Presence

How to write a post like this without seeming like a greedy weedy seedy needy beady never-heedy beastie? We haven't quite figured that one out yet. So, for those of you who are desperate to mark our marriage with STUFF, we still say "How about giving to charity?". But here are our other ideas... [Click on links for more info or places to buy. If you do get one of these things, please leave a comment--anonymous is fine--in the comments section so that no one else steals your thunder. And do check the comments, if there are any, to make sure that you're not about to become a thunder-stealer.]

We have a standard double bed, but with a NASA-developed mattress for less G-force (not rude!), so we need extra deep fitted sheets. We usually have ivory, though any autumnal shade is fine. We are particular about what we sleep on and Lynne can detect a pea at 400 yards, so can we have 100% cotton please?

Towels are a classic wedding gift, only beaten by the toast rack in the 1999 UK wedding gift of the year grand final (the last such year a vote was held), so why should we deny you such pleasure? At great personal cost we rubbed ourselves in various shops and discovered our personal favourite to be Hazel-coloured towels from the John Lewis Egyptian range. We don't need flannels (wash cloths), just bath towels/sheets and a couple of hand towels.

We have bathroom scales that Lynne has had for many years. They tell your weight in pounds, and Phil can't work out how many sacks of potatoes his head is equal to. So we would like some damn fine bathroom scales from the UK (home of the bathroom scale and jam)--measuring in stones and kilograms. Funky and retro would be nice.

Staying in the bathroom we (mostly Phil) would like a shaving mirror (normal one side and giant head on the other) which comes out of the wall on an accordion and lights up.

In the kitchen: we would like a Braun MR6550 FP Multiquick Vital blender/food processor. We drink lots of lovely water and you can't ever have enough Britta Maxtra filter cartridges. Phil thinks the same about coffee and while he has two 8-cup cafetières ('French presses' for you US speakers), if there were a really beautiful one out there, he would give it a good home.
We like to bake but have no pie/quiche dish. White ceramic would suit our minimalist polar bear themed kitchen.

We hope to have some photos from our wedding, so a very nice photo album similar to this modelled here would be great. (And it's cheap, too!)


For the artsy-minded, we love two prints at the gallery Appendage in the Brighton North Laine. One is a map of Britain made up of paint sample squares. I'm having a hard time explaining it, but if you see it when you're there, you'll recognise it. The other is a multicoloured print of bunches of bugs systematically arranged. They had a lot of work by those two artists the last time we were there. Unfortunately, we didn't get their names, and haven't succeeded in finding them on the web tonight... Lynne also likes this piece, in part because it involves SWEDISH!

That is all for now. Greed will return in Voucherville, coming soon.