linen overload

So the bed linen turned up on Friday.

Slightly annoyingly it was all in one huge box... which was actually half empty :/. It had been stuffed with packing paper to fill it up. Why they didn't put it in a box half that size or multiple boxes, I don't know, but there you go.

I have a weird thing where I can't wear clothes or use towels or sheets or anything without first giving them a wash. I'm not entirely sure what the root of it is, but I think it's something I developed because (in my mind at least) they put stuff on the clothes to help them fold better for the shops.

Starch on shirts maybe? I dunno, I'm also perfectly happy to think it's just a weird paranoia/phobia type thing on my part, but either way, it means I've overloaded my washing basket.

I don't have a washing machine at my place, so I have to use a laundrette and they're going to have a bit of a windfall over the next couple of weeks. The march of winter and the chilly weather means I'm wearing loads more clothes to wrap up warm, and all this linen will have to be washed before I'll use it.

I'm less worried about the duvet and the pillow, as they won't come in direct contact with my skin, so I've already started using them. The duvet is 13.5 tog apparently. I've no idea how the tog scale works, but basically bigger numbers mean warmer and 13.5 is right at the top end.

It's really warm and snugly, in other words. While I'm pretty sure that means I'll have to by another thinner one for summer, right now with the temperatures having dipped drastically I'm loving it.

I got two new pillows, partly because they were on offer, but also because I like a lot of pillow support. However, these new ones are a bit too big, even for me. I've got an existing pillow that's still in reasonable knick, and with the other two it's too high for me to actually sleep with. It's good for when I'm sitting in bed watching telly, though.

I actually cleaned my car on Saturday. I kinda took myself by surprise actually, as I hadn't particularly planned to do it. However, the atrocious weather we've been having recently doesn't really seem like it's going to end for a while, so I thought it best to take advantage of a lull we had on Saturday.

Also, with my trip to Bristol last week it was very apparent to me just how filthy my car was and I really wanted to hoover it out at the least. My car is variety of quite grey colours. It's not dull, in my opinion, and it all matches quite nicely. The difficulty with it, though, is that inside it really shows up the dirt. It's odd actually, because the outside is the opposite - it can be incredibly filthy, but it looks okay.

However, inside, the slightest bit of dust really stands out. I think it's cos inside the grey is approaching black, which is notorious for showing up dirt, whereas outside it's a much lighter grey which is actually kinda similar to the usual dusty grime you get on cars.

I'm paying for my car washing antics today, though. My hamstrings are really aching. Both washing and hovering the car involves a lot of bending over, and that really strains my hamstrings. I'm almost tempted to do warm-up exercises before I wash the car, but then I'd look a bit of a tit.

Otherwise the weekend involved a heck of a lot of Anno. So much so that my arm was aching a little by Sunday evening. I'm really enjoying it though and have managed to keep going with the same map for yonks now. I'm even on the verge of managing to have all of the possible resources and products in use.

Well, I say nearly on the verge. Actually I need to completely restructure a good chunk of the world so that I can get more people in there, but the real point is that such a major tweak hasn't put me off at all. I have a plan and I'm going for it.