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Sad little wardrobe story

Ever wondered how you would notice that you are getting old? Apart from the greying hair and creaking joints and half a dozen attempts it takes to link the correct name to the child standing in front of you. Your own child.

Where does getting excited about a piece of furniture rank in the scale of getting-old-warnings? I suspect it would be up there with preferring sensible shoes; investing in a wine cellar; and agreeing with a play of reluctance to husband's wish to own a mid-life-crisis car, especially since it meant I could have a puppy! Does that mean that my mid-life-crisis is a dog? Or maybe that my mid-life has gone to the dogs?

Anyway, back to the wardrobe - not the one in Narnia; sadly - wouldn't that be fun! - but the one in our upgraded room in a delightful hotel in Norfolk.Yes! We were upgraded! The manageress put us in a larger room with bath, because "it was free" (otherwise unoccupied) that night.The warm, marble, floor tiles in the bathroom took some getting used to - hot day, hot feet ... hot tiles; hmmm, cold would have been so much better - but the flip side was how quickly the sodden bath mat dried, after the shower curtain proved to be more of a decorative, but useless flap of heavy, damask-like fabric, than effective, spray-shielding curtain. Upgrade! Hot floor! We weren't complaining!

Back to the wardrobe again - dinner, bed and breakfast in a small country pub/restaurant/hotel on the first night away from children and dogs in too-long-a-time, meant pre-dinner march through some woods;




indulging in a bit of phone-tography





with subsequent message to self (definitely a sign of ageing), to add identification of these plants (older!) to list of things to do (ancient!) when get home; and later getting a little bit dressed up for dinner.Think that that 'little bit dressed up' may be a sign of ageing, too: small part - too old to bother any more; small part - don't ever know what to wear anyway; small part - perfectly sure that no-one will be looking at me; and small part - I'm grown up, I'm happy with who I am. However, even casual attire requires dry hair and so to the wardrobe. 

What a wardrobe!



Okay, so maybe I'm a little bit sad, in the way that the children use the word sad, as in pathetic, but just look -



Individual shelves for "Sundries", "Collars", "Cuff-links". A menu for a Cunard line breakfast with the instructions that it is permitted for children to share the parent's order and that United States Rationing advises everyone "to eat more fish".



The wardrobe creaked, its doors only just met in the middle, but it was a beautiful relic of the Titanic era, when travel was slow, formal and dignified. What would they have thought of our hot floor and complete lack of dress shirt, collar, tie and jacket?

They would have liked the food - wonderful! We promised ourselves that we will be back; venue for fiftieth birthday weekend in 2014, perhaps. Cods' cheeks, slow roast shoulder of lamb, elderflower and raspberry jelly with ice cream - all were delicious. And accompanied by the chef as back-drop, cooking meat all evening on a vast open fire in the dining room -  unfussy, unpretentious, good food.

They would have liked the setting too - on the edge of a deer park.



But they would have remembered to pack all the things that we had forgotten. Or rather, their man or maid would have done it for them.

And they wouldn't have been able to take photographs. On their phone.

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