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The sky looks very strange as we approach 6am. Hardly light yet. Barely visible silvery clouds and dark patches.
At this moment the task ahead looks completely overwhelming. Despite yesterday's victories there is still "stuff" literally everywhere. How do you plan for sorting such mixed items? Perhaps I should lower the bar for "keepers" and start redistributing to charity shops? Can you put bags of balls of wool in the clothing donation containers?
Regarding all the ironwork: I imagined an "artistic" pillar towering into the sky. Silly really. I don't have a welder to hold it all together. There are vintage magazine racks, glass topped tables, candlesticks and umpteen plant stands. They are everywhere too. Including outside, in the kitchen and lounge and out in the greenhouse. Some rusty. Some painted. Untangling them is great fun! Bulky too. Though most of it is fresh air.
There is no instructions manual for the loss of a lifelong partner. I suddenly realised that I was still being offered my wife's favourites and subscriptions on YouTube. I had to do some clearing up there too.
Today I noticed that the fridge was in the wrong place and the door hung from the wrong side. There was no choice with the built-in cupboard still there. Now gone, thank goodness. This cupboard, ironically, stole space from the bathroom. If there was no alcove there, then a full sized washing machine would fit easily behind the bathroom door.
Or, I could have the washing machine in the kitchen in that alcove. Washing machines are the ultimate in built-in obsolescence. So this one can't last much longer. The whole kitchen layout is stretched lengthways. The cooker and working surface at opposite ends of the room. A layout we inherited when we bought the place.
I built a whole new run of kitchen cabinets along the south wall. Using recycled oak, cupboard doors and drawer fronts. I'll have to put all of this on the back burner until I come up with a better solution.
My wife's old wardrobe is heading to the recycling yard this morning. Shopping while I am in the village. I haven't done any laundry for days. Better start there. The car is turned around, trailer loaded and hitched.
My first proper walk in ages thanks to the replacement Scarpa boots. I walked up to the woods and skirted back by the outer edge. Where I saw a hare. Then past the almost, bird free, marsh pond. A solitary pair of Mallards paddled away at the far side.
A cold easterly wind took the edge off the mild temperatures. It has reached 50F at 9.15. My camera battery was flat by the time I returned to the road. The boots were fine thanks to the loose laces. Walking on rough ground exercises the boots and my ankles. Hopefully leading to more rapid breaking in.
12.00 56F. Bright but still overcast. The wardrobe has gone for recycling. Along with a lot of polystyrene boxes. My wife used these for growing plants and was always grateful when I brought them home. The supermarkets used them for fruit and veg.
I also delivered seven sacks of knitting wool to the charity shop. That made a dent in the pile in the corner of the bedroom. There will be more hidden away but I can deal with that. It feels strangely disloyal to give away her knitting wool. More so than all those clothes I never saw her wear.
15.00 60F. Thin overcast. I am on my third run on the laundry for today. After a tour in Tiny Tim, the spin drier, the outside washing line is full.
16.00 An hour spent ferrying my wife's 30+, heavy bags of leaf mould down to the compost heap. Out of respect for her intentions of limiting Chestnut Moth larvae predation I did not break open the bags. I am glad to see them gone because the black bags looked like bags full of rubbish.
17.00 Yet another trip to the recycling yard. Assorted scrap metal, large boxes of advertising newspapers, cardboard, plastic food trays and more polystyrene boxes. The food trays were used as seed trays. I do believe it is beginning to look tidier.
I have yet to decide what to do with my wife's hundreds of plastic plant pots. She would clean them and recycle them endlessly. I am not going to have any use for them. I could stack them out of sight somewhere. Being black they don't draw attention. Her seedling raising shelving units are going to have to go. She took them over when I upgraded the shelving in the workshop.
Which reminds me. There are two old stoves behind the shelving to go for scrap. I have no idea why she refused to let me take them away. They were in the house when we bought it and lethal. They leaked smoke and fumes like sieves due to cracked back plates. I nearly passed out the first and last time I lit one of them using oil-based coal. That was 25 years ago and the ****** thing is still there!
19.00 The washing was already dry. So I brought it in. Then I had to explain to a stray cat. That the lovely lady, who used to give it cream, had died. Then I went back indoors to cry.
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