Shifting

We have been moving furniture.  This, for Mike, is very anxiety inducing.  Many men don’t like furniture to be moved, treating it as a kind of bereavement.  My husband belongs to this number, so, when I first broached the subject, he put his head in his hands and moaned softly.    I think he also rocked a little but I couldn’t swear to it.   I, on the other hand, am a rearranger.  Left to my own devices and given a fellow shifter to grab the other end, I would move beds, tables and chairs around on a regular basis.  We compromise by shifting a lot less than I would like and more than is pleasing to Mike.

But having a table next to the armoire looks lovely.   And Mike’s study is really improved by bringing the green coffee table from the barn and moving the large dining table out.  Also one of the spare bedrooms is much better with two single beds, than with a double and a single. 

I am seriously considering not providing my guests with the option of a double bed.  The two spare bedrooms are too small for doubles anyway.  So any guest couples feeling particularly amorous could squash up together or be creative with floor space.  But this will mean disposing of the double bed in the other small spare room and replacing it with a single.  And Mike’s head might fall off.

We hopefully have guests arriving tomorrow, though not amorous ones.  Derek and Jo (married) were due to come down with their friend, James.  Jo, though, has had to stay home for many urgent reasons, and Derek and James visited Normandy and were coming on to us, but their car broke down last night.  We seem to have failed to make proper sacrifices to the God of the Visit.   Our last lot of expected guests were detained by air strikes.  Derek and James are still hoping to get to us tomorrow, though.

In the meantime, our main visitors continue to be bugs and the odd mouse.  We found a very tiny mouse staggering around in the kitchen the other day.  Mice would generally be given short shrift but this one was so young it didn’t have its eyes open.  Mike, the friend of all creatures, tried to feed it with diluted milk and tiny scraps of muesli but it died overnight. 

 

 

 

At the moment the weather is hot, but until Monday it was very very hot.  The dog and I didn’t walk but sloped off to the river in the afternoons.  I read and swam and she soaked herself in the water up to her neck.  She is a deep paddling dog but not a swimming one – she likes to feel river bottom under her paws.