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The lounge wall is still white overnight. Being lighter and much plainer I thought the wall would recede. To make the room seem larger but it hasn't. It could be the brickwork texture. Though interestingly [?] the painted brick wall looks far away when viewed from the kitchen. As seen through the two, glazed, intervening doors.
The hall and bathroom are getting far too bright with the hall's LED lights on. I may need to tame things down with completely different, much smaller, wall lights. I am still using a square panel of LEDs. Which was essential when the hall was dull grey and curtained over the doors. Now it is complete overkill and I haven't even painted the outside door yet. The pine boarding, which I used for making the door, is almost black. From decades of condensation in the darkness of winter. The blackness is probably some kind of mould.
It was suggested I buy a commercial shed door. I'm not sure whether these are insulated to modern standards. I may still make a new door myself. From grooved plywood over foam insulation. The problem is finding somewhere flat. With enough room to assemble it indoors. Ready-made doors wouldn't be the correct size.
I definitely want some glass in a new door. For more natural light in the entrance hall. Glass might be thought a security risk. Though toughened glass is an idea. If anyone really wants to break in they can probably use a window to gain entry. If I make my own door I can use clear polycarbonate.
9.30 Windier, but Sunshine from a clear blue sky. Morning coffee is over. Despite the wind I was far too warm in my down sweater on my walk. A beautiful Red kite gave an aerial display parallel with the lane. Maintaining a safe distance without changing course. The neighbour's dog is noisy this morning. Repeatedly barking for no obvious reason. The car hasn't moved for days. The second car has been absent. My back is better thanks to the therapeutic walk.
I keep questioning my motives for changing so much in and around the house. Am I trying to make a complete break from the stagnation of the unchanging decades that went before? Am I leveraging my sudden freedom to create more light and space? Simply raising my comfort levels? Sick of the untidiness and general appearance of squalor? Am I proving, if only to myself, that I could have done so much more? Without the leaden hand of my late wife regarding all such projects. So that I took my creative skills outdoors? To build observatories.
Am I making the place attractive enough to sell? Unlikely. Where would I go? I couldn't buy a secondhand shed on a postage stamp garden in the UK. Not for the price of my house in Denmark. The rural, isolated cottage, we sold 26 years ago in Wales, is now worth almost half a million pounds. It's value has increased by a factor of seven. Albeit with some improvements and modest enlargement.
Our/my hovel in Denmark has hardly appreciated at all over that time. The estate agent's recent valuation depended entirely on the house being improved to modern standards. He was quite clear about that. A huge amount of work is required given how little has been done over the years. Nothing much, at all, after my initial burst of improvements two decades ago. New floors, doors, windows, roof, dormers, insulation, build new kitchen, new bathroom, board three ceilings, enclose the balcony, heating, plumbing, drainage, etc.
My recent activities are more cosmetic in nature. Nothing has really changed in the overall, external appearance. Except for the new, bedroom window. Still much to do. To clad the gable end inside and out. Here, I am still pondering my options.
The expansion of the parking space and removal of so much "shrubbery" has largely been for my own benefit. More light, space and the freedom to maneuver the car. Space for the eye to wander freely. Beyond the nearest tree or towering hedge.
I am now 75 and still enjoying remarkable health and fitness. So I am maximising my remaining energy largely for my own benefit. Knowing that it could all suddenly end. An injury would put paid to any hope of making the house a much more pleasant place to live. Sickness might make me vulnerable to an old people's home. Or sheltered accommodation. Mobility, by car is, essential to any plans to survive out here in the countryside for as long as possible.
There still so much to do. Not least the removal of so much of the house's contents. Most of it has no particular value. Yet I cling onto it for all its close associations with my wife. It seems disloyal to get rid of too much of it too soon. As if I am turning my back on well over half a century of constant companionship. Yet, if truth be told, the connection to my wife is no more tenuous. Than exchanging a few coins in a flea market or charity shop and moving onto the next.
Perhaps time will loosen the bonds? Right now all I want to do is cry. At her continuing absence from my life and my surroundings. I still call out: "Only me!" as I come back indoors. Often with a chuckle. At my own silliness. I talk to my self quite regularly but usually only briefly. Usually to warn myself of potential dangers, clumsiness and scolding myself for silly mistakes. My habitual guide in these things is no longer around to keep me safe. I still see-saw between misery, harsh reality and the inevitable freedoms. Which come with a solo career as an old fart.
11.00 The priming of the remaining brick wall is completed. I have just been offline. To undo all the "knitting" involved in getting an Internet and telephone connection upstairs. Cables have snaked all around the lounge for years. Up the walls and along a ceiling beam to reach the middle of the brick wall. Where the optical fibre router is situated.
Meanwhile I have cleaned the eastern, lounge window inside and out. The window was never accessible. Not while there were ornaments, large, tall and small,. All crammed onto the window sill. While others hung from the window latches.
I mustn't be too harsh. I claimed the corner window for my technical collection of interesting, mechanical objects. This lot inevitably spilled onto the bookcase just beneath the window sill. To collect dust and cobwebs as being completely out of reach. Due to intervening furniture.
Which reminds me: I have to line, or frame all the window reveals in the lounge. They have been lined with sawn wood [as shuttering] for all the decades since I replaced the front windows. Which previously, had been plane pieces of glass. Simply siliconed into the bare brickwork!
12.35 I have opened the greenhouse to let the 68F/20C warmth indoors. The washing up is done. That "somebody" never got around to it last night.[Again!]
I am going to take down the shade net. It just looks very untidy. Rolled up on top of the greenhouse. It took only a minute or two. I untied the cord at each end and the net
slid effortlessly down to the ground. There was an Emperor dragonfly attached. I had
to gently lift it off. Because it didn't want to let go!
12.45 The clocks are creaking towards lunch time.
14.00 Tremendous downpour. Absolutely torrential!
15.30 I just finished painting the remains of the brick wall in the lounge. It doesn't look too bad on a sunny day. As expected, the room seems so much brighter.
16.45 Time for afternoon tea and a toasted marmalade roll. I have earned it.
What to do now the wall is painted? It would be silly to fill the room up with the same boxes of junk again. I'll have to move them elsewhere. The bookshelf can go in the left corner against the brick wall. To minimise its footprint and make more space for the dining table.
I have already filled it with tubs of her stuff. Just to get it off the floor. Double handling again and again and again.
Now I really ought to look at her cupboards and chest of drawers. See what I can do without. Or move elsewhere. To become more useful but more invisible. I doubt I have the strength to get the antique, oak, chest of drawers upstairs. It is large and very heavy. A shame it's not much use in a kitchen. That would have been easier and it might even have looked the part. I wonder if it can sit somewhere else in the lounge?
18.30 I am trialling the dining table end-on to the left wall. Instead of end-on to the window. I have the bookcase units stacked in the corner against the brick wall. They look far too heavy. Far too dominating. They make no sense singly on the floor. I would have to go down on my hands and knees to browse the book titles. I'll sleep on the problem.
20.00 By artificial light the room is suddenly looking larger and completely alien. So many possibilities are rearing their ugly heads.
Dinner was fish fingers. With tinned tomatoes dumped on top of pasta and peas. No pictures. I forgot. [Again]
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