22.12.2022 Imposing my will on a vacuum.

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Thursday 22nd 5C/41F. Up at 5.45. The usual aches and pains from yesterdays exertions. Not that burning pain of a couple of days ago. Remaining mild. Upstairs 19C/66F, Lounge 16C/61F, Kitchen 13C/56F, Bathroom 10C/50F. 

 I am surprised how cool the lounge is this morning. The stove was still burning well at bedtime. 11.45pm. I was going to bed at 11pm but forgot the dustbin had to go along the drive. This meant extracting the bag from the large, flip-top bin in the kitchen. Before trundling, noisily along the 100m on gravel in the pitch dark. 

 I added a couple of logs. Then sat and watched the flames in the stove on my return. Our last stove had a solid iron door. It was a miserable experience not being able to see the flames. It also meant opening the door all too frequently. Just to monitor how well the fire was burning. I was not allowed to touch the stove. My wife was the sole loader-operator. 

 We used only compressed sawdust briquettes. Then the price went through the roof after loony Pootin's invasion of Ukraine. There was a time one could buy five bags x 10kg for 100kr at the farmer's supplies shop. Now it is 69Kr per bag! Wood pellets have also increased in price. Quite why that affects the tens of thousands of cubic meters of firewood logs at the Danish sawmills remains a mystery. Their vast storage sheds are just as full now. As they were before gas prices exploded. Is there some shortage?

 My British friend in Denmark has woken me to all the camera options in my new smart phone. I had no idea. The quality of its images are amazing. My old Lumix TZ7 seems completely inadequate in comparison. So that I no longer bother to drag it around with me. I am still discovering all the available adjustments of the phone cameras. The one downside is needing my most powerful reading glasses to make these adjustments. Not to mention bare fingers to tap the touch screen. Not ideal in winter. The camera was set and the button pressed. Job done.

 7.00 Breakfast over. Time to light the stove. First, I'll have to bring in more logs. The stove is insatiable!

 8.00 Heavily overcast. First light is silhouetting the garden trees. They are rocking gently to the South-Westerly breeze. The lounge has quickly warmed to the stove. I ought to be more self-disciplined with the fire-making apparatus. It is sprawled over two metres of wall space. Only the tall clock case stops it from encroaching even further. 

 As I look around the scruffy lounge I realised that I have not remotely stamped my ownership on my hermit's cave. It has two grandfather clocks, a dining table and chairs, a chest of drawers and lots of boxes. My tastes in decor are not remotely expressed by the remaining furniture. A few, Ikea plant stands do not make a home. 

This is after my initial tidying! 😄

 I had no place in furnishing decisions.Which tended towards charity shop and flea market finds. Usually in some shade of oak bordering on dark. Now I have a choice, I find myself lacking the imagination. To impose my will on the space I have available. Universal white paint does not a home make. It merely exposes the continuing ugliness of the walls and ceilings.

 It has never occurred to me that I have a duty to myself to make it more about me. As well as basically habitable. I have been concentrating so hard on the removal of so much of the house's contents. As if there were some race to be rid of it all. When what it really needs is far better organisation. Of all of it!

 Sadly this was never my strong suit. I have clear memories of utter chaos. Going right back to early childhood and my perpetually shared bedrooms. The floor was where things were assembled and played with. Nothing much has changed. 

 The kitchen back in 2018.
It looked like this for two decades.

The sheds are always impossible to access. Even after I brought in lots of shelving racks and bought trays and tubs. To replace damp, cardboard, fruit boxes. Forever on the verge of collapse or complete dismemberment.

 8.30. Still too dark for a safe walk along the verge against the traffic. If I had the willpower I'd be tidying the shed to make room for more wood. I should be concentrating on clearing the greenhouse. Not wasting hours moping. 

I heard that successful people work to lists of things to do. I tried that but quickly lost interest. The randomness of my decisions to work on specific tasks is far too willy-nilly. I build impossible hurdles in my mind. As Catch 22 situation constantly confront my progress.   

 That said, the latest kitchen layout is very satisfying. The unbelievable convenience of being able to turn on the spot from the working surface. To access the fridge, just behind me, is a new highlight. The fridge door now opens to expose its interior to the room. After two decades of it blocking easy access at the far end of the kitchen.  

 10.00 A late walk going the wrong way for a change scenery. Slightly misty as the veiled sun breaks though. Took lots of landscape snaps. Still sorting though to see if anything is worth sharing.

 12.45 I have been clearing and tidying the greenhouse. Not enough for a trailer full but I have to go shopping anyway. So I might as well take it all with me. It is difficult to know what to do with some of it. How do I store the big shade nets? They are each over 8m long x 4m wide when open and very bulky. I have just bundled them into a heap on the table.

 The stove is going well. I am experimenting with larger logs to see if they burn without supervision. The one I tried was fine. It was getting rather warm though. So I opened the hall doors out to the kitchen again. The kitchen rose to 15C/60F. The greenhouse rose to 10C/49F in weak sunshine. The sun has gone in now and it has turned very dark. No showers forecast. 

 I'm going shopping but without the trailer. I need time to sort out what I want to keep and where to get rid of the rest. Charity or recycling. 

 17.00 Just back from shopping for Christmas Dinner. Chicken breasts, Brussels sprouts, baking potatoes, peas, carrots and brown mushroom. Time to get creative. Whatever that means within the context of a "fried or boiled" complete amateur. 😋

Dinner is looming. I have bought my very first sausages. Grr! I forgot to buy more oven-ready chips! It will still have to be a fry up. Sausages, eggs and mushrooms. 

 With tinned tomatoes? I have pasta as well. That soaks up the tomato juice. I'm not sure pasta and sausages makes much sense. No pasta then. Fried fresh tomatoes. Bread roll to finish.

 20.00 No fresh tomatoes either! So it was the big red slotted spoon's turn to drain the excess tomato juice. The result looks awful but it was fine. Except I broke an egg trying to turn it over in a [recently] non-stick pan. Presentation 3/10? 😁

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