It’s all a cover-up…

CHRIS BENNETT was given some domestic advice by a colleague.

I HAVE discovered more delights of domesticated living. The other day I had to change the duvet cover; not a difficult task, one would have thought.

I soon found out that it requires the skills of a contortionist and the direction finding abilities of a carrier pigeon.

That morning I had had a call from my friend J, and she said, when told of my duvet ambitions, “Oh, it is easy. You just turn it inside out.”

Ha! if you will pardon the expression. She did not explain that first of all you have to get the cover to be laundered off the duvet. This is rather like skinning a whale using a wooden spoon. The duvet reeled, writhed and fainted in coils, sticking out all the little sharp points of its goosedown (or maybe it was eiderdown) feathers, in an attempt to thwart me.

It was about now that I seemed to lose the plot. In frustration I gave the whole thing a mighty shake and the cover shot across the room and lay crumpled at the foot of the wardrobe door like a discarded snakeskin. However I had forgotten that the duvet had a hole in it; my bedroom looked like the Cairngorms after a blizzard.

I fetched the hoover. All I need now, I thought, is a pinny and a feather duster and I shall be set for life.

And then round two started: putting the clean cover on the now clearly enraged duvet.

I looked at the duvet. It seemed to be square shaped and so I recalled J’s words about turning the cover inside out. I put both arms into the duvet cover.

This was, without doubt, a serious mistake. Not only was I unable to find any corners (I thought for a moment that the wretched thing had suddenly become circular), but I soon found myself with outstretched and uplifted arms, as if praising some deity.

At this point gravity interfered and the whole cover fluttered gracefully to the floor, completely embracing me in its magnanimity. I must have looked as though I was wearing a burka with ducks on it.

I tried again, as one should.

This time the direction finding was better and I seized the two corners with a cry of “Aha!” and I turned the cover inside out.

I was now beginning to feel like one of those scientists who do everything from behind about a metre of solid glass, using frightening prosthetic limbs of soughts.

Unfortunately I then realised that I hadn’t straightened out the duvet, and so, refusing to let go of the corners, I attempted it with my hands inside the cover. This was a bit like threading a needle with boxing gloves on.

Patience triumphed and I was finally rewarded with a duvet in a lovely clean cover; which was inside out.

I went to bed.

CB

29/1/10