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A new look for the new year

You sometimes read in the papers about houses, or  just bedrooms, which have been left untouched by the occupants since the original owner died, many years earlier. That  really doesn’t strike me as very healthy. I may have a huge Christopher-shaped hole in my life, but preserving the house as it was last August is hardly going to help me to deal with things.

So when I had the dining-room redecorated in September, only weeks after Christopher died, I took the opportunity to swap the pictures around on the walls, and to change where I sit at the table. The main reasons for that were to make wall-space for a new dresser, and for me to be closer to the radiator. However, it has the side effect that I’m not looking at the same pictures on the same wall as I’ve been facing for the past twelve years we’ve lived here, so the lack of Christopher in my field of view isn’t so glaringly obvious.

That seemed to work without being too painful, so I’m taking the principle further. Rob, who decorated the dining-room, is coming back tomorrow to start work on tiling the en-suite bathroom. I’m looking forward to having that done, and again it makes the subtle point that I’m looking forwards, not back.  I also have bought some new bed-linen in the sales yesterday, which gives the bedroom a whole new look.

On the subject of bed-linen, one of the things I’ve really struggled with since Christopher died is making the bed. Changing the duvet cover is one of those things that is trivial with two people, but on my own I just don’t have enough pairs of hands. My sister solved that one for me by giving me some duvet clips as a stocking-filler for Christmas. They hold the top corners of the duvet in place, making it so much easier to get the cover on the duvet without everything slipping out of control. Another niggling problem solved – thanks J!

{ 1 } Comments

  1. Tim Hope | 14 January 2011 at 8:07 pm | Permalink

    I’m glad that this blog is still here.

    When I change the Duvet I climb inside and “pretend to be a ghost” – Works for me anyway…