We are moved in!

I love it I love it. We have a proper dining room table*, and a long balcony, and a washing machine, and a bathroom with an extraordinarily loud extractor fan. It goes DZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ and you only realise how loud it is when it comes to you that you have been humming along with it. I used to do that with vacuum cleaners as well when I was small.
We also have those bendy chairs with the white cushions that all up and coming moms had when I was in primary school. Those chairs that everyone who took an interest in Design thought were quite something about fifteen years ago.**

It already feels like a proper place to live, and I'm so happy.

* on the table there is a tablecloth which I bought the other day. It was sold to me by a woman who put me very badly on edge within about six seconds of clapping eyes on her, which is actually quite hard to do. Her shop sells things she bought at obviously exploitatively low prices in Madagascar. I picked up this teeny tiny little embroidered dress as I walked in, and her whole SWEATY FACE lit up and she said "YA DO YOU LIKE THAT I BOUGHT ONE FOR MY GRANDDAUGHTER BUT MY DAUGHTER IN LAW HASN'T SEEN IT FOR YONKS WE THINK THE MAID STOLE IT."

My mum was standing very close to me and I just faintly heard her go "uh oh" under her breath, in perfect time with the alarm bells just starting to go off in my head. Like oh PLEASE can we not go down this road called you saying racist things and me just standing there getting more and more irritated spit in my mouth oh pleeeeeeeeeease.

She left us alone for a bit, I think because of the very Charged way I must have been staring at her, but when she saw me pull out this tablecloth with lots of tiny little people on it, she could not hold herself back. Wild Horses could not hold her back. She said "IT'S NICE HEY DO YOU KNOW WHO MADE IT"
and I thought she was going to tell me like a small patronising story about the lovely little woman who makes them for her, but it was so much worse than that. It was so infinitely worse.
She said "CHILDREN MADE IT."
Like that was just a neutral observation, instead of a CRIME.
She said "THEY JUST COME HOME FROM SCHOOL AND THEY SEW AND SEW UNTIL THEY CAN'T SEE ANYMORE."
She was so triumphant when she said it as well. The really worst part of this story though is the bit where I am sitting smugly on the sofa and staring at my lovely new tablecloth, all covered in tiny little people.

** fifteen years ago. that's how long ago I was in primary school. I could not be older.