Still Life (ie Emergency Indoor Blip)

The chill I got from wandering about at the crack of dawn at the weekend has developed nicely into a cough and cold. I dare not go out on this dreich cold day, even though my duffle coat has been brought out from its retirement wardrobe.

So today's blip is a bit of an emergency indoor one. I have a few lined up, but I didn't want to use them so early on in my blip career. However, needs must.

Actually, this bowl of fruit was a bonus, as the shopping had been done yesterday, and there was an ample supply of fruit, including raspberries. As we speak, this supply has dwindled somewhat, so luckily I didn't have to re-shoot.

I must get one of those water spray thingies CBLinks recommends for flowers/fruit, but I found a wet cloth to be adequate. Who needs fancy tools? The tablecloth and surrounds got watered as well, but no worries.

The dish has a wee story. It's a green glass bowl. It was left by our very first house swappers. They were an Italian family. Two teenagers.

We went to their wonderful holiday chalet in the mountains above Lake Lugano. We had the best holiday ever, walking to villages through the trees and over hills, and every second day we'd tour around in our wee Smart car, searching for the best pizza with the best lake view.

Many nights we had the most frightening electrical storms. Being so high up, you're just about touching the lightning! However, this always cleared the air and the days were glorious. I wish I'd been blipping then, as sitting out on the wee verandah, glass of wine to hand, looking at the huge mountains all around the the twinkling lights of Lugano below, was magical.

Was this a fair swap for a flat in a city? They thought so. It was a lovely summer, and they enjoyed themselves. We were a bit nervous about having two teenagers in our house, but we needn't have worried. They left us wee drawings of some of the things they'd done, and they left us a wee present in every room.

The presents matched the rooms. This bowl was in the dining room to match the green and yellow tablecloth. In the lilac bedroom there was a lilac soap. In the black and white bathroom, a nice black nail brush. In many of the presents there was a pile of tiny Toblerones. In fact, we left a pair of shoes in their wardrobe, and the shoes arrived a few days later, stuffed full of Toblerones! If that's not a good advert for house swapping, I don't know what is!

And so, raspberries all eaten, I am popping back to bed with my iPad. iPlayer beckons. *cough*