A Rug Eatin' Cotton Pickin' Varmint

With a couple of hours to spare before MrsB was due back, I popped out for a stroll late afternoon to buy some milk and bread. I also needed some more lubrication for my bad throat (and no, not the alcoholic variety that you are maybe thinking).

Whilst out, I found myself passing our local heritage centre in the lovely Musgrave Yard. I decided to take a look inside as I had heard that the Knutsford Millennium Tapestry was now back on exhibition after some repairs. Our house is featured on the tapestry, but it took some finding again, as though it features streetscapes taken from all of Knutsford, not all the houses and streets are in the correct order (damn those little Women's Institute ladies with their sherry-fuelled abstract thinking). Our semi-detached house is on the second row towards the right, and just below the big white house on the top row.

The idea for the tapestry began in 1997 when public spirited Jennifer Holbrook came up with the idea of creating a modern day Bayeux Tapestry to record Knutsford for posterity at the turn of the millennium. Archaeology has shown human activity has existed around here since around 8000BC (hey, I think I have drunk with some Neanderthals in the old Red Cow before now); and Knutsford is also said to derive its name from King Canute.

The strap line for the tapestry marketing says: '53 miles of wool, 6.5 million stitches, 3000 people and 52 metres of canvas', but all that hard work was very nearly unstitched beyond repair recently, as in 2011 traces of the Varied Carpet Beetle (with it's laval stage known as the Woolly Bear), was found.

The tapestry had to be taken down, sealed in polythene 'capsules', and put into an industrial deep freeze at minus 30 degrees for 3 weeks to ensure all traces of the beetle and its eggs were destroyed, before it was thawed-out and returned to Knutsford.

MrsB is now back at home and happy to see me. We had a nice little meal out early doors at the new Istanbul Grill restaurant just opened recently. Not a moth-eaten Turkish rug in sight, but very nice it was too.