A dodo, a duvet and Danielewski.

This weekend I bought a dodo and I've named her Pickwick and that's really all I have to say on that front.

[This Wiki entry may explain why I've named a ceramic sculpture of an extinct bird after a Dicken's character. It will also explain why the large soapstone egg pictured in the middle this post is called Alan. Nowhere in that Wiki page however will you find an explanation of why or how I thought this was a perfectly sane thing to tell you about ...until I began writing it down that is!].

Anyway ....

...do you remember at the end of my previous blog post [the one about the jersey fabric necklace] I mentioned that we'd bought a new duvet cover that we'd have to now make room for in our tiny linen cupboard? Well, what I forgot to mention was that the said new addition was almost impossibly lovely:

During a thunderstorm yesterday I suffered the heat and humidity to iron this beauty ready for it's debut airing. It was creased because I always wash my new bedding before sleeping in it based on advice from two sources to not trust the 'substances' used in the manufacturing process .

Unsurprisingly, the first word of advice on this came from my mother. More surprisingly perhaps is that this was seconded by an anecdote told to me by a beautician while she gave me the only manicure/pedicure I've ever paid for. An anecdote which began with her purchasing some new underwear .... and ended with her lying naked on a bathroom floor. An anecdote about allergic reactions. Obviously. Where did you think that story was going?

The two additional pillowcases were ones I found in my Grandma's cupboard when we cleared her house and I love how the colours and prints both compliment and clash with the new ones.

So, while all this may be endearingly new, very pretty and especially happy-making, I'm left with the recurring issue of how to fit the bed linen I've just taken off and laundered back in the cupboard without having to throw anything away. Which is where the book I'm currently reading comes in:

I won't give too much away because it's a mystery / horror / thriller / completely magnificent yet impossible to define novel filled with suspense and I don't want to spoil anything for those who haven't read it yet. So,allow me to just mention that the story centres [quite literally] around a vast and inexplicable space which opens up within a family home instilling fear and terror in all who learn about it.

It's a magnificent work of literature recommended to me by someone who knew my proclivity for postmodern style fiction and I can well imagine studying it at degree level, there's so much to be intellectually unpacked from it and yet ...

... right now,

.... as my tiny, single-shelved, much strained, linen cupboard threatens to explode and vomit its contents clear across my craftroom, sweeping me away in a suffocating, yet colourful, cotton tidal wave ....

I find myself sitting here and comtemplating that, on the off chance that a sinister cavernous room suddenly appears inside my house.... I might just be able to find a use for it!

;)