730 things — Day 118 of 365

We try to be principled and conscientious in our household, and extent the reach of Christ into caring for animals and plants both wild and domestic, and our fellow human beings — but we are also precise about aesthetics.

To hand wash silk undies from yesterday, in Woolite, in a spotlessly clean enamel bowl that says le bain in a wreath of flowers on the side, and add specialist fabric conditioner to the final rinse, and hang them on the line — three pegs for extra security — to dry above the lavender in the wind from the sea; it makes me happy. It brings me a sense of orderly peace.

This I did after having my breakfast porridge and tea — on a tray, with loose tea made in a pot kept hot with the tea cosy Alice knitted in soft fawn alpaca yarn — from porcelain, albeit mismatched and bought second hand or handed down.

These things, they form a refuge from a difficult world, like the shells of caddisfly larvae pieced and patched from what is available.

It constructs a sort of corset for the soul. Religion does much the same — the rituals, the vessels of silver and crystal and gold, the bells to be rung at a certain point in a particular manner a specified number of times, the gilded angels and painted saints with their serious visages or tiny secret smiles, the embroidered vestments and fair linen, the hands of the priest held just so far apart and no further, over the wafers made by nuns from their lives of devotion inside their enclosures.

These things protect us against the howls of the void and the chaos of agony, the stalking predators of loss and grief and pain and destitution that prowl the perimeters of all we have tried to build. Or, we feel as though they do — protect us — and we don't force it to bear too much examination, we just make it a declaration of intent that life could be beautiful, and peaceful, and crafted with care.

I live with artists. Here is a glimpse of what they have been working on; just one small part of the decoration they have designed and gilded and painted onto some rather austere cabinetry.

Isn't that lovely? These are women who handle physical objects with reverence and care — who eat from silver because they hate the taste of steel, who have studio pots for some drinks and box china for others, who wear linen and cashmere and silk, who make their own jewellery (and mine) from Japanese pearls and Swarovski crystals, and spend their evenings making astonishing embroideries of knitting our clothes for the winter. They are not rich, not indulged — they are artists, they go without what other people take for granted to make their choices possible.

But even though things can be used to establish and build our rickety structures of orderly calm, we have also to keep a watchful eye and observe restraint. Because, as we know, they accumulate. Sometimes even the useful and the beautiful have their time to be blessed on their way.

Today I have ventured into the cupboard under the stairs and retrieved the first two items to put into a box of assorted DIY bits, for Freegle.

A door-stop (the sort that wraps round the door itself) and a box of wire nails I have had for about twenty-five years.

Yes, I have used a wire nail on one occasion or another in the course of that time. But I think my days of banging nails into things may in truth have run their course.