I've been whisking about the house with my feather duster (Art Course starts tomorrow).

Hanging at our windows are silk, cotton and linen curtains - (sorry, I don't want to sound like a mercer in fine fabrics-never mind the width, feel the quality, tra la la la) but natural fabrics have a weakness in certain respects.

Drawingone set back this morning, Mercy me! (or just 'Mercy' as Roy Orbison says)I awoke a sleepy moth.I soon flicked that duster around, watching little bits of down feather floating through the dusty motes illuminated by the sun.

Anyone would think I was a prestitigitateur (conjuror - don't say you came home from school again today and didn't learn anything) the way that darng moth disappeared.

It was comatose when I disturbed it but no sight or sound of it was to be seen. Now,I do not usually flap my wings at the sight of a moth, but a friend has losta few woollen jumpers and coats after a recent invasion, and it is not the moths so much as the larvae that are the culprits, though I shall hold the whole bunch of them responsible.

I have a flexible brush to go behind the radiators and use the nozzle of thevacuumto disturbthe dust in awkward corners, so I don't know how that moth made it onto the curtains.

The room (and curtains) has hada vigorous pounding and I've not seen another winged creature since, neither any larvae. However, I've taken the precaution of buying a few lavender bags and placing them on the windowsill, so I hope this means the moths will be dining elsewhere in future.