Packaging

There’s a lot of this in the house this week. It’s PY’s birthday on Monday and, given there are almost no shops open for gifts, everything I am buying is being delivered in cardboard. And so is every gift from everybody else as we are, obviously, not going to be seeing friends and family in the the next few weeks. The doorbell goes and there’s a box on the doorstep. Remarkably, packaging from a wide range of companies shares a common look because most businesses do not want to invest in cardboard that has been dyed into something less cardboardy.

It reminds me of when we moved in to this house. All the moving boxes - including some interesting cardboard wardrobes - stayed around for many months as there was no storage in the building and we had to acquire all of it. The moving boxes served a useful - and cheap - purpose to hold all our belongings. But I grew to hate the colour.

Of course, this isn’t anything like that and I am having to find imaginative ways to hide either the box or the contents so that it is not discovered before Monday. Recycling day is next Tuesday when it will all disappear.

But still, I do not like this colour.