The Maroon Diaries

In the interests of living naturally, sustainably, saving the earth, etc., I know it's a good thing to make your own cleaning products rather than buying pre-packaged substances of questionable origin and consequence. I have made and used homemade cleaning products before, and I knew all the amazing things you could do with vinegar and bicarb soda, but I'd somehow fallen back into the habit of using supermarket preparations for convenience. It happens when you're travelling, and it's not really very practical to buy all the ingredients and make up a whole batch of a product, when you can just buy a little packet of something all ready to go. Enter blog inspiration. I saw a post about a lady making her own spray cleaning product out of basic ingredients. The one I wasn't familiar with was borax. I had a little google around and read many different homemade recipes for spray cleaners, laundry soaps, dishwashing products, etc. They all varied around a basic them...

I had a different name when I was born. I have changed every part of my name since then - first, middle, last, and title. I have made these changes legally, by deed poll. My mail arrives addressed to Lady Demelza. Each of these changes has been made with a great deal of thought - many years worth of thoughts in fact. Each change has been a step toward crafting my identity to reflect my inner self. My mum chose the name Demelza when she was pregnant with me. Demelza was the heroine of a Cornish TV series, Poldark, which was screening on ABC at the time. Demelza was the kitchen wench who married the master and became the lady of the house. Pretty cool story. Excellent choice, Mum! This is my copy of the novelisation of the series, with Angharad Rees playing Demelza. (Apologies for the blurry picture. Keep in mind, folks, this morning is my first ever attempt at taking photos with a digital camera, and there's no-one around to show me how it works. I'm pretty much just p...

It's a miracle. Many people thought this day would never come, and others persevered in the face of great resistance to ensure that it did. And here we are. Lady Demelza  is online. Yes, that's really me, completely absorbed in the task of learning how to use blogger. The picture is a little bit blurry because there's actually a frenzy of activity going on in there, despite my sedentary posture. Thanks to Mr CJ for taking the photo. You see, I am terribly technophobic. Partly just because I'm generally pretty old-fashioned, I think. And largely because I have temporal lobe epilepsy, and being around too many computers, or for too long, or even just one computer that just makes the wrong kind of whiney noise, can trigger an epileptic episode. I didn't actually know that this was the problem until I was 25 years old. Before that, all I knew was that 'I had a yucky feeling' about and around computers. I think this is why I developed such a strong aversion ...