Ebay Addict

Not only am I addicted to looking up Wydemeet on Google and Trip Advisor.

I am also an addict for Ebay. With this new B&B business I feel I have an excuse to buy new (or sometimes old) things all the time, and at the moment I am making about 20 bids a week!

Yesterday I bid £2 for a black and white spotted apron for Dearly Beloved Daughter, who has offered to clear up breakfast and tidy our guests' rooms for £3 per hr on Saturday, while I visit Revered Son at his school because it is his 15th birthday.

My latest approach to using Ebay is to press the 'time left' column, so up come all the things that no-one really wants, and with no time left for anyone else to make a bid. Try it - you'll find that Ebay is selling a car almost every five seconds, lots of them at silly prices.

Anyway, my latest triumph was buying a carpet.  A few years ago, at vast expense I stupidly covered our kitchen floor with that sisal grass stuff, where all the old bits of food go down the cracks, it shrinks if you get water anywhere near it, you cant wipe anything off it and it stains with immediate effect. Well it did look nice on the first day. So to protect it I bought a nice rug from Trago Mills for about £90, which very quickly also got stained with all the gravy, coffee and red wine which we habitually spill onto it.

Sashka has been desperately but hopelessly trying to make our kitchen look clean and hygienic for when I offer 'tea and cake' in the kitchen to my guests on their arrival.  An impossible task.  It looks disgusting.

So what sort of flooring should I replace it with? And how on earth much would that be to get it all fitted properly? And then bingo. Brainwave.  If I could get a big carpet just the right size, I could just pop it on top of all the stained ones and no-one would be any the wiser.

So I measured up and put 'carpet 111" x 85" or something into the Ebay search.  And do you know what? Up it came! An all wool, earth red, unused carpet from Trago with its £299.99 price tag still attached!  No bids, a minimum price of £60, and located not too far away in Truro.

So it's mine now.  Esteemed Partner kindly picked it up on his way back from Falmouth, and brought it home, collecting Dearly Beloved Daughter on his way, the carpet sticking through the sunroof of his ancient Corsa (he had checked the weather forecast before setting off).  He was gobsmacked to find it fitted my kitchen perfectly, with a 1/2" margin all the way around.  He should have predicted my immaculate planning. I'm clever like that.

With all the mank old carpets still underneath, it's so springy it's like a trampoline. I just hope nothing below goes quietly mouldy.