Skyscapes, irons and instructions

To go with my recent posting on Essex landscapes and seascapes, I complete the set by sharing a skyscape with you, taken at the Monkey Beach, West Mersea on Friday. (Sorry the horizon isn't level, but I was standing on a sloping beach.) Plenty of sky around here, though it's mainly grey at the moment, and the five day forecast is five days of rain. Ho hum.

There may be massive amounts of water vapour in the sky, but our house has been dry for a few days. Without any warning our iron called it a day, so the ironing pile crept higher and higher until it tumbled over, and "something had to be done". Of course, nothing is worth repairing these days, as new stuff is so cheap, but I've booked the old one for a workshop workover when it gets warmer outside.

Meanwhile it's time to get another iron, as the sartorially elegant Big Swifty can only stretch so far his employer's acceptance that staff should be approachable and user-friendly. No, they don't want us to look like a stuffed pressed shirt, but the pile-of-crumpled-ironing look is too far the other way. So we're off to town to buy a new iron, and we apply our favourite shopping method; they're all the same so just pick one using random criteria. Popping in at Argos, we flick through the catalogue of irons, and find 80 items, costing from £3.84 (yes, really) to £89.99 for something that superficially looks the same. Our specification was something hot and flat, that pumps out a bit of steam. We couldn't be bothered to waste our time comparing eighty very simliar irons, so I randomly picked one out that had a purple colour, as it reminded me of Jimi Hendrix's purple haze. The time saved, we later wasted having coffee at Cafe Nero, which was a better choice than hanging round household goods stores.

Fortunately the new purple iron came with instructions:

• use the iron only for it's (sic) intended use
• do not use the steam feature on clothes that are being worn
• warning. burns can occur from touching hot metal parts
• warning. to protect against electric shock, do not put the appliance in water

And there was me, expecting to iron my trousers whilst wearing them in a bath full of water. So Big Swifty, busy under a cloud of steam, lives to see another day. See you next blog.....