I suspect my dear mum was ringleader of the hot goss in Heaven on Saturday.
During afternoon tea and paradise slices, she’d have been telling her pals: “Moreen’s aye been sic a spendthrift. Look what she’s gone and bought now.” I can see them a’ keekin’ doon at me and tut-tuttin’ like trains.
Well, I reckon I deserve to have lashed out a fortune on a new suite. After all, it’s nigh on three decades since I bought the last one. And it’s still pretty presentable. More importantly, it remains as blissfully comfy as the day I fell under its spell and spent what I couldn’t even nearly afford. Fit a feel.
Because the house I moved into in 1994 had a huge living room, I needed two two-seater sofas and two armchairs. Instead of heading to one of the new, cheapo furniture stores, did I nae walz into swunkie Archibalds, where mum had once been an upholstery sewer and it was still a long-established family business?
Boom, boom, saw this luxurious, dark green velour effort, £3,000 plus. Jings, crivvens, fit a price. Tempted. Took it. Lost sleep over it. Paid up years for it. Yet it’s been a great buy. Comes up like new with just the dicht of a soapy cloth in spite of years of babies’ milky spewins and their later colourful designs courtesy of spag bol, chips, chocolate, custard-clarted fingers.
Even today, the toots’ favourite game involves dismantling the lot to build a castle, the flattened cushions aye plumpin’ right back up again.
I fell in love all over again – with a Parker Knoll
I tried Sainsbury’s first, because its one of the city’s few remaining family firms, discovering that choosing a suite nowadays is a very different affair. It’s more like buying a car, thanks to the various mechanicals that come attached.
To begin with, I wanted nothing of the infernal zappers, but I was persuaded to try a sofa that glides from sit-up to lie-doon at the touch of a button and the seductive purr of hidden power. Fit an excitement. I can just imagine the grandchildren zooming up and doon on that. Fa’ needs a boring old cushion-castle? There’s even sockets for recharging my phone. Would-ye-creditit?
“As the sales mannie did the calculation, my leggies began to shoogle
So, like that day back in 1994, I fell in love all over again, this time with a Parker Knoll design – that’s why mum would have had a hairy canary. In her day, the hallowed name was always whispered and only afforded by the poshos from Rubislaw Den – the Archie regulars. But I had to have it.
As the sales mannie did the calculation, my leggies began to shoogle. Mummy, mummy you were right. F-f-f-five thousand-plus. Still, that was was probably cheaper than the fortune I’d paid 30 years ago.
Nope. Google did the maths. The equivalent of the same £3,000 plus then. Felt a bitty faint. Maybe needed another mechanical lie-doon. At least it’ll probably last me another three decades – until I’m 103. Now there’s a bargain. No wonder the mannie looked shocked when I asked if I could pay it up!