Rug Alert

A large rug 'antique Persian' a small child, a bottle of ink, disaster!
I saw it falling, leapt towards it. The blue ink splashed through my fingers onto the muted greys of the beautiful Persian rug, soaking into it as fast as if the fine wool had been blotting paper. I grabbed it up from the floor and rushed to the nearby bathroom to wash the ink out. Fortunately, before turning on the tap I paused to think. The rug was a loan from my mother-in-law's collection of valuable large and small Persian rugs, and she might know what to do. I collected the children and the rug and struggled down to her flat below to apologise and ask for help.

She took one look at the rug, spread it over her dining table and assembled her materials: a dry cloth and a bucket of yoghurt. First she wiped the rug until no more ink would come off onto the cloth, then she spread a thick coating of yoghurt over the stain. The yoghurt rapidly turned blue and she scraped it off, it was like magic.

Over the next few days she repeated the process until all sign of the stain had gone, then rubbed the area with a soap-laden damp cloth a few times to get rid of the yoghurt. She didn't lend me the rug again!