Clean Sheets

It was a beautiful day on Saturday.  So much so that when I changed all the bedlinen in our room, rather than immediately putting the doona cover, sheet and pillow cases from the cupboard on the bed, I decided to wash, dry and immediately re-use the stuff that was already on the bed.  There was no danger at all that it wasn't going to dry in time!

Out it went, and flapped on the line.  I went and did useful, we've-got-people-coming-for-Sunday-lunch type things in the kitchen. We pottered about in the garden. We played with the chickens. We moved back inside in the evening and The Builder watched the Germans and the Uruguayans running around on a football ground. It was a very pleasant day.

And then it was bedtime. And the sheet, doona cover and pillow cases remained in the washing basket, where The Builder had put them when he had brought them in earlier in the evening. I had forgotten all about them!!

I certainly wasn't going to set about completely making up a bed at that time in the evening. We decamped, rather to the cat's perplexity, to the spare room.

It was rather like going away for the evening! Nice comfortable bed. Unfamiliar things around us. (I know they are our things but they aren't usually with us when we are sleeping!). Different overnight sounds. Different Sunday morning sounds.  If we should be minded to have a night away and don't have a particular purpose in mind then a night in the spare room would probably do the trick!  But we've decided not to move in there - the tree across the road is quite a magnificent tree, but it's nothing like as interesting as the view from the back of the house where there are lots of trees and a field and a railway line to watch if you have time to sit about in bed in the morning.  Plus, in our room you can hear birds and things in the morning.  In the spare room - you can hear cars!!

Not that we had time to sit about for long in bed on Sunday morning.  There were, after all, people coming for lunch.  I had made, on Saturday, a fishy stock for my seafood soup. I had also made a raised chicken and pork pie for the main course.  But the house needed tidying and the patio needed sorting out and there were potatoes to prep and veg to gather in and a salad to make.  So we did that.  And were easily ready when Bea, Steve and Richard wandered in shortly after 1pm.

It was a lovely afternoon.  The weather held - despite the threats of rain made by the BBC weather bloke on the early morning forecast. We sat on the patio under the gazebo and munched and slurped and sipped. We let the chooks out to potter about.  We grazed on the raspberries in the raspberry bed in between courses. We had lots of wine (apart from Steve, who was driving) and generally had a good time.  Then everyone went back to their respective lounge rooms, ready to watch the football final in South Africa.

I didn't watch it.  I went to bed nice and early.

It's been raining today.  It's weeks and weeks and weeks since we had any proper rain. Well before the chooks arrived.   Everything smells very fresh