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My wife took this image.
So I left it up as our screen saver.
6.00 I have no re-organisation plan again.
I do have ADHD, OCD and lie somewhere on the Autism spectrum. I can clearly remember having all of these "problems" back in my school days.
Nearly 70 years later I still have severe problems concentrating and organising. I lose things. All of the time. Yet can tell you the origin of the thousands of dismantled items in my lifetime hoard of "stuff." The remaining detritus from far too many hobbies. Going back to my teenage years.
My useful memory is absolute crap and always has been. It always felt as if my memory was far too small and was constantly being overwritten. I'd leave classes without a clue about what had just been discussed by the teacher. Homework? Was there homework? Dates? I can remember a tiny few. Less than six in total. I cannot remember jokes to save my life. Well [literally] one or two. Or is it one? My mind wanders like a sheep on a mountainside. It always has and always will.
Most would say I have a highly selective memory. I can remember worthless stuff but nothing very useful. I do have some practical skills if I can avoid losing inspiration. Usually the project is part of my lifelong OCD. My wife called me a butterfly. I would change hobbies at the flick of a switch and completely lose interest in the last one. Often after studying library books for weeks or months. Even after investing in books, materials and tools.
My own library consists of 5 or 6 book cases stuffed to overflowing with non-fiction. Mostly bought secondhand. Mostly "text or reference books" for particular subjects. The sheer number of books is an indicator of my hundreds of pastimes, scores of interests and a dozen or so lifelong passions. These books are/were my missing memory banks. If I needed information I knew where to go. I even proved reference books "worked examples" were wrong once I got deeply into a subject.
Having reasonably high intelligence doesn't work. Not without a functioning memory. People would say I was bright but it didn't help. I was "always overqualified" when I went for job interviews. Despite using maths, geometry and trigonometry all of my life I cannot remember the simplest rules. Using Sin, Cos & Tan to solve a triangle? Nope! I'd have to write the simple formulae down first before I can use them safely. Do you know I still cannot add a column of figures and get the same answer twice? It was the same in junior school.
I cannot do simple fractions without working out a simple example first. I can no more do percentages than walk on water. You should not be surprised to learn that I have not a single educational qualification. Yet I wrote computer programs in BBC Basic to design astronomical telescope objectives to twelve decimal places.
I wanted to make a lens of my own and needed the exact radii of the four surfaces. I need hardly mention that I built a series of successful grinding and polishing machines. From scratch and always using scrap materials. I have man years invested in scrap metal yards. You can learn a lot from wandering about looking for something specific.
My optical design software proved that a classic optical design textbook had flaws in its worked examples. It showed that the published design of a new lens type was completely wrong. They had to publish an update to say they had no more exotic glass left.
So the design was changed to match what was commercially available. I then proved that the new design worked fine but was not as good. The designer went on to become world famous [in amateur astronomy] for his high quality APO telescopes. With waiting lists often running into years. The Chinese build lots of APOs now.
Being so mentally flawed I had to take humble jobs. Where my poor memory didn't matter too much. Humble jobs do not pay well. So I had to learn to DIY everything. My first car was an old Ford. I tuned the engine and rebuilt it using only the Haynes Manual. That was the beginning of maintaining and [often] tuning my own cars to save money.
I rebuilt a secondhand fibreglass kit car from scratch. I completely rebuilt and tuned the engine. Rebuilt the gearbox, brakes, inlet and exhaust manifolds, carburettor and racing filter systems. Changed the camshaft, fitted belt drive, lighter flywheel. Clutch, suspension, redesigned the bodywork, rewired it twice. When I found a better loom in a scrapyard. Built a completely new cooling system and oil cooler system. All just from book learning.
I couldn't afford to employ a carpenter. So I built triple glazing units for one of our homes. I went on to design and build our own, gravity heating systems. Did all the plumbing, drainage, doors, windows, floors, kitchen units and boarded the ceilings in our present hovel. I even put a new, super-insulated roof on it after a storm. A lifetime of so many hobbies gives me skills I can turn to my own benefit to save huge sums. I would buy the tools I needed from the savings.
Do I really need over a hundred screwdrivers? Dozens of different pliers? More spanners, sockets and drivers than most mechanics? I have flat, Ikea storage tubs full of them. I have repaired, designed and built my own bicycles all of my life. Even worked on and redesigned a few motorcycles in my youth. It is all valuable experience which can be added to the sum of the whole and turned to a new project.
I love writing but cannot remember the plot and characters from one day to the next. In my youth, a Job Centre employee once told me that I should have been born rich. Then I could play with my projects. Without needing to make a living like everybody else. I proved him wrong. I played with my projects anyway. Despite being working, but poor, for most of my life. How my [late] wife put up with me I have no idea.
08.15 45F. That's enough about me. Time for a walk! Lots of birds about. I fell into despair in the lanes as the tears flowed. How was I going to cope without my wife? I dare not even glimpse into the chasm of everyday life without her. Every sound I hear at home is of my own making. The myriad verbal exchanges are so painfully absent. I am completely devoid of training for my new life.
9.30 52F. I can't get it together again today. So I'm going for another ride on my trike. There is a small, village supermarket which might be open on Easter Monday. It's a lovely ride along the rural lanes. They might have some rolls. I checked whether they'd be open before leaving.
11.45. 58F. Just back from my ride. It was a perfect morning for it. Cool but with light, easterly winds. I bought both kinds of wholemeal rolls. Where the local supermarkets had only had one kind in stock. Only 16 miles but I was going remarkably well. Regularly dancing on the pedals on the climbs.
I sought out the steepest local climbs and was hardly breathless. Went by one beautiful route and returned by another. The landscape is filling up with solar panels. Whole fields of them! I couldn't share what I'd seen today. Because She is not here.
13.15. 58.3F. I managed a nap before lunch. Now I need a plan. I am still getting odd stabbing pans in my stomach. So I had a normal lunch. I forgot to buy cream to go with the daily banana. Down to the last two jars of the special, raspberry jam. I would order it online but can't remember where. That was strictly my wife's knowledge base.
It seems that crisps are highly processed foods. My starting to eat them with lunch, as an appetite stimulant, coincided with my stomach pains. I don't need the crisps and shan't buy any more.
I spent the afternoon on one of my favourite hobbies. Taking close-up pictures of the sun in my home-built observatory. This is relaxing but takes some concentration. This is not avoidance but gets me out of the [untidy] house. Which reduces the stimulation from being constantly surrounded in triggers to memories of my wife's presence.
The clear, plastic tubs are now being used to sort my own clothes. Not the most practical arrangement. Because larger items get wrinkled unless I am fastidious with folding.. It just seemed like somewhere to start. If only to ensure I knew where things are and how many are left. Before laundry alarm bells start ringing.
I haven't dared to look in my wardrobe yet. There is so much to discard I don't know where to start. I haven't worn a shirt formally in many years. Nor any other jacket but casual, weatherproof or down-filled for the cold. Jeans are smarter than fleece but rarely get an airing these days. I could go formal for the village shops..
Does that mean I can donate all the rest to the charity shops? Without a second thought? Clothes can easily be replaced at low cost from the same source. Only if needed. New clothes don't cost the earth. So why hang onto any of it? Why am I avoiding the process? That leaves me confused and undecided.
It feels as if I am abandoning a former life. One which ended abruptly 25 years ago with our move to Denmark. The entire wardrobe, for UK living, is still hanging unused or still neatly folded. Frozen in time. The very last bridge yet to be burnt? Emergency kit for a full retreat? Do I really want to go back to Blighty? That question feels very weird indeed the more I think about it.
Denmark is far more relaxed when it comes to dress code. As a pensioner, with zero social life, I have no need of formal anything. In fact I have no real need of a "wardrobe." I have been fighting with this wardrobe for 25 years. It gets in the way of my computer chair. [Or did, until I finally moved it back] Shelves and a few hangers, on a short rail, would easily cover my needs. I had better start looking for the clear dustbin bags!
Denmark feels very safe. As far as my very rural bit of Denmark is concerned. I don't know about the cities and would not want to live there anyway. Britain is a nation of thieves. Top down and bottom up. Every house, in every street and road we ever lived in, had a burglary. Both city and very rural. Going back for over half a century.
This was what finally triggered us to move over here. My workshop was broken into and my car stolen, on the same weekend, two hundred miles apart. A near neighbour was hospitalised by the burglars. When he came home to find them there. The police knew who the thieves were but had no proof. We never felt safe again.
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