Z says three cheers

We decided we needed a curtain to keep cats out of a room when we’re not there; there’s an internal window.  But I should start from the beginning.

When we were having structural repair work done to this house, back in 1985, the Sage discovered, up in one of the attics, that there was an original Tudor window frame, bricked over from the outside – that was the reason it was still in pretty good repair, of course.  A retired cabinet maker friend of ours carved the bits that were needed to make it sound, once it had been removed from the brickwork, and it was inserted in the dining room wall, between that room and the hall.  Better there, we thought, than hidden away in an attic.

It isn’t glazed of course and Eloise cat and Rummy occasionally use it to pass through between the two rooms.  And we’ve had enough of that, we want to control where they can’t go.  So, curtain … having made the decision, we wanted to act on it straight away.  So I did a bit of research into ready-made curtains – ideally, we’d have the fabric of our choice and I’d either make them or have them made, but that would take too long as we felt a strange sort of urgency.  Why?  Probably for the same reason I became decisive yesterday and wrote those letters and made those phone calls, but I can’t identify it.  It was time, that’s all.

Having looked on various websites, we went to The Range, which is at probably the worst signposted retail park in Norwich, if not the country – or the world, for all I know.  We’ve been there before, we always make at least one mistake and sometimes drive around every single area before finding the quite self-contained bit we’re looking for.  Truly, it’s dreadful.  But I only made two mistakes on the way in and one on the way out, which has to be an improvement on previous occasions.  And we found that the most suitable curtains of all were also reduced in price, quite fortuitously, and we bought a pole and so on – and then we went to the supermarket almost next door and wandered around helplessly – gosh, aren’t big supermarkets wretched?  – for some time, but found every section we’d been looking for in the end.  They didn’t have all the spices I wanted, mind you.  No mace, no allspice (I have ground, I wanted the whole ones) and no celery seed.  Though they had asafoetida.  I dunno.

I’m useless with a drill, it’s not my thing, but LT is pretty good, though our very solid walls and centuries-old oak nearly proved the master of him.  But the job is done, and we only decided to do it this morning.  Ree-markable.  Though, truth to tell, we decided that one of the supports for the pole is in the wrong place, as a cat might still slip past it, so he’ll redo it a bit further on tomorrow.

And he cooked dinner too.  Truly, a pearl among swine.  No wait, do I mean that?  A pearl beyond price?  A pearly king?

A jolly good chap, anyway.  Hoorah for Tim.

2 comments on “Z says three cheers

  1. Liz

    The last time I needed to buy herbs and spices from my local supermarket, I noticed that the range they stock had been significantly reduced and there was very little that was not the shop’s own brand.

    Reply
    1. Z Post author

      This was Sainsbury’s, and the shop was much bigger than I like in a supermarket. There were things one wouldn’t have seen a few years ago, such as the asafoetida, but really basic things weren’t available. Seems peculiar.

      Reply

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