12.06.2022 36 miles on a vital errand.

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 Sunday 12th 54F sunny periods and windy again. Up at 5am. It has just changed from bright sunshine to overcast. Becoming suddenly dark indoors and making me feel cold. 71F indoors but there may be a draught from the opposing windows being on the catch in such windy weather. 

 Nine weeks since my wife died. I may go for a longer trike ride today. I have an important errand to run. One which will bring some closure to a long and difficult, lifelong relationship. Going by car would not be the same. Even though I have something vital to carry. 

 Typical! Just as I was preparing my trike it started to rain! So I checked the forecast again. Showers are shown crossing until 7am. Then it should clear. Not what I had planned at all. Which was an early ride. Never mind. I have inflated the tires with the track pump. Time to go. 

 11.30 69F. I have just returned from a 36 mile ride to scatter my mother-in-law's ashes in the sea. She had an old farmhouse quite near to the beach. So I thought that most appropriate. My wife was unable to complete the scattering herself. So I undertook to do so with all due respect. 

 I asked her mother to forgive me for all my faults. She never saw me as a suitable partner for her only child. Which caused us decades of friction and long separations between mother and daughter. Today, I saw carrying out the ritual of scattering her ashes as final proof of my maturity and forgiveness. For all three of us.

 I chose a day when the wind would be offshore. Perfectly so too, as it turned out. Though I "borrowed" a new boat pier. To get further out from the shore. 

 There was nobody about until I looked behind me. To see a woman sitting in the open balcony of her seaside home and watching my clumsy antics. They don't print instructions on the cylindrical, cardboard urns. From my small data set of two. They aren't even alike!

 A small box of apple juice and a Danish pastry worked wonders. After I had lost all my energy half way home. It was very windy but I had judged it correctly this time. Headwind under a grey sky going. Tailwind coming home in bright sunshine under glorious, brushed feather clouds.

 On my way back I rode down a rough track to a lake. I have never been able to reach this beautiful lake before. Which nestles in a steep sided crater. Visible only from above on a beautiful, quiet lane. The deeply rutted track was far too uneven for triking. Though I still managed it. With one near tipping moment. When I was able to unclip my shoe. Just in the nick of time!

 Everywhere I go and everything I do triggers memories of my dear wife. We went to so many places so many times for different reasons. We almost bought her mother's old house. When it came up for sale several times. 

Fortunately common sense prevailed. It was truly vast and in very poor condition. Requiring the skills and stamina of a much younger and far more able and far wealthier pair. 

 We had already rebuilt two run-down cottages decades earlier. I was willing to move but my wife would not commit to making the purchase. Nor for any of the other affordable properties nearby.

 I can't bring myself to look at the thousands of pictures I took over the years. My wife hated the camera and would not let me photograph her. She would go to great lengths to avoid me taking snaps of her.

 My images of her flower garden are also proving a trial. I cannot do justice to the sheer wealth of blooms in depth. I am standing well back, with a long lens, but it doesn't seem to help. I am trying to foreshorten the flower bed. It needs a much bigger canvas to bring out all the detail. Try clicking on the image or scrolling while holding down Ctrl.

 15.00 68F. Late coffee, then lunch, a shower and an hour's nap restored me. Still windy and occasionally sunny between the clouds. I had better catch up on laundering the cycling gear.

 Followed by clearing all the short logs out by the chestnut stump. Now stacked against the western facing, shed wall. Without my DeWALT chainsaw I can't process all the larger branches into useful logs. These branches are mostly shortened to four feet long for easy handling. Most are about 4-6" in diameter but there are still major branches. Perhaps a foot, or more across, to saw into logs. 

 I am trying to come up with a tastefully posed arrangement of the largest chestnut joints. They can't be split or sawn into anything useful.

 Onto weeding dandelions, thistles and long grasses. Raking the lawn grass repeatedly. It is full of small twigs and loads of dead, brown dolobrata thatch. There is a beautiful, blue/black beech tree growing inside the front hedge. It is competing with the massive hazel and the common plum bushes/trees we call blackthorn. I ought to trim back the plum to let the beech see the light. Though they can grow huge so it wants to be controlled. 

 Two lots of laundry. So I have rehung the washing line out to the field maple. Using a length of hose to protect the tree trunk. The loss of the chestnut removed the habitual end point for the original washing line. 

 18.30  I have just cleaned the downstairs and my dormer windows. 

 A harrier just went over. 

19.20 61F. Dinner consists of cod in batter and organic pasta mixed with organic, chopped tinned tomatoes. Followed by frozen cake or ice-cream. The desert was a delicious gift from a kind neighbour.

   

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