I have assembled my new button-manufacturing machine.
Actually, Mark assembled most of it. He was not at home when I started putting it together, but very fortunately turned up during some of the more complicated spanner-related bits, instantly knew which spanner would work with the nuts, and whizzed everything into place with an air of depressing confidence.
I did not like to mention that I was very pleased about this, because of not wishing to look like a clumsy incompetent.
It had come from China without any instructions, and assembling things that need spanners is not one of my key skills.
Still, it is done, and in a very few days now with any luck I will be popping out velvet buttons with consummate professional ease, after which we will have a sophisticated velvet headboard with tufted velvet buttons in no time at all.
I know all about this now I have watched a video on YouTube.
It is sitting on my desk even as I write. I am looking forward to using it with the sort of weary anticipation that knows the first fifteen attempts will be a tiresome expensive waste of buttons, velvet and probably a whole afternoon.
I have cleared a space for doing it, by which I mean an intellectual space, not a space on the desk. My desk is tidy because I have had another day of housework.
I have finished cleaning and organising life, and tomorrow I will not need to dust anything, not even the things that I have not bothered to dust today, because they are above my eye level and I don’t care about them. Tomorrow will be occupied by the velvety beginnings of upholstery buttons.
It was not an exciting day, the mood of which is probably best summed up by telling you that I was entirely thrilled to discover that all of the washing dried splendidly on the line in the back yard again. Mark went off to Elspeth’s to fix some van-related difficulties, and the day was my own.
He took the dogs, which always helps enormously. I am very fond of the dogs, especially when they are peacefully asleep or in the garden, but they are a liability when I am trying to do housework. Somehow it does not matter which stair I am trying to hoover, there is always a dog on it, and when I go upstairs to hoover the office they are usually under the desk there as well. They are sleepily in front of the fire when I am trying to refill the log pile, and excitedly under my feet if I am cooking anything at all, because you never know when there might be a spare bit for a little dog. Even a dropped bit is worth hanging about for, unless it is something boring like carrot.
I know some vets recommend that you give fat dogs carrots. The idea is that you still feel as if you are a kindly and virtuous person because you are generously giving your dog a treat, but the dog becomes thin because a carrot is dull and they do not bother to eat it.
I think this is just a pointless waste of good carrots.
One of the taxi drivers very kindly gave us a bag of dog treats that make his dog sick. Our dogs have got fairly robust digestions, with an ability to picnic enthusiastically on cow dung, so we thought they would probably be all right, and indeed they have been wonderful. Rosie, who is rotund enough almost to deserve carrots, went into an ecstasy of round-eyed delight. We are not the sort of people who purchase dog treats, unless you count the bag of walnuts at Christmas, and she was thrilled by a small sack of stuff called things like Squiggly Piggy Tails, and Cheese And Bacon Lip Smackerels, and Chewy Twisters.
The kindly taxi driver had assured me that nothing had gone past its sell-by-date, which made me laugh, since I am perfectly happy to feed any of us on out-of-date things, and usually the dogs only get stuff that is so far out of date that it is actually beginning to seep fungal matter out of its dish.
Now I come to think of it, there are a couple of things like that in the fridge at the moment.
On balance, perhaps I had better spend some of tomorrow doing housework.
The buttons might have to wait until I have disinfected the fridge.
