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Endless sorting
Spent all afternoon moving books back upstairs into the spare bedroom. This took me longer than when I moved them downstairs when the p and d was ready to start work on the bedroom. I rushed then and did not stop to read any of the books. By the time the decorating is finished, I shall have moved the books up and down the stairs several times. At the rate I'm going I wonder when I'll have time to read any of them. My monthly magazines are piling up.
Here's an extract from Sketches by Boz by Charles Dickens that almost went to the charity shop yesterday but, being small, earned a reprieve. It is about Omnibuses.
It is very generally allowed that public conveyances afford an extensive field for amusement and observation. Of all the public conveyances that have been constructed since the days of the Ark -- we think that is the earliest on record -- to the present time, commend us to an omnibus.
Here is the beginning of a chapter entitled 'The Hospital Patient'.
In our ramble through the streets of London after evening has set in, we often pause beneath the windows of some public hospital, and picture to ourself the gloomy and mournful scenes that are passing within. The sudden moving of a taper as its feeble ray shoots from window to window, until its light gradually disappears, as if it were carried farther back into the room to the bedside of some suffering patient, is enough to awaken a whole crowd of reflections; the mere glimmering of the low burning lamps, which, when all other habitations are wrapped in darkness and slumber, denote the chamber where so many forms are writhing with pain, or wasting with disease, is sufficient to check the most boisterous of merriment.
Thought for today
A peasant must stand a long time on a hillside with his mouth open before a roast duck flies in.
Chinese proverb
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1.5.07 21:20
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A little mystery
Yesterday I noticed that I had a tender area on my back over, I think, the left sacro-iliac joint. Had I strained it? Had I bashed it? I could recall no injury. Could it be a secondary (from a cancer somewhere)? I felt too well for that. It was a puzzle. This morning, as I lugged another rucksack with a heavy load of books and pots to a charity shop, I realised what the problem was. It was a side-effect of lugging heavy rucksacks containing solid items, items that rubbed and pressed into my back where my bones stuck out. If I was fat I suppose I wouldn't be affected. However, I shall stay thin and pad the rucksack rather than myself.
The local library has been shut for two weeks while it was upgraded. It opened again yesterday. People borrowing books have to check them out themselves instead of taking them to the desk for the staff to do. I suspect this will dismay older folk who will have to learn a new technique.
Thought for today
Education is an ornament in prosperity and a refuge in adversity.
Aristotle
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2.5.07 20:49
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An unexpected lesson
Went to vote this morning in the local infants' school. I expect the kids were glad to have the day off. I remember that being a bonus of elections; my primary school was used as a polling station. I had walked past the school a few times but had never been through the gates. What a surprise; not only did it look a cheerful place but it had an impressive garden with an impressive vegetable plot. In fact, the plot looked better than mine. There was a block of sweetcorn with plants about a foot high. My sweetcorn have yet to germinate. I must start them earlier next year; I can't be outdone by little kids.
There were broad beans, chard, tomatoes in a greenhouse, an area with herbs, and wigwams ready for climbing plants. And, even more amazing, not a weed in sight. When I returned from my daily (it seems) trip to a charity shop, I got out the hoe and weeded my veg plot. In the afternoon I erected supports for my broad beans copying the school's example.
Thought for today
It must be a familiar fact to so many that we are very prone to mistake or confuse the sources of our pleasure and the causes of such contentment as we achieve. We attribute to our surroundings in general what is due to one especial part of them; for the sake of one feature the landscape's whole aspect seems pleasant. We rob Peter with intent to pay Paul, and then in the end give the money to somebody else.
Anthony Hope, The King's Mirror, 1899
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3.5.07 20:55
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Something nasty in the garage
I found a flattened, dried mouse on the garage floor today. Thought it was a leaf at first until I saw it had eyes. Something heavy must have squashed it. I wondered if I could have run over it in the car, though it was at least three feet away from that. Another of life's mysteries.
There was a brief interview with Murray Walker on the radio this morning, he of Formula 1 reporting and now 83. The noise of the racing cars can't have done him any good because he now wears a hearing aid in both ears. He said that it can take people years before they realise that they are going deaf. However, being Murray Walker, he didn't put it like that. He said that it can take them years before they realise 'that they have a deteriorating hearing system.' Once long-winded, always long-winded.
Thought for today
People vote their resentment, not their appreciation. The average man does not vote for anything, but against something.
Munro
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4.5.07 20:19
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An easy chair
Went to Homebase to buy another packet of kohl rabi. About a third of the ones I sowed a few weeks ago either failed to germinate or failed to survive into infancy. There are gaps in the rows where there should be little plants with purple leaves. I shall sow another batch in pots and plant them outside when they are big enough to withstand predators.
While in Homebase I noticed a two-seater wooden chair in a sale and ended up buying that mainly because a young man, a member of staff, came up and asked me if I would like any help. As I hadn't intended buying a chair I had taken a shopping basket rather than a trolley. I told him that if he would carry it to the checkout and then to my car, I would buy it. He picked it up and off he went. I wonder if being a sucker for pleasant young men is a sign of old age.
After lunch I assembled the chair. What a business. The instructions were brief. They could have done with a health warning; assembling this chair on your own is likely to test your patience. I attached, with great difficulty, the back first because that's what the instructions seemed to indicate. I had to balance the back on a brick on a seat to keep it from falling over. Then I discovered that the seat wouldn't fit with the back in place so I had to undo the bolts and start again. The seat in place stabilised the side bits but then I discovered that I had the side bits the wrong way round so had to undo everything again. Once the seat was attached correctly to the side parts the back fitted but one of the bolts for the attachment was too short and therefore useless. That meant a return trip to Homebase to ask for another bolt.
I took the cardboard packing with me so I could dump it in the cardboard skip in the car park. That was full and cardboard was strewn about around it. However, I wasn't taking the large sheet of cardboard back with me so, with desperation giving me strength, I rammed it into one of the slots in the skip. In it went and out came a Wheetabix packet and something else which I managed to shove back in. I rushed off before anything else could fall out.
Thought for today
Democracy is based upon the conviction that there are extraordinary possibilities in ordinary people.
H E Fosdick
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5.5.07 21:18
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Hidden items
I ordered grow pots (which allow the addition of extra compost to grow bags and make the watering easier) from a mail order firm recently. They took about ten days to arrive by which time my tomatoes were outgrowing their small pots. I hastily planted the tomatoes. Later that day, when I went into the garage for a flowerpot, what did I see on a ahelf? Three grow pots. One of my parents must have bought them years ago and never used them.
I bought a packet of peat pots for sowing seeds last week and put them in a cupboard in the garage. What did I find in the cupboard? A pile of peat pots. I almost bought some root trainers for large seeds at the same time but was glad I didn't because the cupboard in the garage was full of those too.
Today I bought more potting compost and discovered that there were several small bags of the stuff in the garden room (the old workshop) concealed in boxes.
On Friday I swept around the fireplace and removed the piece of hardboard that covered the opening because it wouldn't fit flush. What did I find behind the board? A pile, a very dusty pile, of my father's stones. They must have been there undisturbed for years.
Thought for today
Man is old when he begins to hide his age; woman, when she begins to tell hers.
(I must remember that and keep my mouth shut.)
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7.5.07 20:36
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Even worms must work
Went to one of the Royal Horticultural Society's gardens on Sunday. I wanted to look at the vegetable patch to see how to support peas and beans. Bamboos and thick string are suitable for broad beans; chicken wire is suitable for peas. The latter is about the only thing lacking in my father's stash of items for the garden.
I walked through the fruit area and noticed what I thought was a bee hive which I presumed was to encourage bees to live there and pollinate the fruit trees. It turned out to be a worm hive. A notice next to it said: The worm hive. This is a wormery that looks like a bee hive and is used for recycling kitchen waste such as potato and carrot peelings, crushed egg shells and tea bags. Inside there are lots of worms working hard at making compost and liquid fertilizer. To really work well, the waste inside the wormery needs to be kept dark and moist at all times. Please try to avoid disturbing the worms from their work.
At this point I felt guilty because before reading the notice I had lifted the lid to look inside. I saw nowt because there was a piece of cardboard in the way, no doubt to stop people like me from disturbing the worms.
Thought for today
One of the many things nobody ever tells you about middle age is that it's such a nice change from being young.
Dorothy Canfield Fisher
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8.5.07 20:53
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