21.05.2022 Cumulative unburdening.

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 Saturday 21st 50F, a grey day with light rain showers. Up at 6am.

 Leaving the front door wide open, for the workers, allowed the entry of gnats. I woke to find my hand blazing furiously at their assault. Having just dreamed of brushing my hand through stinging nettles. 

 Fortunately my good [but late] wife had supplied me with adequate reserves of Witch Hazel. Easily enough to see me through. I have repetitive dreams about searching for fly paper. Within a rural village, economic system.

 The internal background continues to be less "noisy." Each bout of increased tidiness builds on the last. What one might call "cumulative unburdening."

 A logistical nightmare has peaked on raisins for breakfast. Gross failure to provide on repeated shopping trips. I need a more efficient notebook system for diminished, dietary depletion. Finding a single ballpoint pen, which works on demand, is an ongoing situation. I may have to fall back into using soft pencils if this continues.  

 Each day presents a new challenge. How to improve on what I have achieved? Each new layer exposed. Only raises the bar to further reduction. The event horizon, beyond which I find myself completely alone. In an empty, whitewashed box. Continues to elude and recede. Albeit, achingly slowly.

 All claims to intelligence and resourcefulness can still founder on the choices I make now. To what end do I struggle, so "manfully?" As a constantly ageing septuagenarian. Is mere pride an adequate driver to continue on as I have? Is ingrained perfectionism an ally or a new foe?

 Will I become bogged own in the minutiae of detail? Like the perfect angle of a mixer tap on a shiny new sink? Will this alone, triumph over some, still barely imaginable, greater goal? Or will I sink into some seething morass of stored memories and my, endless failures to perform? 

 Like the box of exhausted hard drives. Which I have just discovered, but felt absolutely no compulsion to explore. It is still too painful to turn the pages of the photo album. Containing images of the recently, dearly departed. Scattered over a lifetime of sunshine and showers.

 I can no longer find my safe connection between that sweet beauty and this boastful beast. How much longer must I bear the cruel thorn of her passing? Without being tripped, headlong, by the burning tears of unbearable loss? 

 Her strength was infinitely greater than mine. Yet still she foundered on the jagged rocks of countless disappointments.

 I was feeling too sorry for myself to go far today. So I settled for my routine walk to the lanes and its unquenchable beauty. The traffic was very light. Which suited my need for peace and quiet. Comfrey was readying itself on the verges against the competing, waist-high grasses. 

 The anonymous harrier soars forever, over the stone age, village church.
As the skylark risks all. To perform wilfully under a spotful sky.
Sunshine and shadow race each other for the far horizon.
Driven on, by the busy, wind turbine blades, up on the hill. 

 8.45 56F. Mourning coffee is over. As the sky darkens briefly. Over the protective mantle of the garden trees.  Now I must attend to my washing. Waiting patiently in the machine behind the pink, bathroom door. In the end it all comes down to such trivia. The borderline between the scruff and the vagabond. Is really, only, pencil and pad, shopping list, thin. 

 This image shows a short row of Marsh thistles. These are sometimes, almost black and much admired by The former Head Gardener. Several varieties of flowers have been woven between the thistles. Including yellow, Welsh poppies. Another favourite which has scattered across the garden over the long years. 

 The untidy greenhouse is glimpsed though the gap on the right. Once fenced against all-comers. It was previously the only way to access the front garden from outdoors. The old, carriage wheel came free with the house.

 13.45 I have just finished lunch. Having driven to another village this morning.  75mm PVC pipe, cupboard door magnets and stand-off clamps will complete several outstanding projects.

 The PVC pipe will replace 50 yards of plastic  guttering. Which once carried the rainwater from the roof down to bottom of the lower garden. This rainwater will now go to an old drain near the house. Which leads to the bottom of the garden anyway. It was a pain having to lift the mower over the gutters and they looked unsightly. 

 There are more flowers appearing here and there. Just as I was about to take some pictures it has clouded over.

 I also found two inverted, green lampshades for hanging over the kitchen working surface. These replace three former lights and are switched at the doorways. The low [cottage] ceiling was never quite right for a central glass shade. So I am now relying on two, up-wash and downwash lights. With semi-translucent, conical shades.

 Three lots of laundry completed. I should really store towels in the airing cupboard. They have no need to be upstairs at all.  A showery afternoon. With occasional, bright sunshine. The wall of spring-fresh leaves, visible from my computer dormer, glow brightly at intervals. Stone Henge was never the same. After they swapped mere standing stones for living trees. 

 I have wired up my two lights with the new lampshades. The effect is quite pleasing in daylight. Yet to see how it looks after dark.

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