aboveboard
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Let he who is without sin ...
A 30mph speed limit was installed in a nearby village recently; previously the national speed limit applied. The residents are pleased. One said today, while he gave me a ride in his car, that some were going on a course to be allowed to use hand-held radar guns and so be able to report speeders to the police. I noticed that he drove at 40mph in a 30mph limit and 50mph in a 40mph limit. When speed traps are set in villages it's often the residents who are caught.
My mother, previously keen to visit my father in the care home every day, is still not rushing to do so. She said today that she had expected him to be miserable without her but he didn't seem to be so. She was enjoying seeing the garden cleared, the house tidied and the family silver appearing from cupboards.
Today we ate our first lot of potatoes and french beans from the veg patch. They were delicious.
Thought for today
How foolish to think that one can ever slam the door in the face of age. Much wiser to be polite and gracious and ask him to lunch in advance.
Noel Coward (1899 - 1973) Diary, 3 June 1956
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11.7.06 22:02
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Out of sight, out of mind
Clearing out the sideboard yesterday I found, under a pile of tablecloths, an unopened box of After Eight mints. My mother said she didn't know they were there. They'd probably been concealed for at least two years as their eat by date was 11/2004.
My parents' house is so full that finding anything becomes difficult. When I clear a space my mother wonders what to put in it. In her mind space has to be filled.
When she buys something new she never throws away the old one. She has towels by the ton, enough small kitchen knives (most of which are blunt and have loose handles) to open a hardware shop, and a huge number of plastic plant pots.
Today I started the battle against the bindweed and ground elder by watering them with weedkiller I found in the garage. The weedkiller contains malathion and paraquat; I expect my father bought it years ago because I doubt it is sold now.
Thought for today
What makes life dreary is absence of motive. What makes life complicated is multiplicity of motive. What makes life victorious is singleness of motive.
George Eliot
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13.7.06 21:59
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A speedy death
The weedkiller I used yesterday has affected the weeds remarkably quickly. Many have perished already; at least their leaves have, I hope their roots do as well. No wonder the instructions were to wash off skin immediately.
I used weedkiller for the first time last year to clear weeds from my drive. It worked but not nearly as quickly as yesterday's stuff.
My mother asked me to look at a pair of sunglasses that she'd trodden on and broken. She thought I might be able to fix them. One of the arms had come off and might just need screwing back on. She handed me a plastic bag containing the glasses. The arm was intact but the screw was missing. One of the lenses was cracked. I asked her when she had trodden on them. She replied 'Ten years ago'. Somehow that seemed typical of her. Why didn't she get them repaired or buy a new pair within a week of breaking them? Why keep broken glasses for ten years? She had forgotten where she'd put them.
Thought for today
Nothing is more destructive of people's ability to resist than forced acquiescence to what they know is tripe.
Theodore Dalrymple
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14.7.06 21:47
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The clear out continues
I found nineteen new tea towels today. Fourteen were in a chest of drawers in the spare bedroom; the rest were in the sideboard. Is this a record? Needless to say my mother had forgotten about them. She even asked someone to buy two new ones from Sainsbury's recently. I doubt I shall need to buy tea towels ever again.
I found two unused blow torches, still in their boxes, on the same shelf in a cupboard in the garage. The price of one was 35 shillings.
Yesterday I applied two layers of woodstain, a job long overdue, to the front and back door frames. I had intended to use the old can of woodstain in the garage but bought another can in case there wasn't enough. It was just as well that I did because I couldn't get the lid off; it was stuck fast. I was pleased that the brush needed only detergent and water to clean it because I never like cleaning brushes with white spirit. I usually make more mess, and smell, cleaning than I do painting.
My brother arrived yesterday with a hired van to collect a double bed, a bookcase, an oak chest and some of the family silver. He said that he hoped his journey back would be uneventful; last time he drove away with things from the house he was stopped by the police who were checking vehicles at random.
'Is this your van, sir?'
'No'
'Is this your property?'
'No'
'I see, sir. Please will you step outside the van.'
Thought for today
The national sport of England is obstacle racing. People fill their homes with useless and cumbersome furniture, and spend the rest of their lives in trying to dodge it.
Herbert Beerbohm Tree (1852 - 1917) Hesketh Pearson, Beerbohm Tree (1956)
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16.7.06 21:00
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The heat, the heat
The heatwave continues. Grass has turned brown; lawns need no cutting. Clothes washed and wrung by hand dry in a few hours. The tomatoes need watering twice a day.
Yesterday I dug up trees to clear the way for the replacement of the back fence which is disintegrating. I dug up a cherry tree, a Pittosporum the roots of which were entangled in those of the cherry tree, a smoke tree and something that had crept under the fence from the neighbours' garden. The soil was dry. I reduced the large pile of branches, stems and trunks to about half a wheelie bin's worth using my father's shredder. The shreddings are now on the compost heap and the remaining stumps are in the garden waste skip of the local tip. Dumping stuff there gives me a feeling of satisfaction -- satisfaction at having got rid of it, satisfaction at having done so without objection from the men, and satisfaction at having managed to lift it into the skips. My daily press-ups and my watching 'The World's Strongest Man' programmes on the telly are proving useful. Dumping heavy rubbish in the skips needs strong arms and a good lifting technique. Having staggered up the steps I then have to lift the rubbish to shoulder height. The men might help if asked but I fear they might tell me that I'm dumping the wrong kind of waste or too much waste and have to take it somewhere else and pay extra.
On Monday a man came to replace the loose tiles in the bathroom, and a plumber came to fix the leaking loo in the cloakroom. I remarked to my mother that if we needed a pee we could use a bucket in the garden room. She said that she had once used a jug in the kitchen when my father was on the cloakroom loo and she was so desperate that she couldn't wait to go upstairs to the bathroom. She showed me the jug; it was the one that I used every day to mix my salads. It fitted neatly between her legs she said. I haven't used the jug since.
Thought for today
Necessity, which is stronger than the Gods, knows no law, and is the mother of invention.
Hillaire Belloc, The Green Overcoat, 1912
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19.7.06 20:59
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More where that came from
Two people from a second-hand book shop came this morning to take away some of the old books. They took about a third and gave us £170 for them. Better than a push in the backside as my father used to say. Later in the afternoon I discovered that I'd overlooked a bookcase in the hall; the book sellers might have taken some of the books in that.
I also discovered another box of photos. That was a nuisance. I thought I'd given all the photos to my brother to sort out. I sat outside in the shade and looked through them. Most were taken by my father and were of people and places unknown to me. I threw them away wondering why my father had taken so many photos. They represented brief moments in his life; filed in an old shoe box and then forgotten.
A collection in aid of Dr Banardo's was due this morning so my mother packed most of her china into boxes ready for the van. She left the Dr B's plastic bag outside with a note attached to it saying to please knock, there was more inside. She also left a box of incontinence pads outside, appropriately labelled, for the district nurse to collect.
About five minutes after the book-sellers arrived, I looked outside and noticed that the Dr B bag and the box of inco pads had disappeared. The Dr B collector must have taken them both and left the hall full of boxes of china.
I rushed out to try to spot the vehicle and found it two streets away. It was not a van but a small saloon car driven by a cheerful young man, and was already packed to the roof with bags. The inco pads were on the back seat. The chap drove back to the house, gave us back the inco pads and took the rest of the stuff after having emptied his car back at the Dr B's depot.
The district nurse arrived an hour later and carted off the inco pads. Gradually the house looks better.
Thought for today
From ignorance our comfort flows,
The only wretched are the wise.
Prior, To C Montague
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20.7.06 21:54
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Save, save, save
This seems to have been my parents' motto. They kept instructions to equipment and appliances that they no longer possessed. In a drawer in the kitchen were instructions for a dishwasher, an electronic scales, a toaster and an electric kettle that had long since gone. Perhaps this was more a case of not bothering to look through the drawers every few years and chuck out
obsolete items. This would have been helpful because the drawer was so full I had difficulty opening it. Mixed up with the redundant booklets were clothes pegs and loads of rubber bands. The usual thick layer of dust was underneath everything rather than on top.
My mother decided today that she would go into the care home on Monday. When I asked her what she would like for lunch her reply sounded as if she were choosing her last breakfast.
She visited my father in the home this morning. They had a tray of tea together. While they were sitting at the table in the library one of the other residents walked up, took the sugar bowl and a spoon and ate the rest of their sugar. 'That's cool,' said my father, 'Bloody help yourself.'
Quote for today
To what do I attribute my longevity? Bad luck.
Quentin Crisp, (1908 - 1999) in Spectator 20 November 1999
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21.7.06 21:53
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