Fluff

Hogeweg - our house, originally uploaded by CharlesFred.

Home alone, Fred in Germany, now climbing a mountain in Czech Republic and mant friends and neighbours away. Even the cleaning lady did not come. There was 40 euros on the dresser which she had not picked up and I thought, I could do with that, so have been cleaning the house this morning. Not ironed all the shirts, so maybe I can help myself to just 20 euros.

However, I have solved the mystery of the bits of white fluff on the carpet in the hall. They have been appearing for a few months now, annoying bits of white fluff on the red carpet and we had no idea where it was coming from. We thought that maybe a mouse was eating the newspapers we keep in a pile ready for taking to the paper recycling unit, but there were no traces of mice or their nibblings.

It was not unbtil I decided to make the bed this morning (a rare thing, I am ashamed to admit) that I realised that the fluff was coming from the towel-like sheet we put over the mattress. What had happened was that Fred had taken to changing the sheets and so on (usually my work) and, for some reason, he was not putting a cotton sheet over the towelling sheet and all the fluff from the towel was creeping out of the bed, onto the wooden floor and out into the hall.

The only mystery left to be solved now is to know what is causing the nasty smell emanating from the drawers next to my side of the bed. It has been there for years, so it cannot be a dead, decaying mouse but I have never found out what it actually is.

No time to find out now, as I am about to cycle over to G's house and drive her to Blankenberge on the Belgian coast to see the fabulous Marc Almond appear with a 24 piece orchestra as part of a Belgian Radio 2 music event. We were in Lokeren altogether about eight years ago where he likewise gave a free open air concert in a Belgian town. It was wonderful then and I hoipe he'll be just as wonderful today.