Solutions galore in this week's Heyday Friday newsletter
A slew of invaluable home organising ideas are joined by a whimsical film recommendation, uplifting words from one of my all-time heroines and a rather special story in this week's newsletter
Hello!
The whole window-cleaning thing in last week’s newsletter has spiralled into a burst of spring cleaning and organisation here at Heydays HQ. Which in turn has led me to wonder if you might find it useful and/or interesting to know what I’ve found to be my most invaluable home organising solutions over the years.
If you do, or would, then your wish is my command. Because that’s exactly the subject of this week’s blog. In it, I show a selection of my favourite items, explain why each one works so well for me and then give a link so you can have a look at, and even buy something similar for yourself.
There are solutions for the kitchen, bedroom, bathroom and desk, but there is one that is different from all the others. It’s this one
Of course, you’ll have to read the blog to find out why. And you can do that by CLICKING HERE
GOOD TO KNOW
As a bonus organisation tip because you’re one of my lovely readers (and hopefully subscribers too, in which case, thank you) this is my next organisation project
And THIS is where you can buy one of those photo organiser cases (apologies it’s on Amazon, but sadly that’s where it’s cheapest)
WORDS OF WISDOM
on the subject of organising from none other than AA Milne, creator of the beloved character Winnie The Pooh
So now you know.
THIS WEEK I’VE BEEN……WATCHING
Apparently this unusual film is adapted from a ‘graphic novel’, which I take it means one that’s drawn rather than written. Which would make sense as its unconventional approach is to tell a story spanning centuries from one single viewpoint. Literally.
The camera in Here never moves from the exact same spot, and what we see in constantly overlapping timelines, from the prehistoric era to the present day, is the way that one particular spot in the world changes over the course of time. From wild landscape roamed by dinosaurs then early man, to the building of homesteads then houses, and the eventual growth of neighbourhoods.
The stories we follow are of the individuals and families who have inhabited first the land and then the particular house which, once it is built, we see from the single angle of the corner of the living room looking out onto the street beyond. Everything else that happens beyond that one vista is only ever referred to or heard and left to us to picture.
Chief amongst the home owners whose lives play out inside the four walls are Tom Hanks and Robin Wright (astonishingly effectively digitally de-aged) as the son and daughter-in-law of Paul Bettany and Kelly Reilly who buy the house when he returns, battle scarred, from the Second World War.
Here is a combination of sentimental and folksy, and could have done without some of the early earth stuff, but there’s no denying its ambition or how winningly heartwarming it is thanks, in no small part, to the performances of Tom and Robin and the vision of director Robert Zemeckis. And when the camera finally pans round and then out of and above the house at the very end, it’s unexpectedly moving.
You can watch HERE on Amazon Prime
And see the trailer HERE
WHAT’S MADE ME HAPPY THIS WEEK
Today - Friday March 21st - is World Poetry Day, and therefore the perfect opportunity/excuse to share one of my all-time favourite poems - Still I Rise - by one of my all-time heroines, the magnificent Maya Angelou.
When things are challenging, and God knows, there are so many challenges we all face, aren’t there?, this reminds me that we all have the capacity to overcome them.
You may write me down in history
With your bitter, twisted lies,
You may trod me in the very dirt
But still, like dust, I'll rise.
Does my sassiness upset you?
Why are you beset with gloom?
’Cause I walk like I've got oil wells
Pumping in my living room.
Just like moons and like suns,
With the certainty of tides,
Just like hopes springing high,
Still I'll rise.
Did you want to see me broken?
Bowed head and lowered eyes?
Shoulders falling down like teardrops,
Weakened by my soulful cries?
Does my haughtiness offend you?
Don't you take it awful hard
’Cause I laugh like I've got gold mines
Diggin’ in my own backyard.
You may shoot me with your words,
You may cut me with your eyes,
You may kill me with your hatefulness,
But still, like air, I’ll rise.
Does my sexiness upset you?
Does it come as a surprise
That I dance like I've got diamonds
At the meeting of my thighs?
Out of the huts of history’s shame
I rise
Up from a past that’s rooted in pain
I rise
I'm a black ocean, leaping and wide,
Welling and swelling I bear in the tide.
Leaving behind nights of terror and fear
I rise
Into a daybreak that’s wondrously clear
I rise
Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave,
I am the dream and the hope of the slave.
I rise
I rise
I rise.
That’s it for this week.
Before I go, though - a little story. Just before Covid I was introduced by a friend to a good friend of hers. This woman and I hit it off immediately and she invited me to join her and five other women in an on-line conversation exploring our shared interest in ageing well. Of the others, two were in the USA, one in Canada. Our convener lives, like me, in London but was born in Canada and raised in France. The sixth is an American who married a Brit over 30 years ago and has lived in the UK ever since. Our ages range from early sixties to mid-seventies.
As Covid tightened its grip, the six of us met up on line every week and our conversations rapidly expanded beyond exploring ageing to discussing our lives, beliefs, hopes and fears.
Since the pandemic ended, we have continued to talk on line once a month and although one or two of us have met - I have spent many lovely times with the the woman I was first introduced to, and had a memorable evening with the other UK based ‘old broad’ (what we call ourselves) - we have never all been together in person.
The reason I’m telling you this, is that there won’t be a newsletter next week because for the first time in the five years since we started talking, almost all of us will be together in person (sadly one of the broads from the US can’t make it). We are gathering at a glorious looking house in southern France and to say I’m looking forward to it would be an understatement of substantial proportions.
Should you be remotely interested, I’d be happy to report on how it went in the next newsletter, which will arrive in your in-box on Friday April 4th.
In the meantime, I wish you a very happy Mother’s Day, if you’re reading this in the UK, and I’ll see you again in two weeks.
Oh wise woman (that's you DK), where can I buy the motivation
and the person to re-organise everything in my flat? Am in awe of
how you've done it - just need an injection of get up and go to do it
myself!!