Duffel or duffle?

Having staved off the evil day for some years, by replacing leather thongs with silken ropes, I have finally fallen for a new duffel coat from Gloverall, a new coat which turned up from somewhere in the Midlands, in a van, within just a day or so of ordering it.

There is some doubt about how old the old coat is, with the only trace from gmail being an interaction with the Gloverall customer care centre about colour in 2008. It seems to be reasonably clear that a coat was bought on that occasion. It seems reasonably likely that any subsequent purchase would also have figured in the email record and so is actually non-existent. The present old coat does indeed date from 2008.

While reference 1 suggests that I was worrying about the condition of the leather thongs early in 2015. So it all adds up.

First action for me on arrival of new coat was to decommission the new coat, as snapped above with all the ropes and buttons removed. Ropes preserved for posterity, buttons in the large jar of same.

Second action for BH was washing and airing. The old coat needed to be washed before it could take up its new duties as a blanket for watching television in the extension, apt to be cold in the winter, thus saving the planet by economising on our use of our antique electric fire from Belling, and the new coat needed to be aired to remove its factory smell.

Washing and airing now complete and the two coats are ready for duty.

It just remains for me to check up on my confusion about the spelling. Duffel may be a place in the Netherlands rather than a coat.

PS: later: Duffel turns out to be a town near Antwerp, in Brabant, in Belgium. On the river Nete which flows into the Rupel which flows into the Scheldt. Lots of waterworks. There are also two castles, perhaps dating from the days of Spanish occupation, Fort van Duffel and Kastel del Elst.

References

Reference 1: https://psmv3.blogspot.com/2016/12/duffel-coat.html. Start of roping up.

Reference 2: https://psmv4.blogspot.com/2020/01/military-bearing.html. Roping up completed.

Reference 3: https://www.gloverall.com/.