Lucy Melford: A new lap tray

Life is not all troublesome gearboxes. I'm on holiday. The weather so far has been pretty dodgy - lots of wind and rain, and although snug in the caravan it's chilly outside.

Even so, I've already cheered myself up with two new tops when in Sidmouth, and yesterday I got something for the home in Bridport. A new lap tray. You know: a tray with a soft backing (full of tiny polystyrene balls) that moulds itself to your knees each time you use it, and provides a steady, non-tip platform for your meal plate. Or indeed for your laptop when being creative. Or for any activity really that you want to indulge in while sitting in relaxed comfort in your favourite armchair, or on a sofa, rather than stiffly at a table.

Lap trays are usually not utilitarian. They are often colourful affairs, with a nice picture on them. I bought my first for £10.99 back on 28th July 2009, at Bridport's little departmental store, Lilliput. It has featured in most of my food photos ever since, although nearly always obscured by the plate of food. Here's the first such photo, dated 2nd August 2009, when caravanning for the first time at what became my favourite site in North Devon:

I hasten to say that this was in my pre-Slimming World days, when I thought it all right to eat fish fingers and plenty of melting butter! Yummy though. Searching through the Photo Archive, I've found a shot from May 2017 that shows the tray without a plate on it. A most attractive design called 'Blue and white China' by the company that markets these trays (Creative Tops):

And here's another shot from May 2022:

The tray looks no different today, at least on the top side. These lap trays are very durable items, and this one has taken fourteen years of heavy use with few signs of deterioration. Underneath however it's a different story. There is a fabric backing, which conceals a plastic bag full of those little polystyrene balls, and holds it in place. Once that fabric starts to fray, and holes begin to form in it, that bag of little balls is vulnerable. The last thing you want is hundreds of polystyrene balls tumbling out! So once the dark blue fabric on the underside of this tray began to tear, I carefully repaired it. That was three or four years ago. Now it's got holes in it again, and looks tatty. Not tatty enough to junk the tray, but clearly I needed a new one for ongoing daily use, keeping the old tray for (say) laptop work only.

I have in fact been looking around for a new lap tray since early last year. The 'Blue and White China' design was long gone. It would have to be something different, but at any rate something bold and colourful. I saw a contender at Fields department store in Sidmouth last year. You can see it in this shot I took inside the store, on the Creative Tops display stand in the centre of the picture. A design with large red and cream flowers, called 'Flower Study'. (Creative Tops evidently don't get creative with the names of their designs!) In fact there were two versions: one of them a conventional plastic tray with handles, the other a lap tray.

I hesitated and didn't buy at the time, but the flower design stayed in my mind, and I thought that when next on holiday in the area I would snap it up. It was disappointing to find that in the meantime Fields had stopped selling lap trays! But I had another place to go: Lilliput in Bridport, where I had bought the first lap tray in 2009. So yesterday I made a point of looking in there, and sure enough, they had a range of lap trays. Including the one with flowers that had caught my eye. Lilliput wanted £12.99 for it.

It wasn't the only design that might suit. I compared it with one or two others - for instance, a colourful farmyard scene. But for me it was no contest.