There are

thirteen Smiths on the fiction shelves in Borders.

Thirteen.

I need me a new name.

We were talking about names the other day, my family and I. I think it was Julie who was considering the tradition of passing on names and asked why Dad wasn't named after his mum's dad. I can't really remember how she came to that slightly contorted conclusion. Anyway point is if he had been named for his maternal grandfather, my father would be John Smith.

I mean I have nothing against my surname, it's easy to spell and pronounce and balances out my long first name so I can usually just about fit it on a line but damn it isn't very exciting.

More exciting I got the cutest top, and I mean the cutest top, and a skirt from my local designer charity shop. Got them both for a tenner I did which is fantastic considering the top was more than that originally on its own. I do love secondhand shopping. There are so many ugly things that I want to own and make pretty but I'm not that talented and often they are too expensive. I still long for them though. Terrible dresses haunt my sewing machine. One of my biggest regrets clothing wise was this huge tshirt with the Doors on it. It was too expensive so I had to leave it on a hanger but dammit I had a plan. There was this perfect design in my tshirt book and oh sometimes it's painful to think about.