The Remains of the Day!!

Not the novel by Kazuo Ishiguro, (which incidentally was later made into a film starring Anthony Hopkins and Emma Hopkins, with nearby Dyrham Park as the setting), but the remains of my ironing board!! Let me explain...

Was still suffering from London/BQQ-lag, and the weather didn't help (grey, wet and cold - was seriously considering putting on the heating, in June!!), when I was asked to take up the hems on a pair of trousers. No problem, done it many times before, and with the help of iron-on Wundaweb, just a quick job.

Turned up the first hem beautifully, perfectly measured, perfectly straight and neat. Except I then realised I'd turned it up on the outside of the trouser leg!!!

Managed to quickly unglue the hem, but despite various attempts, I couldn't get the remains of the stickiness off from the outside of the trousers! White Spirit was a last resort and luckily it did the job, but it soaked through into the ironing board, so I took the outer cover off to give it a wash. In doing so, a little pile of sawdust fell to the floor...

Thankfully I then took the ironing board outside, as when I removed the metallic heat-resistant cover, half the wooden ironing board base just disintegrated in front of my eyes! And when I looked at the pile of sawdust on the floor, a family of Woodlice emerged from the pile!! So that's why they call them Woodlice!!!!

Quickly dashed in to find my camera, and just about managed to capture the last of the mass Woodlice exodus, though you can see he wasn't hanging around! But how freaky is that to think that every time I've been ironing, there's been a colony of Woodlice merrily chomping their way through the board!!

So the moral of the story is don't try and take up the hem on a pair of trousers when you're half asleep, and beware of ironing-board-munching little critters!!