Overhead the albatross hangs motionless upon the air

You may have read Jon’s blog yesterday where he informed you that – at last – both Animals & Men and the CFZ Yearbook 2010 are now available in the flesh so to speak. He also added a little teaser in the posting mentioning the ‘tea-towel’ hanging over the door in the background, but omitted to actually explain what it was doing there.

Some of you may have thought that this was an enigmatic message from the Director. Some of you may have assumed that it was just one of those senior moments that caused the oversight. However, quite obviously it is NOT an ordinary tea-towel! In fact, it is not a tea-towel at all – I mean how many of you have actually seen a such a thing that size just to dry your tea-cups and plates? Perhaps this is what may have confused you into a puzzled silence? However, Theo has been brave enough to question the existence of said piece of cloth and the unresolved mention of it in the posting.

So for Theo and any others of you who may have been quietly musing on the subject of why it is hanging so ... erm ... elegantly (?) in the inner sanctum that is Jon’s office, I shall spill the beans. The bath towel (or even maybe a beach towel by the shells printed upon its rather tatty surface) is not suspended there for Jon to gaze at in the depths of winter and muse upon holidays in the sun. Neither is it there to hide the faces of those long past residents who may visit us, as they are prone to do on occasion.

I wish there was some scientific explanation for its existence, but I am afraid to say that it is there for pure comfort. It is pinned to the door – albeit in a very Heath Robinson manner - to stop the draught whistling through the letter-box - and the coldness that panes of glass magically emanate during cold weather - from encroaching into Jon’s work space and causing icicles to hang from his proboscis! Perish the thought – he would look like Jack Frost, Ebenezer Scrooge and Hagrid-on-ice all rolled into one.

To solve the problem, we will be trawling around some charity shops in the next few months to obtain long curtains for all glass doors in the cottage in order that next year we can try and make the inside a bit less draughty. We also hope that such decorative additions will not give such a blaring impression of some hippy student accommodation of the kind that used to be found in Camden Town!

Ah yes; those tall Victorian windows, draped with makeshift curtain arrangements, with the notes of Steve Hillage’s soporific Om Nama Shivaya, the hypnotic sound of Pink Floyd’s Echoes, or the tribal beat of Led Zeppelin’s Kashmir oozing through every crook and cranny, accompanied by the scent of patchouli and a certain aromatic herb wafting lazily on the air. Long ago halcyon days for many of you I am sure. Sadly not me though; I had the LPs, I had the patchouli but it was in my bedroom from whence their sounds and scent came – and I had very nicely hung curtains too; dark purple if I remember that matched my Biba lampshade.