Once upon a time I wanted rock n’ roll-style fame and stardom; these days I just want the perfect rug for the lounge.

Well there’s actually a small list of life-enhancing pieces of furniture and furnishings that we’re in search of, ranging from thick curtains for the lounge to a ladder-style shelving unit. I don’t know at what point my priorities started shifting, or at what stage I started becoming an actual adult, but home decor and growing herbs in pots are where it’s at for me right now y’all. I’m choosing to embrace it, and I’m currently more excited about turning this flat into snug, Christmassy haven than more or less anything else right now. I’m already starting to estimate how many packs of fairy lights I’ll need to circle the hallway, plot where the tree will go and look into what balcony decor there is that requires no mains electric supply.

I often start looking forward to the road to Christmas around this time of year (not necessarily Christmas itself,  but the arrival of autumn proper and the subsequent markers of the time of year: Halloween, Bonfire Night, unrelentingly shit weather), and especially when the weather is in drab, middling territory where it’s neither here nor there. I don’t know what it means, and it comes and goes – I’ll possibly stop thinking about it this week, then recommence at the end of July before stopping again before the next bout in September – but I imagine it’s a sort of homeliness articulating itself as an obsession with Christmas. I’ve never really properly got on with summer as an adult, and struggle to function in high heat, particularly on work days. Also, a walk around town yesterday highlighted to me that I generally hate all mens summer fashion, and that buying shorts and sunglasses doesn’t inspire me anything like a hunt for boots and a scarf has done in the past. Most of the summer styles – in this year it seems in particular, unless I’m only just noting it now – veer towards embarrassing dad, or at least that’s how I think they’d translate once they were plonked on my 33 year-old frame; all neons, retro prints and daft puns to do with beaches and barbeques. This is the kind of clothing you’d feasibly get away with, sat within the confines of a cheap resort on a Spanish island, a thousand miles away, where nobody knows you and nobody cares about you – not whilst shopping for furniture in M&S Home.

Thus concludes the interior design and fashion sections for this weekend.

I apologise for how dull today’s post is, it’s only really of use to Marc Sweeney completists. I’m still in the beginning stages of what on earth to write about as I attempt to ‘relaunch’ my efforts with this site. I’ve veered away from diary-style entries and leaned more towards inner-workings of my brain, but on days like today where little irks me and the mundane comforts me like a luxurious balm, there aren’t that many inner-workings to write about.