I admit, the picture above is an image from the excellent site Pixabay. Nothing quite so festive exists in our house at the moment. We’ve stalled on progress on getting our living room into order; the carpenters who installed the new living room floor advised us to leave it a week to let the oil settle before rolling heavy furniture in, and we took our week away in Devon as the break the floor needed. But having returned, we’re finding that it’s not just a case of rolling the furniture in.
We’re still looking for the colour we want on the walls to replace the dark sage green we’ve had for almost twenty years. We have a stone surround to the fireplace in a strong, dark bluish-green that restricts the range of colours we could have without making visitors want to hurk (and yes, I have looked into replacing the surround – nothing’s as nice as what’s there). It should be easy, but the wall is a patchwork of sample colours that looked ideal on the colour card, but look like a large bird has been very ill at regular intervals when the paint landed on the wall.
We’re filling cracks in the wall that have appeared over the years, painting the new sections of skirting board and putting softer feet on the base of the sofa, brought in from the outside shelter. I wanted to wait until the wall is painted and the room is finished, but today is a Soddit Day.
We won’t get it painted before Christmas. I’m still planting bulbs in the local wood, still sorting Christmas cards (spent three days writing them, with notes, writing an extra card to a friend who is now widowed and facing poor health alone – and then one of our cards was returned to us, which is a whole extra worry). So today we set a series of tasks.
We sanded the Polyfilla, got all the Christmas decoration hooks firmly set into the wall, painted the last four sample patches on the wall (still not sure) and sealed all the Polyfilla with paint from reject samples. A quick coffee and mince pie, and then we set the sofa on its new feet and rolled the TV and stand in. One table and a G&T each later and the room was transformed.
Stuff waiting for all the decorating to be done. We have TV for the first time in seven weeks, we have a warm living room with beautiful new floorboards and we have a sofa to sprawl on. It’s made a huge difference to how we feel. The elderly cats have come to loll on the sofa with us, obviously pleased to be on familiar ground again. We’re not telly addicts by any measure – it’s the return of normal life that has pleased us.
We were going to move all the stray furniture from the dining room back into the living room and then put up the tree in the dining room as usual – but this is a year of changes. TV, sofa, cats and table – tomorrow, the tree goes up in the fashionably sparse living room, the decorations go on and the lights get wound around and switched on. When that happens – I will count it as the start of Christmas, and the painting can wait till next year.
I should think everyone’s the same. You’ve worked hard, you’ve reached the point where it feels as if it’s not worth the effort to write one more card or wrap one more present, and Christmas feels like three months’ slog for a day’s regimented fun. I’ve called a halt. We’re warm, the cats are asleep all around us and we’ll have some festive lights and decs up tomorrow. That’s good enough for me to call it Christmas.
Julia Chalkley 