Pastoral ironing

It was my pal's mention of the exercise value of various forms of domestic activity - cleaning the floor, ironing and so on - wot did it. When she got onto the horrors of ironing a kingsize duvet cover, I remembered that at the close of the plumbing saga of 2015 I had hastily dumped some clean-but-unironed bedlinen in the linen chest and had forgotten about it as Christmas overtook me.

So, spurred on by a truly foul afternoon, I went looking for said crumpled bed linen and spent a strenuous hour with the iron. I think it's the interminable nature of the wrinkles in a kingsize cover that gets one down - it's so big and an ironing board is so small and there's always a bit down the middle that you can't get to unless you fold the thing, and then that's another horror as the creases go squint unless you have a charming assistant.

I did not, my charming assistant having retreated to the loft in search of music. So, having wrestled until darkness fell outside, I was reduced to taking a photo of this pair of sapsy-faced lovers who had so haunted my labours.