Sunday thoughts

Titling a post ‘Sunday thoughts’ sounds like it should be an introduction to Songs of Praise, and that you will find me poised with a benevolent expression in a book-lined study ready to impart my goodly wisdom. Instead you find me wearing really old green cords dug from the bedroom time forgot, paired with an equally striking green jumper. Think, if you will, of a 5ft5 runner bean, but with red socks, and you pretty much have my ensemble for the day.

The bedroom time forgot is the spare room, the room I grew up in from the age of months to 15 years until I graduated to my elder brother’s room when he moved out. Over time, it has been turned into the ‘I’ll-just-put-that-in-there’ room, and soon enough it was piled from floor to ceiling with stuff. Everything I have ever thought I had thrown away has reappeared in that room when I least expect it. My mum simply hates getting rid of anything, and all has sentimental value attached to it – eg, your dad once sat on that cushion. Even if my dear dad did once sit on it when he was alive, there are other things to keep for that sort of reason, and not blooming cushions. You get the idea.

The worst is when I contribute to the bedroom time forgot with my own piles of junk, i.e. the boxes of books from the flat. I have to rearrange everything to fit them in, which takes a day of Krypton Factor style sliding and slotting. And that’s when the fun begins – my mum suddenly becomes convinced that all the items she ever needs or desires are to be found within that room. Recently, and fair enough, it was the Christmas decorations. I growl and plan a day of rearranging in order to find them, and then spend hours lugging things around, having to stop constantly to find cats and lift them out of trouble as they cause yet another small avalanche of old clothes. I find all sorts of things I last threw away in 1993, rescued and hidden in the spare room. I get rid of two black bin bags of nasty out-of-shape moth-eaten clothes and tell mum on no account is she to go through them and get anything out. I expect I shall see that misshapen woollen black skirt yet again one of these days.

Finally I find the Christmas decorations and emerge victorious. I pack everything away and close the door – success! Except now mum thinks I haven’t found them all. ‘Where’s that gold garland? It must be still in there’. This is the sort of thing I shall hear from now until Christmas Eve, when she finds everything else she needs in the cupboard under the stairs. I am starting to think my whole house is held up on old fluorescent T Shirts, broken wicker baskets and various knitting magazines.

My other Sunday thought is why is it easier to type (or at least think of what I want to write) when I have the Word doc page size set to 75% or 100%, but when I have it at 150% and therefore easier on my eyes, can I not type at all?