Phew.

Yesterday, I had to do double Bikram Yoga classes to have any chance of completing the 30 day challenge. It's fair to say that I wasn't relishing the prospect. I diligently went to the 9.30am class and worked on my habits. Later, I made it to the 7.30pm class with one minute to spare. Because en route I somehow filled my diesel car up with unleaded petrol. A rather extreme form of sabotage, I know. Now I have experienced first hand what fate befalls you if you happen to do this and it is all BAD. Although luckily, I didn't turn the key and engage the engine or it would have been CATASTROPHIC. Thank goodness for small mercies. Instead of a new engine, my car only had to be towed and drained.

So last night I had to resort to a taxi, and sobbed the whole way to class. The taxi driver had helped me to roll my car away from the bowser and into a parking bay so he was understanding. Ben's final words to me before I entered the hot room were that I needed the yoga. I thought I needed a stiff drink and a lie down. I wasn't sure how the class would go. Curiously, it was one of the strongest classes I have done for some time. My balance in the standing series was right on - I even managed to pull off two sets of Standing Bow pose without falling out even though I was head spinning and my skin felt prickly. And neither did I try and distract myself from all of this unpleasantness by rubbing my nose or adjusting my pants. Habits be gone.

Today in class (I taxied again) I felt weak and like I was going to vomit. But I'm still on track for the challenge.

Look what else happened yesterday. My chairs came back from the upholsterer:

This is how they were when I bid on them at auction out at Gowans. You really needed to smell them to realise how bad they were. They reeked of cat pee.

Haven't they have been miraculously transformed? The chesterfield sofa was another auction find - from when Leo Scofield was selling off his furniture at his Georgian pile at Kempton last year. 

Thursday, of course, is pre auction viewing day out at Gowan's. I didn't make it today due to car trouble.
R

Auction.

This morning I was back at Bikram Yoga in the hot room. I got as far as standing bow pulling pose and then I was dripping sweat and weakness. Some days are more difficult to be comfortable in the uncomfortable than others, and today was one of them.

After my daily yoga class, I indulged in more repetitive behaviour, which is a weekly turn around Gowan's Auctions at Moonah. Gowan's is not for the faint hearted, you have to be prepared to wade through the overwhelming confusion of junk - junk stretching as far as the eye can see - to find something covetable.  Yet there is always something interesting, quirky or downright perverse. Today was heavy on fur.

Exhibit A - Mimi modelling a furry white dead animal turned into a stole:

These are quite pedestrian yet I can't remember coming across a white one before.

Then we ventured into the strange realms of the unexpected.

Exhibit B -  This molting bundle of fur and felt was a rug made out of a polar bear:

I won't be bidding on any of the fur yet there was something that captured my attention that I may try my luck on with an absentee bid tomorrow.

Exhibit C - something (what exactly is this?) that would fit in amongst my melange of lounge room furniture and be perfect as a side table for drinks:

There's something about the random, quest for the ideal piece that appeals to me and I find myself roaming the sheds week after week. It is a habit. You just never know what's going to be turn up, and when.

And if that's not exciting enough, then you get to bid at an auction. Sweaty palms and a fast beating heart brought on by the thrill of competition can make you pay irrational sums of money in the heat of the moment.

Happily, I have discovered absentee bidding where you ring up beforehand to register your top bid and then you can call back later in the day to see if you've been successful and it's going to be yours. Of course, if you need to due to indecision, you can ring back and change your bid any number of times before it actually goes under the hammer. The best thing is that you don't necessarily pay the full amount of your bid - if the final bid was lower than yours, then you get it for the next increment. If, on the off chance, the final bid was the same as yours, then they give you one bid over.

Here are a couple of examples where the auction Gods smiled on me.

Back when I was nursing a toile fetish, lo and behold, I found this sofa, exactly as is :

And when I needed something for the lounge room this 19th century French sofa appeared:

Admittedly, it didn't quite look like it's current incarnation that it has been done over in Designers Guild. It was exactly the same as these perfectly matching chairs which amazingly came up two weeks ago and are gearing up to go to the upholsterer:

And luckily I just happened to discover them on my weekly reconnaisance. And win them at auction. R