Putting a Smile on His Face

I remember my dad telling me that if my grandma needed cheering up (or buttering up) a new hat was the order of the day.  I don't think she ever went out without a hat; she may have influenced me in many ways, but I wasn't built for hats, the only hat that I have worn willingly is a riding hat! A hat would be the very last thing to cheer me up!

There are many things that put a smile on Robbie's face and shoes are close to the top of the list. He really should be grinning like a Cheshire cat because by my calculations he has six new pairs this year! Four pairs of Dr Martens and two pairs of Converse. His latest pair were delivered yesterday, a pair of low Converse All Star's. The colour is called 'Waterfall' which is very close to turquoise. They were a real bargain from the Office sale and they are intended to replace his light blue pair which have seen better days. He had already bought a pair to replace his red patterned Converse that are falling apart.  

The only bit that he hasn't got around to is throwing the old ones away. I reminded him of this and he agreed that he would throw them away. I was lulled into a false sense of security until he said "but I am going to keep the material ....". I thought he was joking at first, but he was absolutely serious. He plans to cut out and keep the material from his smelly old shoes! OK I admit that they are not smelly, but seriously why on earth would he want to save bits of old shoe! I blame his railway friends for putting crackpot ideas into his head, they have some very weird habits. He told me the other day about someone who collects bits of moquette from old train seats, now that really is weird, it makes Robbie sound relatively normal!      

Revenge! 27.07.07

I am so cross with Robbie. He arrived home a little earlier than usual yesterday and without any discussion he decided that he was going to go up and have a good sort out in the bedroom. I must confess that it needed it, we both have the hoarding gene, but Robbie feels the need to sleep within reach of everything that matters to him, railway books, piles of train magazines, crates and boxes of model trains, assorted DVD's, his beloved 7inch vinyl record collection and stacks of CD's. His extensive and sometimes alarming tie collection regularly bursts out of the wardrobe and 'decorates' the bedroom and the scene is not complete without a couple of randomly placed pairs of Dr Marten boots to fall over. So you see there is always plenty of scope for a sort out - and I haven't confessed to my clutter yet!

Robbie was missing for most of the evening and when I was finally allowed to go to bed I noticed that the ties had been recaptured and I didn't fall over anything so he had clearly made an impact on the room. I noticed that the ever present clutter on his side of the bed seemed to have been dusted and reorganised, but it had not diminished in quantity. I didn't think much about it because I was making plans to tidy my stuff and move the furniture around on Saturday while Robbie is out playing trains.

This morning I went downstairs and found two bin bags ready to go out to the black bin. I became suspicious when I noticed my scarf poking out of the bin bag and I questioned Robbie closely, he said the bag contained only his stuff and odd socks. I said that I would check it after he had go to work to make sure nothing of mine had accidentally crept into the bag. The sneaky little devil swiped the bag when I wasn't looking and took it out to the bin, and just to deter me from retrieving it he put the yucky bag from the kitchen bin on top of it. He should have known I am made of sterner stuff!, I recovered the bag and took it back into the house to sort through it. He had thrown away my new scarf and glove set, two other pairs of new gloves, a perfectly good and fairly new duvet cover, one of my leather purses, a selection of brand new packs of embellishments (used for scrapbooking), a glue gun, a magic stone that Sam collected for me, a pile of my family history magazines, and a variety of smaller things. Yes, there were some of his old clothes but there were no railway magazines or any other clutter belonging to him! I was furious. He felt it was OK to do that, but he goes mad if I throw one of his limp lefty daily papers away when it is days out of date!

Having attempted to reason with him and getting nothing resembling an apology I am calming myself with thoughts of cruel and unusual punishment! He is rather fond of his vast array of shirts, I wonder how he would feel if they all had a sleeve missing! Or perhaps his precious model deltic could accidentally drown in the washing up bowl. Maybe it would be unkind to switch his face cream with 'deep heat' but I am enjoying the thought!