The reveal

"I'm going to gaze at the curtains over coffee,"  I said, exiting the dining room to remove my past-its-prime disposable contact lens.  (Yes,  just the one.)   


Mr T didn't bat an eyelid, and I'm not sure about that.  You see, even by my standards of banal, idle commentary, it's a new low.  I feel he should be concerned.


Curtain back-story or, mitigating the comment...


We have just redecorated the dining room.  New curtains would be extravagant at this juncture, not to mention wasteful.  So the aged drops were taken to the dry-cleaners.  There was concern.  Phone calls.  Emails even, from the manager.  Were we aware that the beautiful but impossible fabric could not be dry-cleaned and required hand-washing?  And even then, there was considerable risk of shrinkage,  up to 6% or 15cm.


It turns out I was absurdly attached to the curtains lapping the floorboards.  Half-mast was not an option.


But nor could I leave them 'as is, where is'.  Our builders had moved and covered furniture and rugs before taking hammers to the lathe and plaster walls, but were impervious to the curtains - even as they opened the window sash to full height and heaved bits of house out the window.   The residue had to go.


Mr T was persuaded to scale the ladder this evening with laundered soft furnishings, around the time we normally sit down to our post 'goodnighting' of the children caffeine hit, and thus the conflation of ideas.


I did enjoy the coffee and I'm extremely pleased that our making-do resolve with the curtains worked.   ( Just don't look too closely - the hems show some evidence of the strain.)


I would like to say more about 'making-do', because it is part of the free-ranged concept, but first I need to do a little more of it.