TimMaidment.Com

One of Lady M’s pride and joy possessions is the piano currently sitting in a corner of our lounge. It is largely being used as a dumping ground for all manner of things and as a flat surface to put greetings cards around the year, but the plan this year is to clean it off and get it retuned.

It is a well-travelled piano. It came South with Lady M, and travelled with her when she moved to Switzerland and a third floor apartment with no lifts. When she came back to the UK, to come to the second floor and also liftless flat that we’ve moved into, the piano came too.

The piano is an antique, old enough to have ivory keys, and is a solid piece of furniture. The removal company was less than happy about trying to get it up the narrow staircase and tried to argue that they hadn’t been told about it when they were booked. Efficient as ever, Lady M brandished the printouts of the emails detailing the piano’s existence and value from the original quote.

“It’s Irreplaceable!” she cried, “It’s an antique and they don’t make them like that any more! If you damage it, you’ll be paying for a new one!”

As more than one person has remarked – and nowhere as loudly as the cackling coven on #Tuesdays – if it’s Irreplaceable, then paying for a new one is impossible. The argument over the interpretation of this phrase resurfaces regularly, largely to wind Lady M up, as she falls into the trap each time of trying to clarify what she meant.

We of course know what she means, but the entertainment value for some of arguing the strict meaning of the word Irreplaceable versus the word Priceless continues to bring eye-rolling you can hear in the next County.