Bed Linen Blues.

I bought a new set of summer bed linen the other day. I was fed up with having only one set, because when it needs washing you have to take it off the bed, wash it, dry it, iron it, and replace it all in one day. When do you get to have lunch?

So, I went for a pale blue set – that kind of washed out pale blue that’s verging on blue-grey. I like blue-grey; it matches my eyes and my prevailing mood (and maybe I spent a previous incarnation sitting on top of the Mason-Dixon Line with one leg on either side and answering to Johnny Yankee.) But here’s the interesting bit.

I still use a top sheet as well as a fitted sheet. (That’s because I like to have something between me and the duvet cover; it avoids having to wash the duvet cover very often and I’m an economical sort of person.) I picked a double top sheet and a double fitted sheet off the shelf and noticed that they were a different colour – only very slightly, but different nonetheless. I said as much to the woman on the till.

‘Oh, you won’t notice when they’re on the bed,’ she remarked dismissively.

Well, no one likes to be dismissed, do they?

‘I most certainly will notice, madam.’

But I bought them anyway because there was 20% off.

And do you know what? I installed the items on the bed today and noticed that they were a different colour from the piece of fabric which covers the bedside table. That particular piece of cloth has less grey to compliment the blue than I thought it did. Life’s just one big disaster waiting to happen, isn’t it?