New sofa covers

This stuffed dog is Queeni's favourite toy and Rupert likes to rile her by grabbing it and shaking it -- it has a rattle in it. Wedging it against the sofa backrest must be her way of hiding it from him.

And if you notice, we changed the sofa covers for Chinese New Year. We did it on the eve, after my parents went home after reunion dinner. We didn't want to do it any earlier for fear of Rupert peeing on the sofa. The last time my parents were here a fortnight ago, he was so excited that he leaked all over the house.

In fact, as we were struggling with the tight-fitting covers (Ikea designers should incorporate the use of elastic, like how fitted sheets have elastic in the corners -- L was so exasperated he wanted to e-mail the Ikea president and invite him over to change sofa covers and see if he can do it), we heard our downstairs neighbours counting down to shouts of "xingnian quaile". I've never had a Chinese New Year countdown before, I thought it was only a Dec 31/Jan 1 thing.

I guess this portends a lot. We missed the English New Year countdown because we were walking the dogs. We missed the Chinese New Year countdown because we were changing sofa covers because somepuppy peed on the other set.

When we bought this second set of covers as a spare set, I picked this pied beige colour because it looked like sand, and I thought that went so well with the picnic table, surfboard and sky-painted ceiling.

We still don't trust Rupert fully, that's why there's a towel draped on the sofa seat -- in the vain hopes that it'll soak up most of what he might decide to leave. At best, we say it's a decorative touch -- a beach towel on sand effect.

Now that Rupert has moved it, I've discovered another nice thing about this pied colour -- it beautifully camouflages shed fur.