The curse of the travel pillows......

Here's me sleeping on a plane. Do you notice what's missing??? The travel pillow? How can I sleep well on a plane without a travel pillow? Well the truth is I can't. And that is why I seem to own eight travel pillows.
Travel pillows are great inventions for those of us who have to travel cattle class. The only disadvantage of them is that you feel like a right pillock blowing them up. I'm not sure why, but somehow you feel like you are doing something illegal, trying to subtly blow into them. It just never feels like a natural thing to be doing on a plane surrounded by strangers.....
But the main problem with them is that you always forget them. Or you accidently pack them into your hold luggage and only realise after you have passed through security. Which leaves you with a dilemma. Will I risk not having one?Or will I just buy a new one to add to my collection? I always buy a new one. The times I have flown without one, I look on in envy at the people snoozing comfortably with their head supported in a perfect position. You sit the whole flight, with your head falling off your neck, kicking yourself that you didn't spend the 4.95 in duty free.
When you get home you place it with the other seven in your cupboard. And then on your next trip, you realise at the airport you have forgotten it. So you buy one and when you are returning you accidently pack in your hold luggage. So one trip: two travel pillows. When will I ever learn? I would advice anyone to buy shares in travel pillows.

BBS: big brown sofa

There are three types of people in this world:

Type 1: people who have taste,

Type 2: people who don't have taste but know it, and

Type 3: people who don't have taste, but they think they do.

These three types of people should NEVER go to furniture shopping together. Unfortunately I recently broke that rule.....

I am person type 2. I have no idea what colours go together. I just don't see it. In my opinion everything looks OK to me. You can mix brown, green, pink and purple in your outfit, it all looks good to me. But I have learnt from experience that may not go. So I learnt a couple of rules. You can mix black and white apparently with no problems, blue and black can look weird together if you are not careful etc etc. So when in doubt I ask Dr. P.

Many mornings feature the question "does this go?" and a nod or a polite "maybe not" fixes the problem. So Dr. P is type 1. She can dress herself with no problems whatsoever and it always turns out just fine.

My condition is genetic. I get all this from my Mum. She is a clear type 3: in denial. She has no idea what colours go together, but worst of all she doesn't know she has no idea. Very unfortunate.......

So I was furnishing a flat recently to let out and took along Dr. P for advice. But then we had a problem. My mum wanted to help. Mrs. K. had seen a big brown sofa in a shop 15 miles away which was a great bargain. Dr. P. told me immediately that a big brown sofa would look strange in the little flat. I had no idea, but trusted her judgement.

But Mrs. K. was relentless. Talking over and over about the sofa and asking "won't you even go and look at it?". It was 15 miles in the wrong direction, I knew it wouldn't look good in the flat. So how did I find myself in a van travelling to see the big brown sofa???

When we got there, the sofa was big... and brown....To me, it was a sofa, to Dr. P it was a monstrosity and to Mrs. K., it was the bargain of the century.

I don't like making decision, but it was my decision to make. It was like a nightmare, when you are stuck in a room and every exit leads to Hell....Eventually I decided to take the big brown sofa. I knew Dr. P would only be mad at me for a few hours, whereas Mrs. K would probably talk about the bargain I missed for the next 7 years.....

On the way back, I was depressed. That was when Dr. P broke her stony silence and said "well this is kind of funny, you can write about it on your blog". And we laughed at the ridiculous situation of the Type 3 person choosing the sofa.

Luckily none of us had to live with the sofa. That is the job of my poor tenant. When viewing the flat, his grandmother came along. She LOVED the big brown sofa. And convinced her grandson this was a great flat. So the big brown sofa did no harm. If my present tenant leaves, I just have to find an eighty year old lady to move in..........