I’ve been having difficulties answering comments on Facebook, so if I have ignored you, I haven’t, I just can’t get Facebook to co-operate!

Pling-Plong

I’ve got a plate, copper I think, with a design incorporating a couple of fish, and which came back from a holiday somewhere where English is not the first language.

It has graced numerous places in my house, but due to a restructuring of ornamentation it had become temporarily homeless. But only temporarily – a new abode offered itself in the porch. This would involve making a hole in the wall and inserting a nail or some such protrusion, upon which to hang it.

No problem – I’ve got a Mick for that. Making holes in walls without making a mess is Mick’s forte, not mine. So the hole was made and the plate was hung. It looked very much at home, and seemed happy in its new surroundings.

Then came that ridiculous wind! The plate held fast, but it wobbled when the wind caught it, resulting in an erratic Pling-Plong as the wind blasted it’s sides against the wall.

No problem! sought and found some little squares of cork with sticky backs in my Everything drawer. I took the plate off the wall and stuck the sticky squares on the back of the plate.

Silence.

Until, during the night I heard Pling-Plong! I was not getting up, it could Pling-Plong as much as it liked, I was staying in bed. Investigating the next morning I found the floor strewn with little cork squares, whose stickiness had proved inadequate to the task of silencing the plate.

One night of Pling-Plong was bearable, but more than one night I was not willing to tolerate. I took it down – I could reach up enough to get it off the wall using the bottom step of the kitchen steps. There was no need to remove the cork squares – they’d done that all on their own. So I substituted them for a more robust and stickier option in plastic.

Getting the plate back up was literally a step too far for me. The bottom step I could manage, supporting myself on the frame on the top of the steps, but my legs would not consent to the second step, not without my arms holding on to something, and there was nothing except wall to offer me support and solace.

Walls are flat – you can’t grab hold of a wall! So the plate and I waited for the next Mick visit. Mick visited, and in less than a minute the plate was duly restored to its new rightful place.

I don’t wish to encourage the wind, but now I need a goodly gale from the right direction to test the silencing and the sticking qualities of the plastic backing. If my strategy is successful I might write different lyrics to Silent Night!