I was walking with Daughter 1 and Grandson in the Queen's Park this morning. The hill was looking very atmospheric: the mist swirled (yes, a June day in Edinburgh) and the ruined chapel loomed romantically on the craggy bit above the loch. And Grandson was looking devastatingly fetching and cheery as usual. However, I'd forgotten my phone and therefore couldn't delight you with photos of either the landscape or the descendant. So I offer you - above - Andy Murray winning a match at Wimbledon this afternoon ...
... my garden in this evening's sunlight, complete with many many lurking slugs....
and some of my paeonies, before the torrential rain (which always comes at peak paeony time) ruins them, probably tomorrow.
But the main point of this post is to give you a piece of advice.
Next time you're lying in the bath at one in the morning, looking at the cobweb hanging down from the ceiling - the one that you keep noticing when you're in the bath, but never see at any more useful time - what you should do when you get out of the bath is to go into the kitchen (never mind if you disturb the cats), take your long-handled feather duster out of the broom cupboard and remove the cobweb with this.
What you shouldn't do is to get out the bath and flap your towel up at the ceiling with the idea of dislodging the cobweb that way.
Why not? Well, what might happen is that you might miss the cobweb but, as the towel returns on its downward trajectory, it might knock the heavy blue ornamental perfume bottle off the shelf above the sink.
This might then fall into the sink with a crash like a million iron foundries collapsing and smash into a trillion tiny blue shards, which spray over your unclothed person and the entire bathroom.
And then you might notice that it had also cracked the sink.
This would make you very annoyed with yourself. Especially as the sink is fitted into a counter top which is nicely cut to fit it. No doubt the sink is a long-discontinued shape and so you'll need to get a new counter top too.
And then you might notice that it had also cracked the sink.
This would make you very annoyed with yourself. Especially as the sink is fitted into a counter top which is nicely cut to fit it. No doubt the sink is a long-discontinued shape and so you'll need to get a new counter top too.
Anyway. I hope you're grateful for this advice. I like to spread comfort and joy. More than I like to spread bits of glass.
Thank you for that good advice - if ever I am in a similar situation I shall remember it. It's akin to the time my mother used a tea towel instead of a fly swat, pity about the ceiling light......
ReplyDeleteI knocked a small dish off a shelf with a similar technique last year! Haven't owned up to it though - a little glue was quickly applied to the two pieces. Didn't you have a glue-stick handy???
ReplyDeleteOops. Sounds like something I would do. Mind you, my bathroom needs a makeover.....
ReplyDeleteThe slugs - if you gather a mountain of seashells and sort of smash them into small bits and spread them under your plants, your slugs will pack their bags and depart. Or you could get some pet friendly slug repellent, of course. That works too.
Such good advice! I'll be sure to remember it, since I don't imagine it would be a lot of fun rounding up a trillion spiky bits of glass, no matter how beautiful a blue they were. Sure hope none of those spiky bits lodged in your nakedness....
ReplyDeleteOoh! Like Molly I hope you aren't hurt!
ReplyDeleteYou didn't actually say you had done this thing - but I read between the lines and presume that you did.( or why would you write about it? ) Clearing up shattered glass naked at that hour certainly has no appeal, BUT I can imagine exactly how it could have happened.
I'll go for the spider web remaining from now on.
my luck, i would fall into the tub, taking the shower curtain with me as well as the shower head with the water running full blast!
ReplyDeleteOh dear, thanks for the advice but it's one of those things that happens to me as well. Always think before acting is what my husband says. Easier said than done!!
ReplyDeleteI'm sorry. All the relaxing effects of the bath undone AND a big mess to clean up. Not to mention the scare the rest of the occupants must have had!
ReplyDeleteVery decent of you to give such good advice Isabelle......please tell me that you did utter a swear word....or is it just me that does that...when a glass pan lid breaks on the tiled kitchen floor and the bits go everywhere..........
ReplyDeleteOh, Isabelle, thank you for my early morning laugh, what, I wasn't supposed to laugh? I manage to break a measuring jug yesterday, the drawer above had collapsed so, with great difficulty removed all the spice jars then yanked the drawer open causing jugs to fall on ceramic tiles. Mind you, I was dressed at the time...
ReplyDeleteRe Lind's advice, cat litter works too for the little darlings if you should happen not to be near any sea shells.
And fingers crossed there may be a blog post shortly......
We've all done something equally daft and had that "why the hell did I do THAT??" moment afterwards. I sympathise but on the upside - surely this is what a newly retired Mr Life is there for??
ReplyDeleteLesley xx
Been there, done similar on more than one occasion! It's that horrible slow motion moment as the incredibly heavy object is dislodged by the towel, blind, duster or whatever and it begins to fall inexorably towards a hard surface which may also break .....
ReplyDeletePlease check your houshold insurance, our's has a clause about accidental damage and another regarding what it coyly calls 'sanitary wear' It paid up when a heavy jar cracked our basin. Some insurances will replace an entire matched bathroom suite if one item is damaged and the suite is no longer in production.
Oh no! You could have done without that "Cobweb moment".... I hope there will still be a sink to fit in the space. A cat once did this in our downstairs cloakroom and we ended up with a broken sink. We never did find out who the culprit was.
ReplyDeleteYour garden looks lovely, despite all the enemies lurking beneath!
Wonderful advice, and thanks from someone who once cracked a large and expensive window while swatting a fly (with a shoe!
ReplyDeleteOoohhhh noooooo! And yes. What Molly said. About your nakedness. May it remain unscathed!
ReplyDeleteGood advice! I figured you'd dislodge a spider who'd come after you. I only deal with cobwebs in full daylight and with a long handled duster.
ReplyDeleteOh Isabelle...did that really all happen, or nearly happen, and you made up the rest for a laugh? I'm not good at reading between lines, but either way, I hope you are okay. Broken glass is not funny. Ken broke an ornament the other day in the lounge room...trying to find glass splinters on carpet is NOT fun.
ReplyDeleteOh no! I'm so sorry to hear about the disaster. The only thing worse would have been if the bottle was full of rancid perfume. Perhaps put the shards of glass out for the slugs to slide across?
ReplyDeleteI have had a cracked sink since we moved here in 1997. Maybe I need a spider attack.
ReplyDeleteYes, this is very useful. Also useful on the glass front is not to go on washing glasses in the basin after a suspicious noise and sensation warns you that you may just have lacerated your lower thumb. Must be the week for glass disasters. Never mind. As you say, flowers bloom before the rain. Apologies for calling you Pat earlier this week. Am suitably mortified.
ReplyDeleteGood lord, sorry about that. I hate when innocent beginnings end up in fiery hellishness. It's just not fair, is it? Bear and I came home once to a smashing sound in the kitchen just as we walked in the door. Our cat had jumped all the way to the top of the cabinets and knocked over a decorative bottle of dried flowers in oil, which shattered and sprayed oil all over the entire kitchen, and all over his fur. We were finding and cleaning up oil for a year afterwards...
ReplyDelete