Antique Solutions

I had a sad accident yesterday. I was wearing a favourite thing, a loose shirtlike linen overgarment in a particularly nice shade of dark turquoise – the sort of thing I love these days because it is a lovely colour and it has pockets and I no longer go anywhere without reading glasses. I put my hand into one of said pockets and came out with a damp, sorry mess of blackened paper tissue and the remains of a malfunctioning pen, which had, unfortunately, given its all all over the pocket. I rushed upstairs, soaked the garment in cold water, then stain remover, then washed it, then left it in more stain remover overnight. Then I suddenly remembered our Norwegian friends had left us with an archaic product they strongly recommended, a bar of oxgall soap, vix, made with the gall of an ox. Do not say ur, yuck, or eeew. Ox gall is a strangely useful substance, which I’ve had in the house before to help with making marbled paper, which it does. A day of being rubbed with oxgall soap and left to sit hasn’t removed the black blobs entirely, but they seem to be so reduced I have some real hopes that when the fabric is dry, the marks will not obtrude. Three cheers for old fashioned methods. Incidentally, I was also thinking kindly of the Norwegian houseguests today for a completely different reason – they left me a container of vegetable broth in the freezer, and I ended up deploying it today with a couple of lettuces and a lot of peas which were fresh but had, some of them, been picked a little late. A bit past being a special pea risotto or whatever, but they made a very nice soup, so thank you, both.