What I ordered: Nice for the winter and not too heavy for the summer so will be okay year roundOne of my few gripes about living full-time on a Greek island is the lack of choice for soft-furnishings and the rather oppressive feeling of "having to go to the mainland or do without" when faced with the option of traipsing into Athens or not to find what are essentially fairly basic things. Today I avoided my dilemma and went online to do something about my chilly looking windows now that winter has been heralded by an unseasonably awful September. It's alright having traditional cotton panels during the summer, but there's nothing more depressing than sitting in your living room gazing through your gloomy somewhat bleak windows when it's pouring with rain. Inadequate excluders aside, it's chill-inducing to look at your lightweight summer voiles billowing in the draft!

So to avoid a trip into the "Big Olive" I searched the internet for "ready-made lined curtains" and after wading through a number of wholesale Chinese sites selling bulk frilly and synthetic curtains (yuk) in job lots of 500 (rather excessive for my needs), up popped Sanderson Fabrics Online. And what a find from my point of view - I thought I'd landed in soft-furnishing's heaven.

Not only do they have a selection of by-the-metre fabrics from more designers than you can shake a stick at (50 of them so you're spoilt for choice if you want to make your own), they have ready-made lined curtains in a massive range of patterns, heading tops, prices and sizes that actually fit most Greek windows.

Double Curtain Poles: I really like these too - you can hang your winter and summer curtains at the same timeMind you the site should come with a health warning for your bank account because they also have a big choice of rugs, bed linen, cushions, towels and curtain-poles, so starved for choice shoppers like me be warned as it's very tempting to redo the whole house!

Today I ordered just one pair of curtains (my credit card comes with a built in health care mechanism - ie there's a very low limit!) and a couple of ready made black-out linings - in white - a bit of a contradiction but white lining behind the existing lace curtains in my daughter's bedroom will be just the job to stop people in the street seeing her at night when she's prancing around in the nude oblivious to the fact that with the lights on she LOOKS LIKE SHE'S ON STAGE!*!*! much to the delight I'm sure of the neighbouring boys.

Of course, being an impatient type of person, I rashly (well more, in my defence because I was trying to be good) placed the order for the just the main curtains (and a couple of face cloths) first. The delivery charge for the order from the UK to the post office on Hydra being £70 - slightly more than the €54 for a return dolphin ticket to Athens. But when you consider the cost of buses and potentially taxis in Athens to find the shop you need (and the whole day out of the office) and the risk of having to pay for a hotel if you get stranded by the weather at this time of the year, I wasn't too put off by the delivery charge.

Later ... looking at the site to plot what I might buy in the future, I decided that the black-out curtains were really essential immediately, so I placed a second order which appeared to charge my card another £70 delivery. (They don't have an obviously "add to your existing order" option like those other nice people at Amazon.) However, the friendly and understanding lady on the end of the help number (prominently displayed on the site) assured me that they would put both orders together and only charge my card for one lot of delivery.

Sanderson estimate it taking about 7 days before I get my order so I wait with bated breath (anticipating more like 2 weeks though, 'cause the weather is very iffy which will deter the delivery boat no doubt) and will add a comment to this article later to let you know whether my delivery arrives in good order and my credit card doesn't get over charged. And while I'm waiting I shall ponder which carpet will look best to disguise the horrible "mock parquet" ceramic floors tiles I have to put up with.

What do you think, this one?

Or this one?