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Saturday 5th 44F/7C. Possible sunny periods are forecast for today. Up at 5.45. I fed the stove with four logs last night. Which raised the lounge to 67F with all the internal doors open. Still 64F/18C upstairs this morning. After closing all the doors overnight.
Several assorted trolleys could take their last drive to the yard. To end up as humble scrap metal. I can't see any of them adding any real value to my furnishings. Neither inside nor out. All they do is impede movement. While providing nothing very useful in return. They all have "potential" but at the brutal cost of totally unnecessary work. Unpaid slavery to ownership, for its own sake, does not make it any more worthwhile.
I desperately need a test of an item's value to myself. Totally regardless of how much it might be worth to a browsing, flea market punter. Or acceptability, as a donation, to a charity shop chain.
Do I have the courage to attack even more inherited detritus from a suddenly, bygone age? Or will I continue to submerge myself? In a lifetime of what now seems to be utterly pointless acquisition.
Does its mere ownership demand respect and loyalty? Simply because it was chosen, on a whim, by my late wife? This is a conundrum which constantly haunts me. As I try to slim down to a socially acceptable burden of now extremely untidy possessions. While simultaneously surrounding myself in what seems like a flood tide of past hoarding.
Can I make the vital break with the past? Without having a breakdown myself. Is another person's hoard any more valuable to me? Than the dross piled sky-high. At the unbelievably vast, Sunday flea-markets. This may be the only question which really matters. In the end. Not that my wife's vast collections can be classed as dross. She was selective and had good taste. Which makes its divestment even more difficult!
I am 75 and still enjoying health and fitness beyond belief. So I must keep asking myself what would happen if I had an accident, sickness or loss of mobility. The house contents would probably be cleared into a skip and dumped without a second thought. By those whose sweated labour it finally fell to.
My wife used to say that I'd need an aircraft hanger to spread out my possessions for ready accessibility. Yet it was she who managed to compact her own possessions into the nooks and crannies of our modestly sized home. Sadly I have not inherited her skills at filling spaces. She with far more skill than any mathematician. It remains for me to redistribute our combined burden. Preferably before it falls to a humble house clearance. Over my dead body.
07.35. It is fully light. Time for my life-giving walk.
09.00 47F/6C. Morning coffee over. The Saturday traffic was almost non-existent. As the blinding sun rose over the beech forest on the hill. It was noticeably chillier this morning. Two Red kites flew over the village. Keeping a wary distance from myself and each other.
I may go for a trike ride this morning. Conditions should be better than of late. With lighter SW winds and sunny periods. I have not been cycling as much as I should. It is beneficial to my fitness. Both mental and physical. I ought to take advantage when I can and [more importantly] the mood takes me.
Dinner was cod in batter. With a load of fried mushrooms and baked beans. The baked beans had been absent recently. Due to a recall for potentially punctured tins. The camera flash has caught the steam rising from the beans.
I lit the stove and used three more logs.
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