Silly Saturday

I guess I could have blipped this as a "what is it?" but then I couldn't tell its story.

It's probably a rather silly blip, but that's OK as it's Silly Saturday. And it'll do for the Derelict Sunday challenge too.

My Editor and I have only had 3 vacuum cleaners during our 38 years of marriage, and the most recent one is only a year or two old so you can guess that the first two lasted well (with only minimal DIY repairs, necessitated only by occasional misuse!). In fact the first one still works but is now kept for dirty jobs.

Which leads me to explain the photo. Following a delay caused by our China trip, I got round today to doing a final clean-up of the fireplace in our lounge: it got very mucky during the chimney-rebuild and re-roofing job (see here). There was still a lot of mixed mortar dust and soot to clean away and I wouldn't have been popular if I'd used our newer vacuum. The problem is that the hose on the old one is perishing and keeps splitting: each time I use it I seem to have to cut away another broken bit so it's now only about 1/3 of its original length. This is today's broken bit. I rather like its funny shape and the evidence of years of use on its surface.

Thanks as always to admirer for hosting Silly Saturday and to Marlieske for Derelict Sunday.