Through The Key Hole..(What's On Your Bedside Table?)

Every time I see an image of Loyd Grossman it transports me straight back to the 80’s (albeit I was just Mia’s age at the time!) and the BBC series “Through the Key Hole”. 

(image from google)

The nosey side of me was fascinated by that, and I have to confess I’m still a little like that today, I’m always interested to see other people’s homes!  You may think I’m terrible but during the times when we’ve bought and sold our house, I have really enjoyed going on viewings – not just because I’m excited to find a potential new home, but also because I’m fascinated by how other people live.  My lovely husband tells me I’m so nosey, especially after viewing one house, only to comment the minute we’d left “did you SEE the 80’s boombox in the spare room!! Wow I had one just like that when I was a kid!!” I’d then carry on to say how I wished we still had the said boombox as they go for a fortune on Ebay, etc. etc. and my husband had to stop me and say “forget the boombox!..what about the house?!”

I’m sure I’m not the only one who does this, I just cannot resist having a good look around and musing to myself in the notorious voice of Loyd Grossman “who lives in a house like this?”.

I’ve therefore decided for a bit of blogging fun, to do a “Through the Key Hole” post once a month.  Feel free to join me and post about your own homes, with a link back to me – I’d love to read them!  My first topic is “What’s on your bedside table?”

 

We don't actually have tables, we have bedside drawers in our bedroom, which were not our choice – we inherited them with the house when we moved in 3 years ago – and still haven’t gotten around to changing them.  When we move again I plan to finally ditch them and buy something more “me”. 

Books:

 

As you can see, I have a lot of books, I am forever buying them from charity shops and vintage stores (very rarely do I buy new), and love to have a pile by the bed for browsing before I go to sleep or just relaxing whilst feeding Baby Boy.  The books currently on my bedside drawers are;

Cath Kidston “Make” (bought from Oxfam)

 

"Homemade" by Ros Badger & Elspeth Thompson (Red Cross shop)

"Victorian House" and "Victorian Hints and Tips on Household Taste"  - (both second hand book stall)

"The Proper Care of Guinea Pigs" – Peter Gurney (oxfam)

Wuthering Heights – Emily Bronte (10p, jumble sale)

"The People Next Door" - Christopher Ransom - £1.00 from local "honesty box" book swap in Co-op foyer

Teach Yourself  – Freelance writing  – (10p jumble sale)

All of the above books I would say sum me up pretty well, I like to browse through the Cath Kidston and “Homemade” book for inspiration and dream of having the time to actually make what’s inside! I love Victorian architecture, and the two books on this subject are great for dreaming of when (hopefully) I eventually get to live in a Victorian house and how I would go about restoring original features, etc.  

I love my 4 adopted rescue guinea-pigs, and find the Peter Gurney book invaluable, I’m forever referring to it.  I think I must have read it about 10 times since I had our first pair of piggies 12 months ago. 

I’m currently 3 quarters of the way through “Wuthering Heights”, this is the first time I’ve read it, and I’m really enjoying it, though typical for me, I never have just one book on the go, (It’s not unusual for me to have up to 5 at any one time!), so for something a bit different I picked up “The People Next Door” in our local charity honesty-box book sell/swap.  I always love a good ghost story, but this one is much more of a horror, not quite my usual thing – if it were a film I’d have nightmares! But I’m actually pretty hooked on this, I’ve almost finished.   Finally, the old 1950’s book on freelance writing was something I found recently in the local jumble sale – and for 10p thought it was worth a read – both the husband & I are wannabie-writers!

 

DVD – Cold Feet, from the box set of the entire series featuring every episode (which is in one of the drawers).  I bought this whole set second hand recently for just £5.00 and as I used to love this series some 10/15 years ago, I thought it would be nice to watch it all again.  So far I’ve watched the first episode whilst feeding Baby Boy, and I really enjoyed it – the pilot episode which is the one i've recently watched, I see was first aired in 1996 - goodness I was 15 back then!

 

Glasses – I am supposed to wear glasses, but only do so when using the computer or watching TV (and driving, if I had a car).  This is bad, I know, - very often someone has waved frantically at me from across the road and I’ve stared blankly wondering who on earth they are until they get up close!

 

Vintage glass dish with lid – I love this little trinket dish, I was given this by the owner of a  vintage shop a couple of years ago whilst my best friend and I were buying vintage cut-glass vases and decanters for my wedding decorations.  My friend picked it up and suggested it, and I said that it was lovely, but that I was really only looking for vases and  bowls for our flowers, and decanters for the tables.  The lovely lady in the shop then told me I could have it seeing as I was buying so many other things! It still reminds me of a very enjoyable afternoon, and I keep things like my wedding ring in there.

 

Lamp – This is one of a pair of lamps which I bought second-hand for just £2.00 each, from a friend from whom I was buying a pair of curtains for our bedroom (the lamps matched the curtains).  They aren’t “me” at all, but Mia wanted one for her room and instantly liked them – and after moving my previous lamp downstairs to the living room, I was in need of one.  I do like the lovely cosy glow that it gives off whilst I’m reading! Not my sort of thing, but a £2.00 bargain-lamp that serves it’s purpose!

 

Heart-shaped post-it-note – My lovely husband  wrote “I love you” on this and stuck it to my bedside cabinet on the eve of our wedding, for me to find before I went to bed.  He had also written 3 more with different messages and stuck them around the room – it was such a lovely gesture and reduced me to happy tears, that I still cannot bear to remove them, 2 years on! 

 

Well, as Loyd Grossman would say “who lives in a house like this?” I think the contents of my bedside table sum "me" up pretty well! I’ve really enjoyed writing this post, hope you've enjoyed it too  - I've love to know "what's on your bedside table?" x