Today was the first Saturday since my return from La
Bourboule that I didn’t have to work. I
am still rather exhausted, so had a lazy peaceful day. I started the day with hot buttered toast for
breakfast while listening to the news, accompanied by streams of hot milky
tea. Then I did a bit of tidying up, and
went to the Saturday Farmers’ Market just around the corner, where I bought two
types of bread, a dozen eggs, a bag of apples, and a pot of honey.
I should have stopped there, but as is my wont drifted into
the local charity shops, only to discover curtains in my favourite William
Morris fabric at a ridiculously low price.
My dining room chairs are upholstered – by myself! – in the same fabric,
so I thought I could go all matchy matchy downstairs.
But alas and alack! The
shop assistant was a bit on the daft side – she claimed the curtains were 20
feet long – 92 inches! In fact they were
about 7.5 feet long, which was too long for downstairs. For some weird reason the ceilings upstairs
are half a foot higher than downstairs, and the curtains cast waves on the
dining room floor which were insupportable.
So I had to take them down and put up the old curtains
again, with much moaning and groaning – putting up curtains is one of my least
favourite jobs. Upstairs, the Nostalgia
Studio had been subsisting on a diet of blackout curtains, which is fine for
Summer but now that the Autumn chills have once again settled around the Little
House something more substantial was called for. So I put up the new curtains there.
But drat and doubledrat, I was foiled again! Although the curtains were just the right
length, the fact that they consisted of one long curtain, rather than two
separate ones, presented me with a problem.
When drawn they looked great, but when pushed to one side there was
simply too much material – they continued to obstruct part of the window. While taking them down again, an evil plan
hatched in my mind.
I cut them in half!
Then I hung the cut side to the ends, where the edge is obscured – by
now I had been working for three hours and was not in the mood to spend a few
more putting a proper hem on the cut curtain.
I can do that at some later stage, when I feel industrious. As a matter of fact I contemplated stapling
them, but since I have lost my stapler that clever plan couldn’t be put into
action.
By now dusk had fallen. I drew my new – to me – curtains, turned on
the lamp, and admired the new look of my studio while drinking tea and
listening to Nocturne No 2 by Chopin. A
deep peace fell upon me, and all was well in my little universe.
May you all have equally lovely
curtains to soothe your weary hearts when necessary!
