Under the weather, but dressed for it

I've completely succumbed to the grip of my cold today; I'm sitting here rugged up in a big polarfleece dressing gown and fluffy slippers sipping hot lemon and honey and hoping the healing rays of teh internet will work their magic. Luckily there's an ACT Teachers' Strike today, so B'bee is cosied up in the loungeroom overdosing on episodes of The Goodies and grazing his way through the pantry as only a growing boychild can do.

So Im cruising, looking for diversions easy on the brain. And finding fun little things like Arty Fufkin's cellar cleansing. And oh, how I wish I lived in America! I don't, really, but there's *so* much going on there with letterpress. I don't know why Girlprinter bothered to come back; probably something to do with love and clean air, I suspect.

I should explain my dressing gown, since I've got time. I found it at a charity shop. It's a camel colour, with bottle-green cuffs and colour, and it's very large. What sold me on it was not the tasteful almost gold-and-green colour scheme, though: it was the customisation. It's very large gown, made to fit someone the size of Best Beloved (who wears a Triple XL t-shirt for his shoulder width) but adapted to fit someone my size (tallish but under 6ft woman). The cuffs have been folded back and stitched, the collar has been firmly stitched flat, the buttons have been ripped off and replaced by old brown plaited leather buttons, and the tie has been fastened at the back with a press-stud. And all done in a very amateurish, large stitch with dark brown cotton. Obviously by someone who wanted their old person to not drop their cuffs in their soup and stop losing their dressing gown tie.

The sheer ugliness of the robe appealed to me instantly. I've never been one to wear Peter Alexander sleepwear or pink kitty robes. When I down tools, it's flannies and trackies all the way, and the dressing gown just made me feel like my door could really be closed to the world. As soon as I put it on I knew that it had been waiting for me. The length is right, the arm length is perfect, and I hate losing robe ties.

I bought it way before I met BB. Unfortunately, it fits him too, and he seems to have appropriated it, leaving me a double-sided kimono wrapper-thingy that is too cold to the initial touch and has scratchy embroidery. I keep telling him that the arms are too short for him, but he just says that it will be perfect once he takes the stitches out. It will too, but he's too lazy to do it. So the first one out of bed gets the robe.

Or, in the case of today, the last one out of bed after the first one has gone to work. So it smells of both of us, it's covered in cat hair (they love it too) and the stitching's starting to trail, but it's perfect for a wurty sick day at home.

[blows nose] I just hope no one knocks at the door :)