Bleached out!

How incredibly irritating. A girl tries to do a good thing (making tea at work) and ends up a funny shade of green. Let me explain. Our kitchen at work is an utter disaster. Looked wonderful when it was first built, but since then, the door of the fridge has fallen off, the cupboard shelf has cracked, the bin has broken and to cap it all off the sink leaked and threw out all the electrics in the building. Not a resounding success, to put it mildly.

So this afternoon, I thought, I'll be lovely and make tea. One tea no sugar dash milk, one coffee half sugar hot milk, one green tea made with fresh leaves, one herbal tea with half sweetener, one tea two sugars lots milk and finally one coffee, black two sugars to be precise.

Now, there's one lovely thing about our office kitchen. The wealth of magazines on the counter top. Not just your boring Heat, Grazia, Cosmo crap...oh no. These magazines are for the more cerebrally diverse, shall we say. BBC Wildlife, Wanderlust, Conde Nast Traveller, Travel Africa, Food and Travel. Are you beginning to guess what industry I'm employed in?

Anyway, making tea is also a brilliant opportunity to have a browse. So I did. Restfully leaning on the counter, waiting for the kettle to boil, I read all about the mating habits of the sea squirt, and how a new gorilla baby had been born in the Congo. Uplifting stuff (particularly the sea squirt. Google it, I dare you. It's hilarious).

So when the kettle boils, I drag myself away and start pouring water. Which is when I become aware of a stinging, tingling feeling on my arm. Looking down, I see with shock that the sleeve of my gorgeous, deep periwinkle blue, brand new, warm-as-toast Heattech top has turned a minging pale olive vomity-green colour - and is changing before my eyes. And no, running it under water doesn't help at all. All it means is that I'm left with a damp sleeve (and given I'm wearing a very loose crocheted red top over the top, taking it off would result in some form of disciplinary action for breast revealment at work). So now not only do I have a damp squib of a sleeve, it's a detestable khaki-yellow-green-mud colour. And we all know that doesn't go with red.