30.11.2022 Blog Comments.

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 Wednesday 30th 4C/39F. Overcast. Possible rain or showers. Up at 6.45 after a 12.30 second bedtime. 18C/64F upstairs. Farm museum day.

 

 Comments: I have a problem with my blog Comments. Recently, it seems can no longer respond to comments on my own blog. My sincere apologies to those who have commented but I have not replied. 

 

 I have repeatedly tried Google searches on the subject. Since it is a Google's Blogger blog after all. There was nothing useful in Google's own help. Other than unblocking 3rd party cookies. No doubt Google's corrupt way of ensuring their sewer of advertising remains all-pervading and obscenely profitable. But at increased security risk for its users. I'll keep trying.

 Success! I can now comment on my own blog by signing into Chrome. Which I never normally use. I presume that Firefox is automatically blocking 3rd party cookies. My thanks again for your kind words and patience in this matter. 

 My regular readers will know that I have been exploring shelving options for storage. 

 A wise and helpful, online contact [whom I may call a friend] has suggested [quite rightly] that I am making my own life unnecessarily difficult. By continuing to store all that I still possess from a past life with my dear wife. She died some 8 months ago. 

 The combined collections of both my wife and myself remain. We were both hoarders over a very long period. All of it valuable in some way.

 To paraphrase his words,: The combined collection of "stuff" is controlling my every action. As I struggle to bring the house back to a more normal home. The huge volume of mixed items is a nightmare which is not going away. Not without my making some very difficult decisions. 

 There are countless boxes of china, glass and decorative metal objects. My late wife's collection. There are countless boxes amounting to thousands of books. We both collected books within our own range of interests over many years. The books cannot be easily disposed of. Nor housed in damp conditions. 

  

 Much of the rest [glass and china] is unlikely to deteriorate in a shed. It just needs careful handling and secure shelving. 

 Part of the collection is a potentially useful resource. It contains useful items for DIY projects and the like. Hinges, locks, brackets, lamps and parts. Unfortunately it is highly mixed in very mixed containers. Access to useful items remains extremely inefficient. Requiring severely disciplined sorting to make it truly useful. 

 

 The cost of buying all new items would be crippling at bubble pack pricing. The cost in my valuable time, to do any serious sorting, would be equally painful. Where to start? I tried indoor shelving and it is bulky and extremely inefficient without some sorting of the contents of assorted boxes and tubs.

  8.30. I don't have time to continue this now. I must shower and change for the museum.

 It was cold and damp this morning. I started by loading a trailer with hay from an antique cart using a pitchfork. I had been responsible for loading the cart with the same hay earlier in the year. After that I was tidying up the machine house to make room for further work. Heavy picnic benches had to be moved and stood on end. Antique carts and garden machinery moved around to park them more compactly. Concrete paving slabs lifted and moved away. 

 

 The museum is seeking a professional quote. To lay the heavy paving slabs which we dug up and wheeled away to place on pallets. I really wasn't looking forward to laying them as well. 65kg is far too much for young and fit workers without specialist tools. Using pensioners is risking serious injury. These days the professionals use suction lifts mounted on excavators. 

 

 After lunch I raked leaves and barrowed them away to the compost heap in the nearby woods. Then I shopped on the way home.

 

14.30 4C/40F with a very heavy overcast. The lounge had dropped to 12C/54F. So I lit the stove for the first time today. I wanted to check how cold it would get without my intervention. Still 16C/61F upstairs.

 My nice new, neighbours have hung Christmas lights on some of their small, garden trees. We used to have a long string of Christmas lights to hang along the top of the greenhouse. I don't know where they are now. I found a pretty set of light which we used to hang along the TV wall. They are now arranged tastefully[?] in a double swag in the front dormer window.

 During my search for the lights I found some bits of cloth. Which I had somehow managed to cling onto. 99.5% went straight to the charity shops. A duvet cover makes a reasonable tablecloth. Ignore the scruffy plasterboard in the background. The whole wall needs to be covered again!

 Dinner was fish fingers with pasta and peas. Followed by tomato soup and a bread roll.

 

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