Setting up Robbie's new company has involved a lot of hard work but at last all the essential things have been dealt with and we can focus on some of the tasks that we had been putting off until we had time. One of those jobs was to choose a suitable office chair for Robbie, so one day last week I rang Verve Workspace for advice about the best choice of chair. They offer a wide range of chairs (as well as a diverse range of other quality office furniture) and they suggested that we should pop into their office so that Robbie could try some of the chairs. It sounds simple enough, but with Robbie nothing is simple!
When we got to their office Robbie was very impressed by the quirky design features. He hardly had a chance to react to the life sized sheep in the reception area, before he spotted an old red phone box set into the wall. Steve Allen, the owner of the company showed Robbie around. The phone box opened to reveal a walk in cupboard, then Steve showed him the kitchen, it has a map of London printed on the floor covering and it looks amazing. Robbie loved the boardroom which has a very bright spacious feel, one wall is painted with a special paint so that you can write on it as if it is a white board. Everywhere he looked there was something else to admire, so it was very hard to get him to focus on chairs but eventually he tried out a selection of chairs and he chose one that would give him plenty of support for his back.
He was very happy with his choice and I thought that the hard part was over - but I was wrong, he still had to choose the colour and fabric for the chair. He was given a chart with colour and fabric samples, he had a whole rainbow of colours to choose from, but being Robbie he chose the loudest, brightest red. He had got that determined look in his eye, but this was one of those occasions rare occasions when I was even more determined that Robbie wasn't going to get his own way. I can't live with a red chair, it would be like a permanent party political broadcast! Tense negotiations followed and Robbie drove a hard bargain, when it was clear that my veto on the red chair would not we lifted he insisted having his chair in a bright 'leprechaun' green instead. Unfortunately they don't make covers for office chairs, but I think it will be covered in a dust sheet when not in use because I am not a fan of green.
So now we are awaiting delivery of the chair and a large 'industrial strength' bookcase to replace the one that has collapsed under the weight of the Burgess book collection. It will be lovely to have things looking more organised.
There is more information about the Verve Workspace Offices on their blog
I have to acknowledge that I have a weakness, if Robbie wants something I find it very hard to tell him that he can't have it. I have always tried to do my very best for all my family, seeing them happy makes me happy. The difference is that Robbie wants some very odd things at times. I know that I am old and boring - my 'nearest and dearest' remind me of that often enough, but I think most people would admit that Robbie has a rather unique fashion sense, and I really don't have the words to describe his approach to colour, the only word that springs to mind is 'loud'.
Yesterday he announced that his Berghaus jacket has seen better days and it is time to get a new one. He told me he had seen a nice green one and he sent me a link so that I could look at it online. I was pleasantly surprised, it was a deep olive green, it would have looked appropriate with smart clothes but it would have looked good with casual clothes too. I told him that I liked the colour and he looked surprised. He mentioned that I don't like green, but I said that I didn't mind olive green. He looked even more surprised, then he announced that I was looking at the wrong colour. My heart sank when he directed me to his chosen colour - it was pea green! I begged him to reconsider but he said it was beautiful. I only recall one instance of pea green being described as beautiful. In Edward Lear's poem the Owl and the Pussycat went to sea in a beautiful pea-green boat - but they were a very odd pair! As far as I am concerned pea-green looks good on peas, but on anything or anyone else it is a mistake.
I spent the rest of the evening trying to change his mind but I was wasting my breath. Can you imagine what it would look like if he wore that on one of 'rancid green machines' He would clash with the train and scare the passengers! So this is a plea to the select few who have more influence with Robbie than I do (you know who you are). Please take pity on me and persuade him to choose a different colour.
Robbie says that my memory is much better that his - that's probably because I don't stuff my head with train numbers, timetable information and assorted junk! I am better at remembering ordinary things. I can remember that October 4th 2005 was a nice sunny day, in fact I can even remember what colour socks Robbie wore on that day and what type of footwear he wore. It is not really surprising that I can remember the details of that day - it was the day that Robbie and I got married. Today is our sixth wedding anniversary, just an day really but it is nice to remember, so here are a few extracts from previous blog entries
This was written on our first wedding anniversary
It is only just over a year since we got married, but it feels as if Robbie and I have been together forever because despite 'eccentricities' we get on incredibly well. There were lots of reasons why we didn't rush into getting married, but there was one major obstacle for Robbie - I wanted him to wear shoes! For any readers who don't know him, he always wears Dr Martens (because he has different sized feet). Eventually Robbie negotiated a deal re the shoes for the wedding. He would wear Dr Marten Oxford shoes for the big day and I would make no objection to him buying a new pair of purple Dr Marten boots. I wouldn't have minded him buying the boots anyway, but I let him think he had struck a tough bargain! He does make me laugh.
He was even brave enough to suggest that I should also wear Dr Marten's. Apparently they do make Dr Martens for women, but there is no way on earth that I was going to wear them for my wedding - or any other occasion. Robbie's boots are incredibly heavy, it would have been like getting married in diving boots, I wouldn't have been able to lift my feet up! My friend got married wearing an Arsenal top, I was tempted by that idea, but I don't think I was designed for sports wear!!
This is why I remember the socks he wore
His taste in socks is almost as eclectic as his preference in shirts! He likes loud colours, and why settle for one loud colour when you can have loud stripes – he likes stripes! They even put in an appearance at our wedding. I have written before about the compromise we reached concerning Robbie wearing shoes rather than Dr Marten boots to get married. The little detail I had overlooked was the socks. On the day we were getting ready to leave the house when Robbie emerged wearing a very nice suit and bare feet. In his hand he carried a brand new rather noticeable pair of pink socks. There was no way that he was leaving the house in those, and after a forlorn attempt to fight his corner he headed back upstairs get some different socks. I thought nothing more about it until we were asked to sit down during the ceremony. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Robbie’s immaculate shoes and his hideous socks – they were clashing stripes of different blues. I have held a grudge against those socks ever since, but the dratted things never get separated in the wash and they show no signs of wearing out!
I loved our honeymoon
We had the most amazing start to our honeymoon. We spent an afternoon and evening in London cranking at Euston and the Kings Cross, after that we made our way across to Paddington. We had a first class booking on the Penzance sleeper, but it didn't leave until almost midnight, so I had plenty of time to enjoy the wonders of the First Class Lounge. Robbie got 'ants in his pants' and asked if he could go off and do a bit more train spotting. That was fine by me, I was happy to sit there and take in every detail of my surroundings, those rooms are incredible.
The sleeper journey was really special. I made sure I was awake in time to enjoy the early morning part of the journey. ‘Sleeping beauty’ didn’t wake up until his breakfast arrived! One of the most magical memories was watching the sun rise as we came towards St Michaels Mount.
Well I have shared quite enough details about our honeymoon! The rest of the week was great too …….and it involved lots more trains!!
I would love to go on the sleeper to Penzance again one day.
My mum is an amazing woman. She loves clothes and at 80 she likes nothing better than a shopping trip with her granddaughters. When it comes to clothes shopping she loves fashion and she shops enthusiastically, she has plenty of stamina and she will happily shop all day. She likes bright cheerful colours, high shoes and matching accessories. She gave up on my fashion sense years ago; she respects my right to wear more sober styles and very little make up but just occasionally she will tell me "you can wear that when you are dead!"
My mum finds Robbie's approach to fashion rather surprising, but she supports his right to express his individuality and to wear bright colours - but perhaps not all at once! They often chat about clothes and shoes and Robbie likes nothing better than flicking through her collection of catalogues to 'window shop'. Earlier this week he was flicking through her cotton traders catalogue and showing me the many things that he would like when suddenly he emitted a groan of delight. He said "oh yes, they would look great with some bright contrasting boots, I really want them" He thrust the catalogue in front of me to reveal that 'they' were a pair of bright red trousers. I gave him a steady stare trying to work out if he was serious - he was! He looked to my mum for support but she tactfully said there may not be many opportunities to wear red trousers. I told him that it would be a mistake, he would look like Santa on his day off - or a Smurf!! I just hope that he will see sense.
I am short sighted, I wear contact lenses, but in the mornings I manage fine around the house without needing to see anything clearly. In fact it can be a benefit not to see things in detail, the lurid colours of Robbie's socks are too much to cope with early in the morning. If I have to drive to give someone a lift or whatever, I wear my glasses and then take them off again when I get back. That explains how I managed to let Robbie out of the house improperly dressed yesterday - when he got to work he found that he was wearing his black suit trousers and his charcoal grey suit jacket! I will have to do what I used to do with the children and check him over before I let him out of the house in the mornings.
When I was a child colour television was a new and exciting development and daytime television had yet to be invented. It sounds rather quaint now, but we knew what we wanted to watch and we turned the television on five minutes or so before to 'warm up' and when the program was over we turned the television off and got on with other things. When I was small sitting down to see Watch With Mother was an important part of my day and among my favourites was Mary Mungo and Midge, a cartoon series about the adventures of a girl, a dog and a very badly behaved mouse who lived at the top of a tower block. When I was a little older another cartoon series captured my imagination, Captain Pugwash was the cowardly and greedy leader of a band of pirates and their comical exploits always made me smile. John Ryan, the cartoonist who created Mary Mungo and Midge and Captain Pugwash died last Friday, his work brought a lot of pleasure to generations of children. Television may have become much more sophisticated since then, but somewhere along the way it has lost the simple magic of those long gone days of Watch With Mother.
When I was listening to the radio on Saturday they were discussing Michelle Obama's comment that she chooses all her husband's clothes. Maybe that is OK for a US president, but I want to make it clear that I have no control whatsoever over what Robbie wears, it is all his own work! Well I have to admit refusing to have anything to do with him if he wears certain T-shirts, and I did veto a red tie because it made him look like a party political broadcast, but that is the limit of my influence! It has crossed my mind to try to modify his tastes, but it would be a waste of effort, Robbie will always be 'a bit unique' and if I stop him wearing one thing, he will only find something worse! He tries to influence me sometimes, but I do as I like. I don't like loud colours and bold patterns (except on circus clowns) so him pestering me to wear brighter colours is pointless, I wear what I like.
Robbie wore 'that' shirt today, the one that I wrote about a couple of weeks ago! You know the very expensive shirt that includes every colour known to man. I vowed that I would never be seen outside the house with him if he was wearing that thing, but we were going to Homebase to buy a bookcase and there was no way I was going to lift that that into the car on my own. Anyway Homebase staff have never been especially helpful to me so why shouldn't they be exposed to 'the walking test card' if I have to put up with it! The bookcase is for Robbie's railway books, I had to give in and agree to another bookcase because there are so many books in the bedroom now that they will be taking over the bed!
Robbie settled back into the car having safely stowed the bookcase in the boot and it seemed to be the right moment to make my point. I asked if he knew the Bible story about Joseph and his coat of many colours, he said that he did, so I told him that he probably had a shirt just like that to go with it! Emily and Laura are deeply unimpressed with the shirt, Emily commented that she would have thought they could have included a couple of buttons since the shirt was so expensive!!
On Friday I went to collect Emily from university. She has to completely empty her flat at the end of every term so we came back with the Galaxy packed to capacity. I don't know where we are going to put all! As we get closer to Christmas I seem to be getting further away from being ready. Robbie is usually a great help at busy times but his mind is elsewhere at present, he goes through the motions of ordinary household tasks but he pauses in the middle of making a cup of tea or sorting out the laundry to resume his rant about Network Rail. I am becoming quite skilled at 'tuning out' but every so often the odd phrase intrudes into my consciousness, 'train paths' seem to crop up with monotonous regularity along with some unflattering observations about the mental capacity of the population in general and Network Rail in particular and there are the inevitable expletives. I find that my best 'Paddington Bear' stare silences him fairly effectively, but within an hour or two he is back on the old familiar theme again. He has loads of work to do on the next timetable this week, I think I may as well send him to work with his sleeping bag, because I don't expect to see much of him before Christmas!
He did find time for an illicit shopping trip on the way home on Friday. He smuggled an M&S bag into the house under cover of darkness. I thought it may contain Christmas presents but it was just another tie, when I asked why he needed yet another tie to add to his vast collection he claimed it was because this tie was like his blue tie that I had liked so much. I don't remember being especially impresses by a blue tie, but I am fond of blue, so I can't quite work out why he thought I would like the new tie, it is puce with multicoloured spots! Oh well, I have bought him a fun Christmas tie and that is predominantly blue and considerably more sober than his latest acquisition
As I was driving out of the shopping centre car park on Friday I noticed the colour of the colour of the car in front of me - pea green. It was fairly new and it looked immaculate, clearly it was well looked after, but one nagging thought wouldn't go away - who would choose to buy a pea green car? Even if the present owner didn't buy it from new, someone must have done. I find it hard to believe that anyone would decide to spend such a large sum of money on a car and then insist that it absolutely had to be pea green and nothing else would do! It is a very suitable colour - for peas, but I am only aware of one couple who selected that colour for a mode of transport, and the owl and the pussycat were such an ill matched pair that nobody would have noticed their boat.
Perhaps the car was bought by an exhibitionist who would do anything to get noticed, but even that is a bit of a stretch of the imagination. Even an exhibitionist would not choose such a diabolical colour for a car. Imagine the marketing strategy, did they offer a substantial discount on the purchase price in order to make pea green the 'new black', or were they aiming specifically at the colour-blind market? Oh well, I guess I will never know, it is just one of life's unsolved mysteries.
The Burgess tie collection grew this weekend. Robbie was innocently walking through Marks and Spencer's unescorted when a pack of two ties accosted him and forced him to buy them against his will. One tie had a rather lurid combination of blue and pink stripes, I don't particularly like it and it is a little sober for Robbie's taste. I predict that he will wear it a couple of times and then leave it to festoon the wardrobe door until I eventually tuck it away at the back of the tie rack, never to see the light of day again.
The other tie was more controversial, it is bright red with a tiny pattern in the weave of the material. I took great exception to this one and vowed that he would not be allowed to leave the house wearing it. He would look like the campaign manager for old Labour! Hopefully it will find a comfortable home on the tie rack, but I get the feeling it is one of those unreliable garments that will go astray and never be found again. It is a real mystery, we seem to have a black hole in our house!!
