Cooler

Hi,

Cooler in mindset, weather, and outlook, that is. I’ll let you decide on the outfit – although I did feel rather pretty in it 🙂

It’s been a busy week. Not one to complain about, indeed the opposite. Things done, IT stuff achieved, and all things moving in the right direction. I guess with using the old noggin a fair bit, you can get that mental tiredness. That and Monday was a long day due to travel. I think that threw me a little.

In terms of home stuff, Child 2.0 has completed their last two exams, so that’s all of their A Levels completed and they are officially no longer in school. It feels very much like a gentle end – at least from us parental units’ point of view. We’ll celebrate with a few days off and trips out & about. Not only to break from the routine, but – hopefully – to take his mind off thoughts about results and whatever happens next for him.

He’s a kind and smart boy – well, adult I guess, given his legal age. He’s hoping to head off to university and I hope he finds his tribe. Uni isn’t like school. Not just in lesson format and subject depth, but in how people relate to you, and the people who go. School, while you do make friends, it reminds me of Nic Cage’s character, Cameron Poe, from the action movie, Con Air: “See, there were 160 cats on north block, and I didn’t want to know 159 of them…” 😉 Not that I’d compare a 1980s all boys’ school to a high security penitentiary. I mean that level of knife edge risk of explosive violence, toxic masculinity, and rampant bigotry….. wait for it, wait for it… you just don’t see those levels of brutality in prison films 😉

Jokes aside, I think uni can be a place for a new start. You – or at least my experience – was folk didn’t know you and whatever label(s) had been attached to you as a kid, they were gone. As much as I didn’t complete the course, my memories of going are learning to live on my own (yay, life skills) and that the other students were collaborative and mostly kind. Sure, there were a few twits about, but so it is in the wider world. Thankfully, I didn’t leave with a huge debt because we still had grants. Small, but tuition was covered by the government. I can’t help but feel that we’ve lost our way with education. The – IMO – misconception that everything needs to turn a profit. Maybe some services, public transport, health care, teaching, care for the elderly, environmental stuff (water, rivers, etc); all might be better off if the money collected is put back to improve the service, not make some fat cat… well, fatter. I feel I may be out of touch with the times on this 🫠

Talking of being out of touch, I am wondering if this week might be a good idea to start on a bit of a news break. The last month of headlines and articles – bar the satirical ones – have been, well, a lot. Maybe I’m just a precious little snowflake who can’t handle the platforming of Fascist Lite tosspottery from billionaire sock puppets – there’s quite a few from various countries in that Venn Diagram. That and the insanity of the EHRC’s guidance on third spaces. Ah, and there I’ve put that nonsense into your heads too. My apologies. I wonder if not knowing – which feels a bit of a privilege – might be for the best. I guess we’ll see.

Ending on lighter news… see also “And finally…” 🙂 the inevitable climate collapse of late stage capitalism it was an early Chams meeting this week. Yes, two back to back: most unprecedented. Needs be though as both Val and I have things on, so we’d not be around to open & close. We had to sign for the keys and alarm token, so a shuffle of the old Chams’ social calendar was required. The night was a little quieter than last time, but given the proximity to the previous meeting, to be expected. Still, plenty of good nature conversations, shared laughter, and biscuits to nibble.

In terms of outfit, I had experimented with some fake tan on my legs. However, I had not got the application quite right on one of them, leaving a dark patch on the shin and a paler stripe on the inside. Still, for a first go that’s not a bad thing. A good scrub in the shower fixed it and with the cooler evening air, some thin summer tights helped even out my milk bottle tones 🫠

Given the summer, I thought I’d go for a pretty dress and I took two, just in case I couldn’t make my mind up on arrival. Of course, you take an extra pair of shoes for the same reason. However, despite indecision, the original idea – blue dress and light turquoise heels – won out. In terms of make-up, I have been reading up on different approaches to under eye concealers. I was fairly pleased with using some Urban Decay ‘eye potion’. Typically, that’s used on your lids to hold the eye shadow. But, like a lot of things, can be repurposed.

In this case, it helped proved a smoother base to blend over some Maybelline concealer. After that, carefully work around/in with Bare Minerals foundation. The balance is not overdoing the amount of product around my eyes, but also getting the coverage.Yeah, I thought I’d give the Clinique a break and try the ‘new’ one. Well, I say new, I bought it last year.

I decided to experiment with not using mascara and went with some subtle false lashes instead. At least, if you can say such things are ever subtle 😉

Val was kind enough to take my photo and we did snaps a little earlier. I was feeling pretty tired by this point and thought getting changed early would take some of the rushing about away. It did and I was home a bit earlier than usual.

Dare I say, what a fab evening 💖

L x