Categories: uncategorized
Date: 28 October 2005 21:24:50
...somewhere amongst the chaos that's been our house since our new flooring was installed earlier in the week. Never mind. It won't have gone far. It's not as if anyone else in the family will be rushing to use it!
Still - no more vacuuming ever again! Downstairs at least - all that's needed is a quick whisk over with a broom. Who was it that once said 'Life's too short to stuff a mushroom?' When you're sharing a house with a cat, dog, birds and a couple of hairy males, vacuuming definitely joins the list of things to avoid, along with mushroom stuffing, ironing underwear, and flower arranging.
I sense the animals aren't quite so enthusiastic about the changes. I can see their line of thought: 'She shuts us up in the kitchen for two days while someone with a strange smell makes loud banging and drilling sounds. Then when she lets us out, our nice warm cosy play area has disappeared and all we get in exchange is this nasty, cold, shiny floor that keeps trying to trip us up and makes noises like a demented woodpecker whenever we step on it. All those interesting smells have vanished - and where, oh where are our 'sleeping spots?' First morning out - the tip-tapping stopped after about 20 minutes, and mindful that with Miffdog silence is anything but 'golden,' I peeked out into the hall and nearly killed myself laughing at the sight on our resident hairy horror clinging to the (carpeted) bottom stair like a drowning man clutching at a straw. Mr Miff later took pity on him and gave him his own dog shaped offcut from the old carpeting.
Managed to escape the first day's clearing up operations by virtue of offering to travel up to sunny Lady Godiva land again. (Note to group of students who got on at Oxford, blocked up the aisle and held the entire carriage spellbound by their intelligent conversation: Please, please, please. brush up on your geography. Or adjust your attitudes. Life exists outside the dreaming spires - you know. There are people who don't live near the metropolis. And no, we don't all pick our noses and pull straws out of our hair. Some of us even know folk who live (gasp!) North of Hadrian's Wall. Above all, look at an atlas before you open your mouths. Repeat after me - 'Birmingham is not ****** 'up North,' it's the Midlands!') Grrrr! Thus spake the perimenopausal Miffy.
Nothing like throwing a perimescent (my invention)/adolescent hissy fit, mind you. Something happened later that did make me think that this last little monologue, (oh how I wish I'd had the gumph to say it to their faces) wasn't unconnected to some of my own hangups. Strangely enough, after over 20 years married to someone with family in Coventry, I've never yet visited the Cathedral. So, with less than an hour before I needed to catch my taxi, I decided to do a self-guided whistle-stop tour. Strange. I don't really know what to make of the place. Maybe my first impressions of it were overlaid by other folk's accounts of it for anything to 'resonate.' Maybe I was too rushed to connect with anything much in particular, let alone God. Except, as I was winding my way back up towards the entrance when I was stopped in my tracks by sparkling reddish light streaming through one of the nave windows. A group of tourists was headed back in the other direction - and as they, too paused to look, I caught a fragment of what their guide was telling them. That this window was one of a set designed to represent the different stages of our journey, from birth through childhood, youth, maturity, to old age and the afterlife. The 'red' windows, apparently depicts the struggles of adolescence and the search for one's identity. Hmmm. There's those of us who may be past adolescence biologically, but faithwise... well... This spoke a lot to me about some of my struggles in recent years...Not that I'm going to blog about them here. Oh no!!:) Let's just say I went away with more than a handful of leaflets. I've looked up the Cathedral since and you can read about the windows here if you're interested.
handfulhttp://www.historiccoventry.co.uk/cathedrals/newcathedral.html#sidewindows
Lest you're beginning to think that I've flipped completely, rest assured that I'm back to normal. By the time I got back to the station the only heavenly things on my mind were those to be found between the covers of the November issue of 'Woman and Home.' Yes, dear fellow bloggers - I found the cover's promise of 'Colin Firth - revealed!' too good to resist and sold my soul for £3 something and a FREE W and H diary!