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Today's plan is not yet formed. The weeks pass and progress is patchy at best Perhaps it suits my temperament to jump from one job to another. Part of my "butterfly" personality. It avoids my becoming bored.
9.30. 60F. Morning coffee after my "routine" walk to the lanes. Traffic was very light. Lots of birds and new leaves.
I might have to pull the fridge away from the corner where it is sitting now. The door to the front hall would cover the fridge as it opened. Which it never has been until now. I plan to be able to walk directly between the lounge and the kitchen. Again something which has always been completely impossible due to my [late] wife's storage ideas.
I fitted two, fully glazed doors to the hallway between these two rooms. She covered them in curtains! Then stuffed the hallway with furniture and belongings. This was our her only access to the greenhouse. Though I was always "unwelcome" in there. The hall will all have to be cleared out to let the electrician work unhindered.
The electrician will also want access to the large airing cupboard in the front hall. To effortlessly route new cables to new sockets in the kitchen without channelling the walls.
Exactly as expected, the double doored, airing cupboard is crammed full to the ceiling. With unused, perfectly
folded bedding. My wife must have collected it for years. Much of it it because it was
pretty. I have never seen any of it on our beds.
There is no longer any heating in the airing cupboard since I recently removed the old stove's "gravity" plumbing system. So what can I do with a cupboard 220cm high x 120cm wide x 50cm deep?
With the gravity water heating system gone there is no longer any need for the hot water storage tank to be upstairs. Danish plumbing works at mains pressure. Including the hot water system. So an "immersion" heater tank can now go anywhere. Provided the expansion, safety valve has somewhere to collect the drips. The end of the drain hose may not go outdoors in case it freezes. We used a visible, translucent bottle under the tank upstairs. Which would be emptied when a couple of inches built up over time. A bottle hidden in a cupboard isn't quite so simple.Having the tank upstairs means there is a considerable, extra length of piping to the kitchen and bathroom. Which means a longer delay before hot water arrives at the taps. Which is both wasteful of water and the electricity needed to heat it.
The water tank is well insulated but does give off a little warmth. Enough to make the airing cupboard useful again? Or better to use it a more useful storage facility? Having been denied access for so long it is difficult to imagine it as anything but two, permanently closed doors.
The cupboard once housed an ancient, oil central heating "boiler." Removing the system was one of the first things I did. The boiler roared like a train going through station. Worse, it had to be expensively "attended to" with every costly refill of the huge outdoor tank.
The "installer" of this heating system ran piping visibly everywhere in the house in black iron. These pipes crossed every threshold! So that there was a serious risk of tripping. It was all of these pipes which I finally took to the recycling yard on Saturday. Having lain unused and unwanted for 25 years under the Horse Chestnut tree.
Back then I soon installed a wood burning stove with an internal tank to provide warmth. It provided too little air heating but plenty of "free" hot water. That old stove went to the recycling yard quite recently. You are no longer allowed to sell old stoves in Denmark. This is because of tighter pollution standards.
The new stove had been blocking the other hallway for many months. Making it difficult to reach the kitchen! My wife would not let me install it. Nor even to let the master sweep do it expertly for us. So I had him install it while she was in hospital. She was not happy about it! Yet she had complained for months that she could not keep warm with only the old stove working.
Malnutrition leaves little reserve for keeping the body warm. I bought her a superb, lightweight, down sweater last year. She would not wear it until she finally went to hospital! So had suffered unnecessarily for months. I have left her jacket on the back of a dining chair. To remind me of her every time I go into the lounge. Now the mere thought of it just makes me cry. What was she thinking?
I have been reading that Covid has bad effects on the brain. I wonder whether she really did have Covid but only suffered the mental symptoms? She seemed to get more and more childish towards the end. Though that could have been the cancer spreading to her brain. It also made her very bad tempered. Which made caring for her increasingly difficult. Though nothing was ever too much trouble. Not for my dear Shirley. I would laugh it off and continue to provide for her every whim.
You may be wondering why I am criticising my dear wife after her demise. She cannot defend herself now. I find it valuable to discuss all of these things openly. She was not a perfect angel suddenly felled by cancer. We had our history going back for 55 years. She was wonderful in so many ways but not without her faults. Putting up with me for 55 years must easily have raised her close to angelic status. If you believe in any of that nonsense.
Did I inadvertently cause her decision to stop eating in mid winter? Now I will never know her motives over those last few months. As she deliberately starved herself to death. While continuing to pretend that all was well.
She even seemed to go out of her way to maximise her own suffering. By denying herself the comfort of increased warmth and better clothing. She would not even allow me to put a better duvet on her bed. Not until the final days. She repeatedly refused a heater in the kitchen. She repeatedly refused a soft over-mattress. I tried for months to get her to talk to the doctor but she always refused. Until it was much too late.
The upright, fridge/freezer has decided to be "difficult." 20 years ago I had clad the kitchen walls with some vintage, profiled boards. Which were secondhand but in good condition back then. Now they are riddled with worm. So the last of the boards have had to come down and be thrown outside.
Only then could I discover that the fridge needs to be in the middle of the wall. To avoid being hit or obscured by the hall door. Typically, none of the available furniture worked on either side of the fridge. So I have lost my handy, storage surfaces for bread, fruit and rolls.
The fridge seems far more bulky there. Not enough to be a nuisance to free movement. More of a visual impediment. The hall door can be folded right back but not quite against the wall. That would have been an option for the summer. Not for the colder months. Not unless I improve the seals on the double doors to the greenhouse. My wife complained of a draught when she was at the working surface.
The width of the aisle is still thrice that enjoyed during my wife's reign. I must decide on best placement before new electrical sockets start being fitted. Unless it starts behaving itself, the fridge could still find itself in the alcove opposite the sink.
Though now it has occurred to me that the fridge could go behind the other hall door. Then it would be more central to the kitchen working area. When the kitchen/hall door is open it would hide the presence of the fridge. So many choices. Off we go again.
The electrician has rung to make an appointment for early, tomorrow morning. I had better start clearing the airing cupboard.
The airing cupboard before and after I sorted the cloth from the bedding.
The top shelf is now clear.
17.00 63F. I managed to halve the volume of cloth in the airing cupboard. That was just sorting through the cloth alone. I didn't separate the bedding to save time. I wanted to deliver it before they closed. There were several boxes of stuff which will go to the recycling yard. The volunteers at the charity shop were enjoying the sunshine outside the goods delivery entrance.
18.00 61F. Yet another trailer filled with stuff ready for the next trip to the recycling yard.
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