War on Moths

If you should ever look for a new post on Seraphic Singles and be disappointed, you may safely reflect that I have not written as I am up to my eyebrows in housework. This year the Historical House has been infested with moths, and having engaged in a desultory and mostly defensive battle with them (most nice things having been put for safety into a large insecticidal closet), I am now on the offensive.

Sadly, though, I must report a lost battle. The wretched beasties got B.A.'s pure wool purple pullover, the one I bought him myself. It was kept on the bedroom shelf, which is near enough the bed to rule out the use of insecticide, and when I pulled everything down in today's "Special Cleaning Project", there a horrible moth was, bold as brass, perched on B.A's sweater. Naturally I squashed the horrid thing between my fingers, but when I checked for damage, there it was: nasty telltale little holes.

So now the handsome pullover has been stuffed into a plastic bag sealed shut with cellotape and is sitting by the kitchen rubbish can. But on the plus side, the shelf is tidy and there is one less moth in the world.

Meanwhile, I have hauled from the insecticidal closet 20 years worth of B.A.'s shirts (he throws nothing out) and told him I was taking them to the used clothing store. So he has removed half of them, which he will keep, unworn, for another five years, and then I will smuggle them out of the house. Five years is long enough for wifely piety around the sacrosanctity of a husband's old stuff, imagine ten.