FROM WHERE I SIT -- NO. 1

I had lots of problems with this both from the intrusive mantle piece on the right and lighting in general.

From where I sit in the "sitting room", I see four different "pictures". This is my favourite. The portrait is of Himself's grandmother. The copper measuring jug was purchased at an antiques centre half way between Perth and Dundee. The sofa is Victorian and, so help me, I made those cushions. I cannot believe I ever did things like that. The oak kist is 18th Century Scottish. The patterned shape on the floor is part of Cloud's posh downstairs bed.

Himself and I have identical chairs in the sitting room, the only difference being that his has a built-in snooze facility whereas mine does not. His faces the TV set square on; mine faces a window although the TV set is easily visible.

I call it the sitting room because it can't be a living room. We don't live in it. It can't be called an old fashioned parlour. The word derives from the French pour parler, to talk. The television set puts paid to that. We do not have dinner parties wherein the ladies withdraw, leaving the men at the table with their decanter of port and their store of off-colour stories, so it couldn't possibly be a drawing room. We don't lounge in it so that's out, too. Soggiorno is the word in Italian, but I don't think we sojourn there, either.

I spend almost no time in it at all. The television set is faulty and can get nothing but sports, the news and Master Mind.

Tomorrow, if it is still raining, I will do one of the other pictures and it will explain why any workmen who have occasion to be here call the room something else entirely.