Having found this article completely by chance (it’s from my pre-regular-blogging days), I thought it was worth sharing. I’m most definitely an Unmade Bed, and all the happier for it. Women, she says, are either Unmade Beds (UBs) or Pristine Pillows (PPs).

We all know a PP or two, those women who never have a hair out of place, whose houses are shrines to minimalism and white leather, and who always turn up early for everything, in high heels. They don’t eat much, turn their noses up at proper alcohol and keel over in shock if they catch you eating carbs. The rest of us live our lives… we eat pasta, we drink wine, we go barefoot, we play, and we’re liberated and happy. We also scrub up pretty well when the occasion calls for it!

To demonstrate, my flat only gets properly tidied (and indeed, the bed made properly) when my parents or a man are coming to visit. My friends love me for who I am and are quite used to the organised chaos I usually live in (some of them had the mis/good fortune to live with me for a year or two) and don’t object to it. I’m anal about cleaning my kitchen, but my tidying is very much of the shove-stuff-in-wardrobe-and-shut-door variety. Only I have rails, not wardrobes, so instead I shove in boxes, put boxes in the studio and shut that door instead.

In the article, Shane also mentions handbags as another dividing line between UBs and PPs. Ohh, handbags. From mine today (and this is very much the light version, as I’ve not been home from holiday long and haven’t had a chance to clutter it up properly), I extracted the following:

hand cream, deodorant, my purse, £4.10 in change, six euros fifty in change, 90 Romania Lei, various cards, my driving licence (these were all loose at the bottom, not in my purse), a ticket to colchester zoo, a notebook, six pens, one pencil, mobile phone, mum’s camera, usb lead for my phone, earrings, sunglasses, a box of plasters, sudocrem, chewing gum, keys for my flat, keys for julia’s flat, keys for work and keys to my parents’ house, my council tax bill, various bits of printed paper, a map, socks, ibuprofen, a bag full of makeup, a random red lipstick, pro plus, my hairbrush, a glasses cleaning cloth, tissues, four hairbands, spare floozies, spare tshirt, can of diet coke, a half eaten bar of chocolate, a novel, a Homes & Antiques magazine and eleven post it notes.

And I wonder why my shoulders hurt! I’m seriously considering doing a monthly post on what’s in my handbag… I might discover some long-forgotten treasures! However, I usually have everything I need with me (actually it’s missing cross stitch, knitting or crochet – I almost always have my current small project with me) and I’ve been the go-to girl in every office I’ve ever worked in for the random things you should have in your bag but just never do… painkillers, tissues, hairbands. After 25 years of trying to be tidy, I’ve accepted that I’m a chaotic but happy kind of a person… and that’s just fine by me. Us Unmade Beds live life to the full 🙂

So which are you? An unmade bed or a pristine pillow? And what’s really in your handbag?