedi-ish. Multi-purpose taxidermy)

With his mask and tiny gondola-punting stick he has stopped giving me nightmares and is now allowed in the house. I have set Significant Otter to finding a bell jar to display him in. Turns out they are really expensive, but as I explained to him, you just can't put a price on this sort of family heirloom.

If you too are interested in the deconstruction and reconstruction of small furry animals, check out the Amanda's Autopsies website for details of the next classes and also photos of past ones - including this weekend's. Flat Stanley is number 71 in the photo album. I'm going to use that picture for his Spotlight application.

It's NOT Spearmint, it's EAU DE NIL!!!

About a month ago, Significant Otter and I helped a friend of ours move house. It was one of those slightly unorganised, chuck-everything-in-a-van-and-hope-for-the-best moves, where several bits of furniture that were deemed too bulky or knackered to survive were left behind to take their chances with the next occupants.

Among the newly-orphaned pieces was this chest of drawers:

"Save me", it seemed to cry....

Battered and bruised, it had loyally held the socks and pants of several studenty males over the years and deserved a dignified retirement.

So I decided that I would take it home and rehabilitate it.

"It'll be great!" I cried, lovingly stroking the cracked veneer and trying to avoid the suspicious stains, "I'll sand it all down and take off all the handles and fill in the holes and put new vintage ones on and paint it duck egg blue and use it to replace that IKEA thing in the bedroom"
SO was not so sure. "You won't", he sighed, "you'll never get round to it and it'll sit in the house taking up space and bruising our shins until we wish we'd just left it here."
"But it's SOLID WOOD", I declared, bringing out my trump card. If there's one thing I know about furniture (and there literally is only one thing, and this is it), it's that if it's solid wood you have to keep it and cherish it and never let it go because it might as well be made out of unicorn hair and fairy dust.

After a lot of eye-rolling SO decided that lugging this ridiculous thing down the stairs, emptying out a load of stuff that was already in the van to make space for it, then driving it round to our house and lugging it back up a load more stairs was going to be a lot less painful than arguing about it any more.

After a few weeks of its temporary internment in our kitchen, it became clear that SO's prediction was becoming horribly true, so after I had barked my shins on it for the 15468724th time  I decided it was time to evict the cats from the drawers (they were very pleased with their new feline apartment building), and do something about it.

So, one trip to B&Q later, SO had an electric sander and I had a tin of the most middle-class paint I have ever bought - Laura Ashley Eggshell in Eau de Nil. We also had a ton of plastic sheeting, bought on my insistence after it became clear that SO was planning on using bedsheets as dust catchers ("It's ok, I'll wash them afterwards.")

SO erected a Murder Screen, which made the kitchen look like something out of Dexter:

SO - Not Doing A Murder

....and he happily sanded away.

For about four hours.

While I filled in holes with wood filler and accidentally threw white spirit in the toaster. I was quite glad of the Murder Screen myself at that point, as SO didn't see my little accident. It brought the chrome up a treat.

Several hours (and one exploded sander), later, the chest of drawers was denuded and I was happy.

SO was not so much:

Unimpressed.

Neither was the basil plant on the windowsill, which was COVERED in sawdust. As was the winerack, the sink, the radio, the dishwasher and everything else that was on the Murder Screen side of the kitchen. Planning. SO does not have it.

The rest of the process was easy-peasy (and therefore I did most of it). One coat of white undercoat/primer, two of the Posh Paint, and one of Matt Satin varnish. Top tip - make sure you get water-based eggshell emulsion - it washes off the floors. And the walls. And your hands. And your shoes. And the cat.

Then all it needed was some posh new knobs (arf), which we sourced from http://www.secretg.co.uk/. This mail-order shop is based in Wales, but when the handpainted ceramic drawerpulls (I'm saying drawerpulls because every time I write 'knob' I have to stop to snigger), arrived it turned out they were made by Gisela Graham in  SE17, so we had unwittingly supported a local company after all.

And here's the finished product:

Even SO admitted that it was worth all the hassle in the end. Despite his insitence that it came out 'looking all spearmint'. It's not spearmint, it's EAU DE NIL.

I'm really pleased with how it's turned out, and it is now in the bedroom lording it over all the inferior furniture. I want to paint the whole house to match.

I reckon it probably cost about £60, a lot of which was kn.....drawerpulls, which were £2.50 each. And posh paint. You could argue that I could have bought something brand new for that much, which wouldn't have (as I later discovered), slightly sticky drawers where I really should have sanded down the varnish, and which wouldn't have given SO the Black Lung after spending the best part of a weekend inhaling sawdust, but where would be the satisfaction in that?


----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------


 In other, Lemur Lady news, check out my new large wallets. Card pockets, a bit for change, and more space for gubbins than you can shake a stick at. More designs on the way!

This is why I'm skint

Conversation between me and Significant Otter, who doesn't understand finances.

ME: I have totally screwed up my money this month. You know when we bought the car? I put a £500 deposit down and they were supposed to refund it to my credit card. Turns out they didn't, they refunded it to my bank account.

SO: Well, that's OK, isn't it? You can just pay off the card from the bank account.

This is actually why I'm poor

ME: No, I can't. Because I didn't know that they had put it into my account so I spent it all already.

SO: £500? You had £500 go into your account and you didn't realise? What did you spend it on?

ME: Um. Tattoos, fast cars and gin.

SO: You're not even joking, are you?

ME: Nope. The car's not that fast though. So, the upshot is that I am now £500 poorer than I thought I was but it's OK because the car was a joint purchase so you owe me half of that, which is £250. When can I have the £250 you owe me?

SO: What? But they gave the money back. You never actually lost that money.

ME: But I didn't know I had it. So it's the same thing. So you owe me half of it because it's your car too. I can't believe you'd be so mean. I can't pay for everything in this relationship.

SO: This is how the banking crisis happened.

(On the up side, my new tattoo is amazeballs. I will gaze lovingly at it while I am eating dust bunnies till next payday).

Make It Sew - the playsuit edition

While it is terribly good fun being an Internationally Renowned Sewing Superstar (in my mind), there is a definite correlation between how many things I stitch to sell to happy customers and how little time I get to make anything for myself. I recently had to sheepishly buy a handbag from an actual high street shop (I know), and my resolution to stop buying clothes from Primarni that I could just as easily make for myself is resulting in a somewhat threadbare wardrobe.

Look at this smug young thing. Ugh.

So I am especially grateful to the 'Make It Sew' group that have continued to meet up since our original 'Sewing Bee' that I blogged about back in December last year. With a capacity of 5 (the maximum amount of machines that one normal domestic living room and a baffling array of extension cables can host), we spend a happy day once every few months eating cake, drinking buckets of tea, and working on our own personal projects. For me, that means a ban on anything Emporium-related.

My chosen project last weekend was something for my summer wardrobe. Apparently there is a slim chance that the sunshine might return for a brief visit later in the year, and even if not I plan to chase it to France in July and pin it down for at least a few short sessions on the sunlounger. I had a whole load of fab hibiscus print fabric left over from when I had to buy two lots of it having left the first batch in a pub (long story), so I decided to make a 1950's style playsuit so I can catch some rays, Tiki style, while reclining elegantly under a wide-brimmed hat with a cocktail. Or at least some cheap pink French wine from a box.

Catalogue pose...

I used McCalls 6331 which is an easy-peasy pattern and one which I would highly recommend, despite the fact that the photos on the cover make it look like a Tampax advert.

It did turn out rather more obscenely short than I'd hoped, but since my intention is really to wear it as a more modest version of a swimsuit I shall grin and bear it. I think it would work in a variety of fabrics - I'd quite like to make a nautical version one day.

Incidentally I'd totally recommend this type of pattern for someone new to sewing. There are no fancy techniques, it comes in very few parts and goes together really quickly. Even I only had to put the zip in twice, which is a personal best.

Go on, have a go. It's not rocket science, you'll have created something totally unique to you, and you'll feel great when it's finished. Everyone's a winner. Apart from Primark - which is as it should be.

I am too extremely very busy.

This is a holding message. I am the busiest person in the world at the moment and consequently the worst blogger. Normal service (i.e. sporadic but not completely non-existent) will be resumed as soon as my friends stop all getting married and I stop all being in plays and all going to meetings and all hoovering the sofa (which takes up a great deal of my time due to the fact that my cats have taken the slight increase in ambient temperature in Southern England very seriously and turned into dandelion clocks who can seemingly release a cloud of fluff at will like some sort of defence mechanism, sort of how a lizard sheds its tail when you pull it).

In the meantime, you could do worse than popping over to the slightly-mad-in-a-good-way Fiona T's blog Words From Fiona's Brain for your fix of blogginess. She has recently baked scones AND catalogued her socks. Just make sure you pop back here to calm down when the excitement has become too much for you.

If you're in need of a quicker hit of internet smack, here is a picture of Doug being a retard.

We worry, but the vet says he's normal.

Or if you're really bored you could even go and buy something over at the Lemur Lady shop. Like this cute mirror with frogs on....

Two of these are princes. The others haven't been kissed yet.

Back soon (ish).

Road Trip! Part 1: San Francisco - Crescent City

As promised, here is the first instalment of my Great Big Adventure diaries. I have spent some time squinting at all the pieces of paper I scribbled notes on, and have decided that the best option is just to try and replicate them here, as best I can, for posterity. I will attempt to make some sense of them as I go along.

Error. Massive error.

So. We began in San Francisco. Well, technically, the adventure began at Heathrow Airport, where we boarded the plane in great excitement. Within 37 seconds (a personal best), I had managed to change all of my seatback entertainment controls to Japanese and had to make SO fix it for me. I then watched 4364623423 films, including War Horse, which was rubbish.

My notes for San Francisco read as follows:

• Mechanical Monkey Band
• Terrifying laughing Sally thing 

Both of the above are from our trip to the 'Musee Mechanique', a truly fabulous rainy-day outing of a place featuring a collection of antique coin-operated machines. Many of them utterly terrifying, such as the giant Laughing Sally puppet mentioned above. If you click on the link (which I wouldn't advise), you will be treated to a glimpse of her which will ensure you don't sleep for a week. The Mechanical Monkey Band, however, remains one of the best things I saw all holiday. Or ever.

Best. Game. Ever.

• Deathstar (Star Wars Arcade Game. See above)
• Clam chowder
• Cablecar (obviously)
• Pirate Shop
• Baboon with wings

The pirate shop refers to 826 Valencia - San Francisco's only independent pirate store. It is exactly as brilliant as it sounds. The last point refers to the shop next door to this, which stocked the most incredible array of bizarre taxidermied animals I have ever seen. It was purely import laws and luggage allowance which stopped us from spending the rest of the trip carting around a full-sized angry baboon with peacock wings grafted onto its back. Because I don't have enough of those.

• Aquarium with chinchillas.
• Hotel smells of chinese soup.
• Scary Christmas shop (SO insisted we buy cable car Christmas tree decorations. Sometimes I worry, I really do).
• TERRIFYING CAR DRIVING HILL ARRRRRRGGGGHHHH

This last point is written in SO's writing. Due to the fact that I went down with the Worst Cold Ever as soon as we landed and was basically flu-ridden for the first week, SO was designated driver in San Francisco. You've seen Bullet, right? It's just like that in real life. Only scarier and with more screaming.

• Hat shop (didn't go in)
• EPIC hat shop (hat regret).

The hat regret was because - for reasons I can only attribute to temporary insanity brought on by an overdose of cough medicine - I decided against buying this:

I'm choking up a bit now, just thinking about  what might have been

Man I loved that winged horse hat. *sigh*

After San Francisco, we followed the Redwood Trail north along the Pacific Coast and through endless forests of ENORMOUS trees. The minutes of this journey look like this:

• Many big trees.
• Bendy roads.
• Smoke in trees.
• Bored of trees.

Occasionally they are punctuated with moments of excitement, such as:

• Elk.
• Gualalalalalalaalala (I think this was the name of a town we stopped in to buy crisps. I can't be sure)
• Drove through a tree!!!!! 

See? Drive-through tree.

The rest of this page of notes is one big scribble, pertaining to the fact that SO walked into a glass door and that this was 'my favourite thing so far, better than the Monkey Orchestra'.

I leave this instalment with a picture of our view from the Crescent Beach Motel window. The Pacific is beautiful to look at, but bugger me it's noisy to sleep next to.

Pacific Ocean - a noisy neighbour

Roads? Where we're going, we don't need roads...

Crumbs - I've been away from this place so long Blogger has completely changed its interface since I was last here. Apologies if this turns out upside down, or bright pink, or accidentally in Comic Sans or something... [EDIT: I just previewed this post and it genuinely had turned my template into Comic Sans. I nearly had a conniption]

Anyway, the main reason why I've not been boring you with my exploits recently is that I have been on a Great Big Adventure. Having got married last year, the Significant Otter and I decided that for our Honeymoon we would take a real trip of a lifetime and do a road trip around Mid-West America, seeing places we've never seen, seeking out new life and new civilisations, boldly going...no, hang on, that's Star Trek. Well, you get the picture.

Aw, the route looks a bit like a heart. I did not notice this, but this is because I have no romance in my soul.

We knew we wanted to start in San Francisco then visit Portland, Oregon (mostly for the beer), before striking out East towards South Dakota so that we could go and be sweary in Deadwood before heading down to Colorado and flying back from there to Los Angeles at the very end. We booked nothing but the car hire, our flights there and back, and the first night's accommodation. Oh, and a cocktail bar for the first evening in San Francisco. Because thirst is a dangerous thing.

What followed was three of the most amazing, fullest, busiest, most exhausting but wonderful weeks of my life. My intention to document all this in the form of a mobile blog as we went along failed almost immediately, mostly because a) I couldn't type in the car because I'd be sick and b) I'm very lazy. Instead, every night at whatever dodgy motel, diner or saloon we found ourselves in I would fish out of my bag some stolen hotel paper and a stolen hotel pen and we would write a bullet-point retrospective of the highlights of our day. I am going to use these beer-stained, garbled, badly spelled notes as the basis of my attempt to record our Great Big Adventure for posterity. 

Bear in mind we did go through eight different states, three different timezones, and drank our bodyweights in strangely-named American micro-brewed beers with pictures of wildlife on the bottle, so I'm not going to try and recount everything in one go. These posts may be sporadic, but I promise I will get there in the end!

A few statistics to start us off:

States we travelled  through: California, Oregon, Idaho, Wyoming, Montana, South Dakota, Nebraska, Colorado.

Miles driven: 3349

Number of different hotel/motel rooms stayed in: 17. I think. Might have to come back to that one.

Amount of toiletries stolen: lots.

Local wildlife accidentally killed: almost one duck.

Horrible colds caught within hours of landing: 1

Acceptable cups of tea: One. On the last day.

I will be back with an account of our first week, which took us from San Francisco to Portland. But for now, here's a picture of me pointing at a buffalo. You're welcome.