Mind the Wallpaper!

...was the cry today, as Heather and Joe moved downstairs to my Writing Room, and I moved upstairs to Heather's old room. We haven't done any major furniture removal since the hall, landing and stairs were re-decorated and the first discovery of the day was exactly how precious I have become over the wallpaper. Especially when Andy decided he was going to move his man chair from the 'conservatory' up to his manly man-study.

All went well, though, and the stairs remained paper intactus. We remain intactus, too, despite Tybalt's best efforts to trip us over by dodging up and down the stairs ahead of us as we made about three hundred trips up and down laden with stuff that rendered us unable to see where we were going, let alone see where we were going in the company of a cat. And now I have, as Virginia Woolf once said, 'a room of one's own.'

You see, the Writing Room was never really MY room. Oh, it started off thusly, but soon became a dumping ground for bits that weren't 'of one's own' e.g the clothes drier complete with assorted clothes in various states of dampness, the Wii Fit stuff, the bee-keeping stuff and any other stuff that happened to be passing through and thought it would be a good place to stop off on its way to wherever else it happened to be heading.

But now, because Andy has moved his man chair upstairs, the 'conservatory' has become the ideal home for the clothes drier and the bee-keeping kit (the top bar bees were flying today! I stood under the willow arch and watched them for a while. Some were even bringing in trousers of pollen).

And upstairs I have a table which contains my sewing machine and piano keyboard, and a desk which contains my computer, and ne'er the twain have to meet. The wardrobe is full of stacking boxes. Some contain sewing stuff, some contain knitting stuff, some contain arty-crafty stuff. I have book shelves full of books and files, I have three pot plants including a rather lovely bright yellow potted chrysanthemum purchased this afternoon. My assortment of cat ornaments sit on the window sill and remain intactus despite Pandora Kitten's sudden fascination with aforesaid window sill, and her dangerous inablity to balance properly on it when it is full of cat ornaments.

There is a picture of a pen on the wall in front of the computer screen reminding me to write, and the lucky-spider-on-a-web wall art, given to us a wedding present from my friend, Sarah, is hanging on the wall beside me, continuing its job as a talisman of protection on the house. It has been employed as such for more than 7 years now and has done a pretty darn good job.

I've a little corner ready to set up with a candle, my Tarot cards, absent healing diary and meditation stuff. I found a fringed shawl I bought when I was 16, and loved to bits, and that is hanging over the door looking all fringy and lovely and smelling of patchouli oil.

I also have a pimple of my right knee, which has nothing to do with the room move but is driving me MAD with the itching of it.

The room, my room, needs redecorating because the previous incumbent was very fond of her posters and postcards, so there are great chunks of paint missing courtesy of Mr Blu-Tack, but the painting can wait for a while whilst I settle in and consider the right colour.

Tomorrow the light of dawn will hit the south-east facing window and I may well be up early to celebrate it with some early morning writing.

In a room of my own.