Z & the Sage hope for a quiet night

What I wrote yesterday, with your thoughtful comments, reminded me of something I've been meaning to mention; though it isn't directly linked, merely a nudge to my mind.

I want to be quite careful not to imply more than I mean to say...you see, although I don't at all need looking after, and I wasn't thinking or talking about me in that post, there are things I've recently been finding it awkward to do. I can't carry heavy things in front of me, for example. And it's brought out a very protective and caring side in the Sage.

I've mentioned before that he's quite a few years older than me, though bouncing with rude health as ever; but I've started to look after him a bit more over the last couple of years - I don't let him up ladders too often but climb them myself, things like that. But now he's started to look after me. He wouldn't let me carry the hoover upstairs this morning, for example - or down again (he let me use it, however) and when there were drawers to remove and put back from a chest of, he insisted on doing them all himself. We were moving furniture at the time.

He isn't overprotective and doesn't fuss - I'd hate it and it isn't his way - but I can see that it is quite bringing out the manly caring side, and it's awfully sweet. You see why I don't want to overstate this: in no sense am I suggesting that he 'likes' having me a bit less capacitated than I used to be, only that he's remembered how he likes to look after me, when we'd got a bit more used to me looking after him.

Anyway, the furniture moving. Our bedroom is a bit of a nuisance. On one wall, there is the door to the attic, the door to the cupboard staircase (Tudor house, used to have 8 or 9 of them), the fireplace (boarded over - removable board because birds fall down the chimney sometimes) and what was a large cupboard, now a shower cubicle which, between them, take up the whole wall. The two walls at right angles to that have a window in each, one has a large built-in wardrobe and the other has the door opening onto it; both have the uprights holding the central beam halfway along. The fourth wall has the door to the landing. We move our bed periodically from the first (in front of the fireplace) to the fourth wall, which are the only two options. Trouble is, when there's a gale, the wind whistles down the chimney and shrieks into our ears behind us and keeps us awake. So I decided today was the day to move it from Wall 1 to Wall 4, as the present high wind is likely to continue for a couple more nights. The bed itself is sizable - not unlike this one, if 5" means kingsize, but ours doesn't have drawers, or a headboard come to that (it's the same make and model, but a couple of decades on) but the most awkward thing to move is a very heavy washed Chinese rug, 12'x9', which takes up a fair bit of the room between the bed and the opposite wall. We have to move the furniture, roll up the carpet, move the bed, pull the carpet across to the other side of the room, move more furniture, unroll the carpet - hoovering all the bits that are usually hidden, turning the mattress and all the other useful things one does at these times. I was going to hold a competition and ask you how many books were on my bedside table (it's a Victorian commode, actually, but not used as such) but I'm too embarrassed, so I'll just say that I'm in the process of reading seven of them.

Anyway, the whole job took two hours because I took the opportunity to sort through clothes as well. I'd intended to do ironing this afternoon, but I sort of couldn't be bothered (I'm minding my language, because Dave is a good influence) so I've been listening to music and catching up on blogs. I could have cleaned more of the house, but, well, was that ever likely?