1.01.2023 Happy New Year!

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 Happy New Year to all my readers and followers. 

 I lost my wife after 55 years of marriage early last year. Since then I have been boring you all with my home renovations and lack of culinary imagination. Allow me to claim each small, personal success. As another rung on the ladder out of the pit of despair. Nothing can prepare you for the loss of a loved one.

I haven't a clue what will happen this year. Though I do hope to increase my tricycling after a long break. I am not making any resolutions. Except to keep taking my morning walks. Exercise, fresh air and daylight are essential to maintaining mental and physical health. I am living proof, if you like. 

 Even at my lowest ebb, after my wife's sudden and unexpected death, I kept walking. Often with tears streaming down my face and talking aloud to her. The habit of walking the familiar route probably helped to keep me sane. I was singularly [sic] fortunate. To have such a lovely landscape to escape to. When the house held too many accumulated memories.

 I would like to thanks all those who helped me though the searing pain of loss. Andrew, in particular. Who always knew exactly what to say when I needed it most. His wisdom and experience probably kept me from ending it all. Under the wheels of one of the many passing lorries. Yet he knew me only at a distance. From within our shared passion for astronomy.

 Fraser for his friendship, forgiveness, his support and desperately needed skills and normality. When my world had crashed and I needed new abilities to remain able to function.  

 Sandra, whose task was merely to listen. But who made it her duty to drag me from the abyss of isolation and impending descent into depression. Her skills at encouragement and guilt free communication made her my guardian angel. 

 Her visits gave me targets for self improvement and goals for home improvement. She reintroduced me gently and safely back into society after years of isolation. Guiding me into voluntary work and cooking classes. Where I could feel valued again. I quite literally owe her my continuing existence. Never was a person more perfectly suited to their career. She brought warmth and priceless empathy. To the seemingly endless desert of my future life. She was the water carrier to a dying man.

 The age of seventy five is probably too late to completely reinvent oneself. Yet that was what was required. Fortunately I had some of the skills and resources needed to rebuild my life again. Though without my lifelong partner. 

 Shirley, my late wife, had done everything to look after me and our successive homes for over half a century. So much so, that I still haven't a clue about many simple, domestic chores. Nor the self-discipline to manage them well if I do. The recent scare over food safety was a real wake-up call. I am as vulnerable as my lack of knowledge and assorted mental weaknesses allow me to be. 

 Wallowing in self pity will not bring my hovel [house] back to a more normal condition. I have no immediate plans to sell. So I am using the trivialities of furnishing, lighting and decorating as my prime motivations to carry on. When everything suggests that my life has become utterly pointless. 

If life can be lost so easily. Why should I make the effort to go on? Those left behind must suffer the agonies of crippling guilt. That we did not do everything in our power. To make our partners happy and comfortable every single day we had together. Time is the only healer. As we slowly learn to forgive ourselves. That they went first and we did not. Despite knowing that they would not have coped well with our own loss. 

 Partnerships are mutual support. Each providing the vital skills the other lacks. Nobody questions the value of each other's input. Until one half is tragically lost and the knitting quickly unravels. We cannot safely weigh each other's contribution until it is too late. Nor should we try. Balance becomes meaningless the moment their effort is measured. Accept and love them for their endless sacrifices. To your mutual survival against all the odds.

 Sunday 1st January 2023. 10C/49.5F! Another record temperature. Second, record, new year temperature in a  row. Much of Europe is enjoying record temperatures. Early rain and wind should give way to grey skies. 

 Up at 5.40 after a 1.20am bedtime. No point in going to bed with fireworks going off locally. So I watched TV. With one eye on the sparkling colours outside the windows. The annual, free, firework show.

 8.00 Still pitch black. I had better light the stove. Maintain normality for another day.

 BTW: I found an old, oak drawer. Which worked well as a temporary, if ugly, 10cm/4" deep spacer between the freezer and mini-oven. From such seeming trivialities life goes on. Despite making toasted cheese, just above, the freezer was down to -25C last night. With only a loaf of sliced bread for company. 

 I have a coffee table top in the shed. Which badly needs four rubber feet to become a smarter, insulating spacer. People might talk about an inverted drawer. They can't possibly question a slab of hardwood. Can they?

 9.45 Back from a late walk under a heavy overcast. It blew a gale and rained at intervals. So I limited myself to the neighbourhood's shared drives. Twenty minutes of walking was rewarded with the kitchen warming from the lounge. No point in raising the house above 70F/21C. The kitchen needs the warmth more.  The forecast is back to frosts next weekend.

 I couldn't find the coffee table top to use as a spacer. So I have added a scruffy, 50x50cm, recycled, kitchen cupboard door instead. That will ensure the heat doesn't reach the freezer compartment. The fridge has been pulled away from the right wall. For much easier access to the contents. From behind the open, kitchen door.

 12.15 I have had another nap to catch up on lost sleep. Only to dream of my wife when she was young. 

  Third time lucky? Not really. I found the coffee table top but it wasn't quite as large as I remembered it. A handy shelf for the oven glove but oddly asymmetric. The white spacer shelf may have been the neatest option. It fitted the fridge top for both depth and width and was all but invisible. I'll go back one step and use silicone netting for grip in the sandwich and increased isolation. 

 I have mislaid the silicone kitchen "cloth" but found some large sheets of cork. Stable and plenty of grip. Job done for now. Until I check the oven's heating effect on the white board and its conductance. I am not wasting electricity by heating the oven unnecessarily. Kitchen foil might help to reflect the heat from the oven's bottom plate. 

 Perhaps I should try the oven before I try to cook something. It would be difficult to stop midway, Perhaps having to handle a hot oven containing food. Particularly if the white board starts melting its plastic coating! Or paint?

 To that end I have introduced a large plate of 5mm, polished aluminium. The same size as the bottom plate of the oven. The aluminium is now resting on the white board. A 15 minute oven test proved that the aluminium plate remained unpleasantly cold to the touch. It having been brought in from outside. 

 While the oven's own bottom plate felt very hot indeed at 50C. The hottest part of the oven was above the door at 100C. I use the top of the oven to pre-warm plates. Simply by resting them on the gently curved cabinet. Where they remain perfectly safe and stable. Even after 35 minutes the plates are not too hot to remove with my bare hands.

13.45 9C/48F. Brief, weak sunshine! The kitchen has reached 17C/62F. With the lounge and upstairs still hovering around 20-21C. [68-70F.] All thanks to the mild outdoor temperatures. If only one could rely on these temperatures as a minium each winter. Life would be so much more comfortable.

 Dinner was two perfect poached eggs on toast. Having cleared all of the freezer and some of the fridge contents I need to go shopping. It wasn't worth the risk of keeping food items under an oscillating temperature regime. Germs can still multiply even when there is still a frost. 

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