“What do you think about putting the sofa where the table is?”
I drag my attention away from the rather complex line of thought I am attempting to develop for a piece of writing about the slippery concept of ‘home’. “What?” I respond, unable to completely subdue the hint of irritation surfacing in the tone of my voice.
Simon is sitting on the old sofa just in front of my ‘desk’, which is actually a small table that is home to my laptop, an annoyingly unreliable bedside lamp, and the usual mess of paper, half-empty biscuit packets and dirty coffee mugs that endow the table with the necessary characteristics that entitle it to be called my desk. It is an unsociable sofa, placed with its back against the wall opposite the bedroom door, with two dog beds on the floor right in front of it. To sit on it requires negotiating space for your feet on the dog beds between Rufus and Stubbs. It also implies that you are about to engage in a non-social activity – such as reading, net-booking, or (if you are me) snoozing. Simon had been reading something on his Kindle – his most recently acquired piece of irritating technological gadgetry (which I will almost certainly come to love as much as he, once I manage to overcome my unreasonable prejudices).
“I was just thinking that it might be nice to have the sofa in front of the fire,” Simon clarifies.
The weather has turned chilly of late. The sort of damp, misty chill that creeps into your aching bones and makes you dream of hibernation. It is the time of year for lighting the fire and snuggling up in its warm glow on a cosy sofa, with a good book and a cup of hot chocolate. Except that the sofa is nowhere near the wood-burning stove. That space is currently occupied by the dining table and chairs – being the biggest space in the room, and nearest to the kitchen.
When I last rearranged the furniture in the room (It’s something I do when I get a bit bored and feel like a change), I considered the sofa-in-front-of-the-fire option. I tried it out, and then discounted it on the grounds that it didn’t leave enough floor space for three dog beds, and it didn’t leave enough space around the dining table to accommodate all the visiting guests who would be sharing meals with us at some point. But now we have only two dogs, and with summer done and dusted, we are unlikely to have any more staying visitors for at least another six months or so.
But, being me, I have to raise objections. I explain to Simon that I have already had that idea, and tried it out, and I list for him all the reasons why it doesn’t work. He listens patiently, nodding and agreeing with the rationality of my arguments. “Yeh, I see the problems. I just thought it would be nice,” he says again.
Suddenly, fed up with my constant objectionableness, and seized with a momentary desire to actually do something, I change direction. “Okay. Let’s do it!” I declare. I stand up, pushing my chair back noisily so that four sleeping cats and two sleeping dogs lift their heads in unison, to see what is going on.
“What… right now?” Simon is frequently frustrated by my tendency to suddenly leap to conclusions at the opposite end of the line that I seem to have been adamantly pursuing. But this time, he doesn’t appear unhappy. “Okay then,” he says, as he carefully puts aside his Kindle and stands in readiness for action.
I look around the room, and consider what needs to move where, and how to go about the process most efficiently. It’s a bit like one of those Christmas cracker puzzle games where you have only have one empty square on a grid, and you have to slide the little square pieces around in a particular order to arrive at the eventual desired arrangement. I look at the floor and consider the tumbleweeds of dog hair and chewed kindling wood that are drifting around it in the cold draught of air that is sneaking in through the gap under the front door. “I think we need to vacuum first.”
Then I look at the clock, and at the two dogs, now roused from their morning nap, and looking expectantly at me with hopeful eyes and full bladders. “I think we need to take the dogs for a walk, before we vacuum,” I add.
“And this is why we never get anything done.” Simon shakes his head in a mild display of exasperation. “Why don’t I take the dogs for a walk, while you vacuum? That should remove one stage of delay from the process.” I glance at the chill greyness infusing the view through the window, and consider the options. “Sounds like a good plan” I concur.
As Simon wraps himself in water-and-wind-proof layers in preparation for the walk, I head off to the bathroom to fetch the vacuum cleaner. The washing machine lead obstructing my reach reminds me of the load of washing that has recently finished, and needs hanging up to dry. I think better of mentioning it to Simon, and quickly grab the most creaseable of items to spread out over the drying rack, before embarking on the mammoth task of dog-and-cat-hair removal from the floors and furniture.
But once I have a plan in mind, I don’t like to hang around. And while Simon is out with the hounds I manage to clear the room of all offending detritus and move the furniture into the desired position. It looks a bit weird, but it achieves the most important goal. The sofa now has pride of place, bang-smack in the middle of the room, directly in front of the fire.
Simon returns, leaving the dogs outside in their pen, and the vacuuming has driven all the cats outside. For a few brief moments, the room remains hair-and-mud free, while we decide on the finer points of the remaining furniture arrangements. There are too many cat chairs and dog beds for the available remaining space, but with some Dr Who-like trickery, we manage to find places for everything, and still have enough room to be able to walk between the furniture to get to other parts of the house. Space is a strange thing. It is sort of nothing, and yet sort of everything at the same time. The room feels totally different because the shapes of the spaces within it have changed. It is a Nice Thing.
And now I am going to finish writing this, find a good book amongst the many that are gathering dust on the shelves, and join Simon (and his blasted Kindle) on the warm and cosy sofa in front of the glowing, ticking wood-burning stove.
Hello Winter.
