"Upside down, and inside out"; it's all change here at Hoipolloi HQ as we switch the office around, moving downstairs upstairs and upstairs downstairs. We've been battling with deconstructing large pieces of Swedish furniture and carrying them down our precarious spiral staircase, discovering a hoard of old CDs which have prompted a great deal of reminiscing over school discos, and been on a couple of very glamorous days out...
In order to build the new desk for upstairs we travelled to the enormous emporium of Ridgeons where we realised that choosing which wood is good wood - for building desks - is harder than we originally anticipated. The matter was further complicated by the fact that the measurements were far from what we had expected, so we needed to ask a nice man to cut the sheets up into smaller pieces in order to fit them into the car. Other vital choices made on Tuesday included which colour wood varnish to purchase, and which colour floor paint. We went for clear satin for the former and steel blue for the latter, for those who are interested.
Today Simon and I travelled even further afield in order to dispose of the old carpet (for anyone who has any pent up frustration...ripping carpet up from the floor is very soothing by the way). We leapt into the car and motored over to the skip (somewhere near the Cambridge business park, I'm still not exactly sure where but there were some nice fields around). We only narrowly avoided disaster as we approached the gate and saw that they were locking up for the day, but fortunately Simon managed to charm the man into allowing us through and we were in! Then a mad dash to dispose of everything in the boot took place. Who knows of we got the correct skip, but we have saved ourselves from ever seeing the manky old carpet ever again.
Just as we were about to leave we noticed something tempting lurking in the paper recycling bin...a stack of old books. With only seconds to go before we were locked in and trapped in the yard until the morning, we hastily grabbed as many as we could, rescuing an armful of books from inevitable destruction.
The haul includes...
Sebastian Faulks' Charlotte Gray
Industry and Empire by E.J. Hobsbawn
The Path to Genocide by Christopher R. Browning
Safe Outback Travel by Jack Absalom
and The Holocaust in History by Michael R. Marrus
I'll be taking Charlotte Gray home with me for sure, but if anyone desires any of the other works, just let me know and we can see if we can re-home them.
Thanks to Jacob Whittaker for the photo
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