Crown Glass Blanket
Introduction
My parents were the lone hold-outs in their cul-de-sac against the tyranny of double glazing for the entirety of my childhood. For those endless years my friends luxuriated in their warm, well insulated homes while I half-heartedly mopped a gallon of condensation from my windowsill every morning.
My main memories of spring aren't admiring daffodils and easter eggs but instead I have the vivid recollection of watching my father plug the rot in the wooden frames with putty Ship of Theseus style, all the while muttering darkly about useless daughters and their inefficient sill mopping method. They didn't replace the 70s brown bathroom of doom until practically the day I moved out either.
Whilst I will eternally hold a grudge about an adolescence spent applying make-up in a poorly lit entirely mud brown bathroom their suborn clinging to the windows, I get. For my parents you see had twinkling, beautiful Crown Glass windows.
Crown Glass is glass made using traditional glass blowing where the centre of the sheet has a bullseye like lump and towards the edges the glass grows finer. The bullseye is the cheaper part of the glass owing to it being thick and opaque and the edges are the better quality glass used for finer homes and businesses.
The Georgian style windows of my parents' house were mostly plain but every few panels contained a bullseye. My mother adored them, possibly more than us children. Whenever a double glazing salesperson rang or knocked on the door she would wax lyrical about her beloved glass to the point that the poor unfortunate soul would swear they'd renounce their trade and agree whole heartedly that only an ingrate would replace those beautiful windows for the plastic monstrosities Her Down The Road had. I don't recall my dad having the same conversations., he was likely too busy glossing the putty he'd recently applied in the vain hope of matching it to the frame.
Entropy, alas, consumes us all and in the early 2000s my mother finally took pity on my father and his insistence that he could putty no more and installed the double glazing. This blanket, with the little square bullseye panels is my ode to the windows of my youth.
