10 October 2010 (Sunday) - Mattresses

Yesterday I mentioned we had a new mattress. It wasn’t quite as soft as I was thinking it might be, so that was a result. Mind you, the new pillows are a bit high for comfort. Or that is having two pillows is a bit high, having one is a bit low. I shall thump them tonight and see what happens.

We then went on a drive to get rid of the old mattress. I was all for throwing it over a hedge somewhere in the countryside. As a child in the early 70s I once helped my father to get rid of an old three piece suite that way. I can vividly remember pulling up by a hedge in the black of night, silently pulling knacked furniture out of the van and passing it to my father who (equally silently) hoiked the stuff over said hedge before we sped off as quick as we could before we got caught. They don’t make father-son bonding like that any more. (Thank the Lord!) But in this brave new world of saving the planet from ecological catastrophe, things are different now. Which, in some ways, is a shame really.

‘er indoors ^TM  had advertised the old mattress on FreeCycle. I’ve blogged about FreeCycle before; it is run by the most rude and arrogant administrators, but it is a good way to get rid of unwanted tat. Within half an hour of the advert going up, we had the mattress in the back of my car and were off to deliver the thing to someone who could make good use of it. Personally I wouldn’t want a mattress that has had me sleeping, sweating and farting on it for more years than I care to remember, but it would seem that not everyone is as fussy as I am. It rather bothered me that the people who had me deliver this mattress had a better house than me, and in the driveway was a better car than mine. I suppose (if nothing else) this episode demonstrates why they are better off than I am.

And then shopping. First of all to Lidl where they would seem to be cutting back on the tat that they sell. That’s a shame: the tat is the only good thing about Lidls. And then to Farm Foods where (apparently) the bog roll is cheaper.

Yesterday as we were driving to Eastbourne we saw signposts to Bodiam Castle. I had a vague plan to go there today, but now being on a budget, and having spent too much money yesterday, we knocked that idea on the head. I spent a few minutes coming up with a provisional itinerary for next weekend’s bonfire fun. For those of my loyal readers who will be coming to the Hastings bonfire parade I’ve put a provisional timetable on the “Dates for the Diary” section of the blog. Like most plans I make, I doubt this one will actually bear any resemblance to reality.

I then thought about mowing the lawn. It really needs mowing, but to be honest, I couldn’t be bothered, so I put “Starship Troopers” on the DVD machine and watched that for the afternoon. I enjoyed it, and so put the sequel “Starship Troopers 2” on and promptly fell asleep. After tea I had a mooch round NeverWinter, if only to keep myself awake.

There’s no denying that after yesterday’s fun at Eastbourne, today was something of an anticlimax…

Or so I thought. Just as I was about to publish this blog entry we had a power cut. I’ve recently taken to burning ‘er indoors ^TM ‘s lame candles. It was just as well that I do – without warning the power went. Suddenly the only light was that from the little candle. Without it I would have been in total darkness. The power was out for about fifteen minutes, and from what I can work out from people’s Facebook comments it would seem to have happened over a large part of Ashford. I wonder what caused it…?