I've been wanting to write a post all day only every time I was about to sit down and start, something else cropped up! Silly things, mainly, like losing things and finding them where I least expected to find them. Putting my glasses down while looking for my mobile only to find myself wondering around in a blurry funk looking for my mobile and my glasses, in no particular order. At times like that, when nothing seems to be where it's supposed to be, I tend to fall back on Sherlock Holmes' method, which he explains in The Adventure of the Blanched Soldier, one of only two Holmes stories narrated by Holmes himself. I guess I'm not the only one. It's pretty well-known:
"That process,” said I, “starts upon the supposition that when you have eliminated all which is impossible, then whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth. It may well be that several explanations remain, in which case one tries test after test until one or other of them has a convincing amount of support. We will now apply this principle to the case in point.
It usually works. For example, today, having hunted round the house for a pair of missing trousers, In the end I decided, with Holmes' help, that I must have picked them up with a bundle of towels by mistake and stuck them in the tumble drier. I headed for the drier and rummaged around inside it, hoping to find them. Sure enough they were there.
The Mystery of the Missing Trousers. Solved. Elementary, really.
*
Yesterday was less hectic. We even found time to watch this - Stravinsky's Petrushka performed by the Bolshoi Ballet:
My sister lost a kitten in the same way, but in a spin drier. She spent about 15 minutes looking for it as it went round at 1000 RPM. It was very dizzy, but fine in the end.
ReplyDeleteThat was lucky. I guess it was a very tiny kitten?
DeleteThey say mice can survive falls from aeroplanes.
Yes, very tiny. It had crawled into a bundle of towels. Apparently it was very pleased to be let out and tried to mew as it staggered about and fell over.
DeleteI've spent hours of my life helping my late husband look for things that have gone missing. Yet he always reckoned he knew exactly where everything was in his big workshop!
ReplyDeleteWhen something goes missing now I usually call on him to find it for me - and sometimes he does!
A friend of my dad's, impressed by things he's made, once asked to see his workshop, expecting it to be impeccably well-organised. The workshop was a shed. When my dad opened the door to let him in, the ironing board and a whole load of junk fell out on top of them.
DeleteMy dear husband always seems to be calling out to me "Where are my gloves / socks / keys..." (delete as appropriate). I usually go straight to where they are kept and voila! there they are. He insists that he had already looked there. Perhaps I should suggest that he looks with his eyes open hext time.
ReplyDeleteWhenever I tell my other half I'm looking for something she tells me it's where I left it. She's always right.
DeleteMy ex used to suffer from Where'sme disease, as in where's my shirt/phone/keys it drove me up the wall. Steve is much better, he tends to know where he's out ztuff.
ReplyDeleteI like the term, where'sme disease. It reminded me of the "oomies". Oo, me back, oo me ankle, etc.
DeleteI remember the ironing board incident well. Your father made the most brilliant musical instruments but a tidy workroom was totally beyond him. Love that dance vido - what is it?
ReplyDeleteI've amended the post to tell people. Of course, it's all in Russian. It's Stravinsky's Petrushka performed by the Bolshoi Ballet.
DeleteI'm pretty good at remembering where I've put things, but words hide from my mind all the time. I look and look, but often the word I'm looking for is nowhere to be found. That goes for names too.
ReplyDeleteI'm terrible with names. It can be very difficult in a working environment when you're part of a big team. The people you work with all the time you know well. But then there's this huge, peripheral cloud of people who you might see only occasionally, and whose names you feel you really ought to know! It's particularly awkward when your role is such that everybody knows who YOU are!
DeleteMost of the time I remember where I left things but my husband is asking for my help in finding things he's misplaced daily. I'm glad Sherlock Holmes can help you - how brilliant! You know the real problem is when you lose something but you forgot that you lost it!
ReplyDeleteYou've got me trying to remember things I've lost but forgotten about!
DeleteThere must be a load of books in that category.
My only problem is losing glasses. Because I can't see properly to find them!
ReplyDeleteNeither can I. As for reading glasses, I keep a few pairs. If I lose one pair temporarily, it doesn't matter.
DeleteI had gotten out a set of curtains for Tim's son. I could not find them. It was aggravating because I was certain that I had set them on the sofa for Tim to deliver. I looked everywhere. I finally found them. They had slipped off the back of the sofa and down behind it.
ReplyDelete