Over the summer we’ve been ‘doing some work on the house’. Hey, we’ve all been there. I decided this would be a good time to update the carpets on the stairs and landing. After all, I could feel (and hear) the perished underside of the old carpet crunching beneath my feet every time I went up or down the stairs. And there has been a massive rip in the carpet at the top of the stairs for about 10 years, after our old cat Ollie (RIP) decided to attack it. That’s not the reason he’s RIP, of course.
Carpets. I’ve never understood them. And I’ve never really understood what underlay was all about. I remember asking the chap who came to measure up last time if it helped noise levels. He said ‘not really’. I replied ‘then I’m not paying for it, thank you very much.’ So none of our carpets have underlay.
This time round, I thought I’d splash out. In the great scheme of things, it didn’t seem that much more to get the underlay. I was going to be broke afterwards, so I decided I’d be broke in style.
Well, what a difference. The carpet is bouncy and soft to walk on. I don’t have to wear my Moshulu slippers when I tread on it. My toes are toasty. A bit of my house is actually quite luscious. As long as you keep your eyes on the carpet and no further.
So now my life is over. The football chant that sounds like ‘underlay, underlay, underlay underlay underlay’ goes round and round in my head. I have learned to appreciate underlay and figure that the end must be nigh. At least when I keel over, I’ll have a soft landing.