Apparently, hand-knotted Asian rugs -- especially those made with traditional vegetable dyes -- should be washed every two to three years to keep them in top fettle. Vacuum-cleaning is okay on the nap, BUT NOT IF YOU USE A POWER HEAD WITH A BEATER BAR! (Yes, I'm shouting.) One of my rugs, an aging Indian my father bought at auction in 1982, shows clear signs of vacuum abuse: about an inch from one end, where the cat hair accumulates most thickly, there's a little bald patch where the wool of the nap has been wrenched out.

I have several; come to think of it, every rug in the house is Asian. When he was in Afghanistan, Edmund went to the Kabul rug bazaar with his translator, an ex-refugee who had made carpets himself as a child. That day Edmund bought four hall runners and two area rugs, including a big, red Turkman and a multicoloured silk-and-wool Persian that just gleams. Mike and Vanya, the carpet cleaners, went quite gaga over the Turkman, and stroked the Persian as if it were a cat. There's also a mid-sized, ruby-red Pakistani Bokhara I bought from a dealer in Ottawa, and a large, green Afghan Bokhara I bought from a couple who just couldn't find room for it in their flossy new house in Stratford. They put it up on Kijiji for the risible price of $250, and I threw the money at them, grabbed it, and ran.

Thanks to a 40-year flow of immigrants from Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan and India, Canada has lots and lots of businesses, small and large, that import hand-knotted rugs from all the countries and cultures that make them. Too many Canadians don't understand their worth, which means they can often be bought privately for peanuts.

It's pouring rain in Stratford today, so the outside world has little appeal for me. I shall go to church, have lunch at the diner, and then shelve the rest of the books. If I can clear the six-foot folding table, I will consider it a good day's work.