Lovely Exmoorjane has tagged me and challenged me to reveal the contents of my handbag to the world.
Now this would probably have been a much more painful exercise if I hadn’t decided to Transfer yesterday. For those of you not in the know with handbags (I’m probably talking men here) Transferring is a sacred ritual which takes place, in my case, two to three times a year. My Transfers tend to be seasonal, or to be carried out when a Handbag Mistake has been made. Unfortunately, I recently made a terrible Handbag Mistake, buying a bag in a shade of purple which, at the time, I thought was cheery, and then discovered that, in natural daylight, was retina-singeingly vile. But the less said about that the better. And the fact that I also bought a top to go with it, as though that was somehow going to make things better ….la la la la I’m singing now so I can’t read what I’m typing. It works better than you’d think. Don’t be surprised if both turn up on eBay soon though.
Anyhoo, back to the Transfer. During the Transference, the contents of the bag are removed, sand-blasted clean if necessary, pruned, restored and reorganised, then moved into – tada – a new bag. Now in my case, in the interests of economy etc (ahem, because I had just wasted a fortune on the purple monstrosity) the contents went into a rescusitated bag. In fact, this one is positively vintage, dating from the years of my marriage. It was, in fact, a rather lovely birthday present from Mr X, and the matching purse was a Christmas present. A few years (who am I kidding, months) ago, I would rather have ripped out my toenails with my own teeth than used this bag. It just shows what time and ill-advised purple can do for a gal.
Now, as some of you know, I am so keen on bags that I have another handbag as my avatar on Facebook. This is partly because I am fighting a constant war against too much self-revelation (you may well wish to fall to the floor laughing at this point) and partly because I am a slave to Louis Vuitton.
The lovely Louis made this bag too, and I was really feeling rather swish this morning when I headed out with it, all lovely and pristine as I thought. I was actually rather smug sitting down to do this revelation as I thought, ‘I am just going to have the neatest handbag in town.’
Then I put the contents of the bag on my desk to photograph. Bear in mind, please, that I put this stuff in the bag on Sunday. This is what it looks like now:
OMG just doesn’t get near it.
This is what that pile of tat consists of:
4 biros, two nicked from Barclays Bank (hah, consider it my bonus, oh banking fat cats) two fruit-scented gel ones nicked from my daughters
2 hair ties, grubby
1 iPhone sock, in pale blue
1 Sally Hansen natural shine nail varnish
4 crumped old tissue sachets
1 set of colouring pencils which Child One got in a kiddies’ lunch bag from M&S – she is so phobic about strange foodstuffs that the comfort of a tiny ham sandwich and juice box is still huge for both of us
1 token for a Swedish supermarket trolley, very useful in Sainsbury’s I don’t think
1 pink leather photo holder with pics of my girls
3 lipglosses, Nivea, Juicy Tubes and Maybelline
1 makeup bag containing four old mascaras, two more lip glosses, a concealer which is a horrible salmon pink but which was expensive and I can’t bear to throw away, one moss green eye pencil and a tube of No7 protect and perfect
1 bottle of Advil painkillers, bought on my trip last year to Disneyworld – they are a gorgeous blue colour and look utterly poisonous.
1 packet of Neurofen
Hundreds of Pizza Express cinema vouchers which I will never get round to using
Purse containing umpteen loyalty cards which I still never manage to find when in the right shop
Security tag for work
Mini sewing kit from the last hotel I stayed in
Plasters
Ancient furry tampon
Purse containing 97p
3 Marie Curie charity daffodil pins – gorgeous!
1 iPhone – unfortunately it doesn’t fit into the phone pocket of the bag – the bag is that old!! – but it’s been riding around happily on the mound of rubbish
1 Card from Child Two, made just before her first school trip away at the very tender age of 8 (we lived abroad then). I think she thought she might never see me again. I said I would always carry it in my handbag and, no matter how many Transfers I make, I always will.
Gosh, I’m a bit shocked at that tally. Now I’d really like a peek in some of your bags. I’m going to tag Chic Mama, Linda, Metropolitan Mum and Family Affairs.