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Tuesday 26th 34F, bright sunshine. Woke at 5.30 up at 6.30. My walk was used to photograph our home from a distance. From as many angles as possible.
Yesterday I checked out another, village recycling yard. It was closed but is also 6 miles away as the crow flies. The same distance as the largest yard. Which is open every day except Sunday. The other village has a builder's merchants but poor charity shop access. Afternoons only.
The larger village has lost its builder's merchant. Shopping facilities are very similar in both. I might use the other yard if I need a change of scenery. It was a gorgeous drive yesterday. Along narrow, hilly lanes in glorious sunshine. Though I wasn't towing a trailer of course.
The larger village is via main roads only. With lots of traffic and miles of slow speed limits. The first village was a favourite target for a shopping trike ride in the past. How very long ago that seems now! It almost fills me with nostalgia. The problem is the low, average cycling speed compared to the car. I have to add an hour to the return trip.
I could easily fill a trailer with old timber offcuts from the garden. Which my wife used and stored in quantity. There is still scrap metal to be collected and taken away. Tidying indoors should be a higher priority but needs far more effort. Which I am presently unwilling to apply.
The storage area I mentioned yesterday needs some local, rockwool insulation. Plus more support battens for the sloping ceilings. Before I can board over a vapour barrier to seal it all up. I could get the Rockwool from the builder's merchants. After emptying the trailer at the smaller yard.
It would only take a couple of packs of insulation to finish it all off. Get the battens at the same time while I have the trailer. Which I should measure up first. It would make a change from serial tidying. While providing lots more space for storage.
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Yet again I have been waiting 20 years to complete this project. It has been hidden by dark, full length, opaque curtains, for all of that time. Instead of flooding the "living end" of the attic with light. As it is now. From the fully glazed gable end. [Which I fitted myself.] Now it looks straight into the boughs of the huge Horse Chestnut.
I am beginning to wonder whether all these curtains actually caused my wife's winter depression. It was always dark indoors! Not helped by dark furniture, curtains and many surfaces. Wouldn't that be supremely ironic!
I would sit at the computer for hours every day. In front of a north facing, dormer window. So I was getting light therapy all the time I was browsing and blogging. Without being blinded by the sun on its southern arc. I would also spend time out of doors on my morning walks. Usually in low, blinding sunshine. At other times I would be imaging the sun in my observatory. With a huge arc of the sky always visible. Though I would be safely shielded from direct sunshine.
I was the only one who went shopping. Year round. So I was exposed to outdoor light levels whatever the weather. She stopped going out years earlier. She found the car seats uncomfortable even with layers of cushions. She also complained of boredom with the same old shops and scenery.
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Simultaneously, the TV watching area was much dimmer and faced by full drop, dark red curtains! To hide the stored clutter behind the TV! With only the relatively low light from the TV providing any illumination. My wife would watch YT gardening videos for hours in winter.
So here we have the perfect combination for causing SAD [Seasonal Affective Disorder.] The garden is ringed with huge trees. Of which many are her own work. She planted them endlessly along the boundaries because of the toxic neighbours and the damaging wind and occasional storms.
We have a ten foot high, 6' thick, beech hedge blocking the full southern boundary. That protected us and the greenhouse from storms and air pellets from the other, toxic neighbours' kids. Not to mention the same, weekend farmer's penchant for leaving his tractor running with the spray bar over our boundary! Toxic neighbours? Where do you think we got the name? Our planted conifers on his boundary were twisted for years until he died.
The lean-to greenhouse was darkened by lightweight tarpaulins to shield the inside from the sun's heat. All year round! She had also planted conifers to the south of the greenhouse. Which were blocking more and more light as they rocketed skywards. 25' high already!
The already shaded greenhouse shades most of the [quite small] southerly windows of the house on the ground floor. The last, uncovered window had a clear [soon opaque] tarpaulin stapled over the outside. Right where she would stand at the sink and cooker.
The huge beech hedge blocks the sun all winter. So there is little to no light coming through the most important windows except in high summer. The light coming through the few, northern windows were blocked by the boundary trees and yet more curtains.
The floors are carpeted in dark "Indian" carpets. The ceilings unpainted pine boards which have darkened with age. Dark curtains and doubled net curtains on every window. Some plain brick walls. Dark oak furniture. Dark, storage boxes. Years ago I fitted fully glazed doors downstairs to let the light spread through the house. My wife covered some of them with curtains!
Even a huge aspidistra blocked the light through the windows in the living room. The eastern, gable end window had a similar clear [but soon dark] tarpaulin at my wife's insistence. That was because of more toxic neighbours at the bedroom end of the house. She hung several layers of curtain at that window. As if the tarpaulins weren't enough!
The gloom indoors [and out] in winter was literally everywhere. It is no wonder my wife collapsed into depression every autumn. As the days grew longer and the sun rapidly sank much lower. Often with months of grey skies and rain adding to the misery! My wife would often complain about the grey skies. From indoors. Because she rarely ventured outside in the cold and wet for six months of the year. She hated it!
SAD? QED! What a tragedy!! She directly caused her own winter depression. Due to her very poor furnishing choices and external circumstances. My poor, poor dear!
The question is what measures I can take outside. The "rocket" conifers must go. They already dwarf the house and completely block the view of the drive. Even from upstairs! The beech hedge can and will be lowered and thinned. Considerably! Another major project but at least it isn't tidying. The beech hedge cuttings will have to be removed from the field into the trailer. At least the recycling yard is open 24x7 for garden waste.
11.00. 53F. I have lowered the eastern boundary hedge to about 6'. A miserable thing it looks too! With mostly tree trunks and little in the way of filler on my side. Exactly how it looked when we moved here 25 years ago. Before we put up a mesh fence to stop the toxic neighbours' dog from attacking us in our own garden! The misery to which they subjected us just goes on and on. Decade after decade..
All the trimmings from the boundary hedge have been handed back to next door. Where there is still a lot of tree growth. I'm not sure where I stand legally if I go over and start felling their self-seeded trees. There is an agreed standard of 1.5m or 5' in the towns. What height when there are absent, rural, property investors? Do they even care if I go around there "tidying up?" They might be happy for me to do so. To avoid paying for it via commercial contractors.
I just spent more than two hours cutting down the self-seeded growth on the other side of the boundary hedge/fence. My arms are scratched to hell and I am aching all over. From throwing branches onto a huge heap at the bottom of their garden.
The view from my bedroom window has improved dramatically. This is what used to be known as "borrowed scenery." I can now look right over own hedge in the lower foreground. To where the view is limited by the trees [overgrown hedge] on the other side of their back lawn. I can live with that.
After lunch I went back to lopping the hedge. To take off all the small stems which were unsuitable for the chainsaw. I went along the other side of the fence too and it looks far smarter.
17.00 Just back from a late afternoon trike ride to the shops. I asked a younger lady which cleaner I needed for the tiled floors. She was moving quickly as she shopped at the supermarket. So I thought she looked efficient and intelligent. Fortunately I was correct and she was very helpful. I now have a bottle of perfume free, tiled floor cleaner to play with.
I hope it is as magical as the Cillit Bang mould killer. I cannot believe how clean the bathroom walls look now. As if I had just finished fitting them. The grout had been black for years. Probably due to poorly insulated walls and condensation. I wanted to fit an extractor fan but yet again my wife stopped me. We would open the windows for five minutes after a shower. To get rid of the steam. Which further chilled the bathroom.
The salad making essentials have been replenished after finding everything had gone mouldy. I'm trying the baby "snack" carrots. To avoid having to buy a huge bag of the usual sized, organic variety. They seem to have a very short bag life. I haven't tried any potatoes yet. So I hope they are still edible.
A shower was essential before dinner. I have been dripping with sweat all day!
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