Curtain Call

A LITTLE ACTIVITY GOES A LONG WAY but, unfortunately, it feels as if I’ve gone a lot further! Having clambered across the arm of a sofa, to access a wall cupboard, I managed to miss my footing and, as my leg crumpled beneath me, I flailingly reached out for an object to hold onto. The closest object to hand was the back of the self-same sofa which had provided my initial obstacle course. The sofa itself is backed up to the curtains; the rail on which the curtains theoretically glided but, in reality stuttered along, had been in situ for 20+ years and, had obviously reached a stage of plastic fatigue. The combination of hand on sofa back and sofa back on curtain, led to a phase of total collapse; fortunately not mine! Several of the rails supporting brackets chose this moment to emphasise their frailty, simultaneously fracturing, as the curtains and their track, spontaneously and unceremoniously, demonstrated the laws of gravity.

First port of call, for my beloved et moi, was the DIY store. A 2.2 metre rail was swiftly acquired but, the installation procedure involves a practise far less simple than the instructions suggest. Fixing the brackets proved quite straightforward (well to be honest slightly crookedly-forward) apart from minor glitches. Fixing the track onto the brackets was in principle equally simple, but the precise positioning of the bracket latch required a little more manual dexterity than this fatigued human-being could initially muster. Perspiration and giddiness are not my favourite companions whilst perched on top of a stepladder.

What should have taken perhaps 20 to 30 minutes, in practise took about 1 hour and twenty minutes but, I have to admit it only felt like an eternity. Task completed; the curtains do actually glide along the track and, for the first time, we have a curtain rail that extends beyond the actual width of the window. The curtains seem to hang better than before; I only wish I had the energy to rejoice in this minor task successfully completed.