I have become too old for my current duvet set. I know this not because it is covered in cute cartoon pandas (it isn’t, in case you were wondering) but because it is cotton and its surface has a pleated pattern in it and when I wake up in the morning, the pleated effect has transferred to my skin. The effect is worse on my face, mostly because I can cover up the rest of my creased self with clothing until everything springs back, as it were. I have to do some serious ironing with my jade roller to get the creases out of my face. My skin elasticity has had enough of life and is waving goodbye. I’ve pondered hanging upside down to encourage the creasing to fall to the top of my head where I can scoop it all up beneath a suitable hat receptacle. A cloche hat, I think - I’m being ever so fashion inspired by my binge watching of ‘Downton Abbey.’
Anyhoo, I’m seeking new and very smooth bedlinen. It has to be 100% cotton because anything else will make me crackle with static and I cannot cope with creasage AND crackle first thing when Bambino is smacking me in the face for breakfast and the Idiot Cockerel Double Act are hooting outside the back door for attention. It also has to be deliverable, because I’m right off shopping in shops. It’s not a habit I see returning to my life any time soon. Bring me goods in a van, I say. The Dowager Countess Grantham would approve.
I’m also looking for cutlery with wooden handles. This is because I have developed a mild case of Reynaud’s Syndrome, which is where your extremities turn blue and white. I’ve gone for white because it goes with everything. This phenomena only happens when I am holding something cold and metal, for example cutlery and my lovely Cross writing pens. (They are not cross, as in angry. They are Cross because that is their brand. Just thought I’d clarify for those who have a slippery grasp of the use of capital letters in proper and common nouns.) It affects my right hand, little and middle fingers only because they are the ones pressed against the metal. It’s not painful, just tingly and when it happens I put my hand in warm water to get the circulation flowing again.
My search this morning for ‘cutlery with wooden handles’ has rendered the following results: out of stock, plastic, bamboo, plastic, metal, out of stock, out of stock, hideous, plastic, plastic. Seriously. These internet search engines need to get their act sorted and not assume the weary shopper will end up accepting any old tat from pure shopping frustration. I’m willing to bide my time on this search because my daughter sent me some gorgeous lambswool fingerless gloves which protect against the Reynaud’s. It does mean that, on cold days, I eat meals and write looking like an upmarket Harold Steptoe, but at least my pinkies stay pink.
My third household search concerns one of our sofas. Soon after moving to Damson Cottage (almost 5 years ago now!) we splashed out on a pair of MultiYork sofas. One was covered in velvet, the other in a cotton weave fabric. Cats love cotton weave fabric because they can get their claws RIGHT into the weave for a jolly good and very hefty scratch and so one of the sofa covers has suffered massive feline trauma. The velvet sofa looks as good as new - velvet scuppers the cat instinct for destruction of soft furnishings. Velvet is cat resistant.
And because the corner of the sofa that has suffered the most shredding is the corner I see every time I come downstairs, I’ve decided the time has come for a new set of covers - velvet, to match the unscathed sofa, but a different colour. I’ve done my best to disguise the cat damage with some artistically arranged blankets and throws, but Andy tends to sit on that particular sofa and so everything becomes disarranged i.e messy on a regular basis so the disguise is generally short-lived.
Initial research and enquiries suggest a new set of velvet covers is not going to be cheap. Cheaper than a new sofa, of course, but expensive enough to leave a sizeable hole in the estate coffers. I’m not getting a new sofa. MultiYork sofas are built to last and they are the best sofas we’ve ever had. They are sofas built to have their covers changed. They are heirloom sofas. Anyway, I’m awaiting some fabric samples from one company and I’m holding out for the inevitable discount offers from a couple of other places. New covers on the horizon, though.
Of course, some people might say, ‘Don’t have cats. That’s the cheapest option.’ And they would be correct. But I adore cats. I can’t possibly be without one no matter the revolting habits they bring with them.
Good news on the swallow front! Following the dead swallow incident of yesterday I spent considerable time fretting about 4 newly laid eggs with no warm bottom to incubate them. I’d investigated the purchase of an artificial incubator. Could we save the eggs ourselves, maybe? Raise the hatchlings? All the wild bird advice suggested not to try.
But hurrah! Daddy Swallow swooped out of the laundry over my head as I went in, and look! There was Mummy Swallow hunkered down on her nest! I was so relieved! I don’t know how the female swallow that died came to be in the laundry, but she seemed not to be the parent swallow of the eggs in the nest. We are hoping with all our hearts that in a couple of weeks’ time we shall hear the tweeting of new swallow babies after all.
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