shewhomust | The colour of hyacinths

The bedroom carpet was delivered and fitted this morning. I was very relieved to see that it was indeed the colour I had chosen - chosen in the sense of going round John Lewis's carpet department saying "Yes, but do you have a darker purple?" to the assistant until at last he conceded that they could, for a price, provide something suitable. I'd have liked at least to consider a shade darker yet, but this wasn't an oprion: carpets are mostly beige this year. So the delivery note which described it as "hyacinth" was making me nervous. It's more a share of plum, I think. Anyway, it looks fine.

We had scheduled delivery of our new mattress to be sure it would not arrive until the carpet was safely laid. Now we have the carpet,

durham_rambler telephoned John Lewis to see whether delivery could be brought forward. He explained that he didn't have any documentation for the order. "It's

durham_rambler, is it?" said the person he was speaking to.
"Yes - how did you know?"
"I'm psychic."
We agreed that he had presumably identified the caller phone number, but that this was a good answer.

He couldn't, however, expedite our mattress. But it will probably arrive before the curtains, anyway. And now we have to replace the glass shade from the wall light - and find a lampshade for the center light. We appear to have become people who buy home furnishing.