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Tuesday 24th +1C/34F and heavily overcast. Up at 6.30 after a reasonable night. The painful "waterworks" problem seems to have gone away again. With a return to normal flow over the course of yesterday.
This is the odd week with no cooking classes. Just the museum tomorrow.
The house seems to be easier to heat. Perhaps thanks to the smaller, drier logs. Or lack of wind? It was up to 23C/74F last night in the lounge! 21C/70F upstairs. I had the doors to the kitchen open to spread the heat. I am not sure there is any point in heating the bathroom and entrance hall. I spend so little time out there. It would just increase the heat loss for no real gain in comfort.
Thanks to reinsertion of the SSD I have lost most of what was on the PC. At least since I had a mobile phone. There should have been cross linking with Calendar and Outlook but I can't find either. Even when I plug the external SSD back in. I went to great lengths to list all the cooking classes, museum and appointments just as a familiarization exercise. None of it appears on the phone. I probably didn't check if it had been linked at the time.
Back from my walk. The SW breeze made it feel decidedly chillier. Jackdaws foraged in the fields and verges. Before moving away when their tolerance for proximity was exceeded. The usual small birds in the hedgerows and trees.
I have been tidying the lounge. Boxes and boxes of stuff earmarked for charity shop donation. Glass ornaments and containers. China ornaments, crockery and neither of the above. Tubs of important and unimportant papers.
What initially triggered the clearance was losing my box of cycling sunglasses. They had been standing on top of the chest of drawers for probably over 12 years. I was going to go shopping in the village on my trike but had nothing to protect my eyes from the cold wind.
Now they are found and safely discoverable again. The front hall is suddenly full of empty boxes, cardboard and unwanted cloth. All recycling yard fodder. To be joined by the heap outside the greenhouse. When the trailer is emptied of firewood into the greenhouse. An infinite series of Catch 22 rules my life.
The variety of stuff to be sorted just goes on and on. What to do with it all? It is never ending! I catch glimpses of display cabinets full of my wife's collection. The glass and china can't stand unprotected on open shelves or it will collect dust.
Little of it was ever on display while my wife was alive. The dresser in the kitchen and couple of glass fronted cabinets on top of the fridge. Window sills stuffed with oddly mixed ornaments. Highly impractical, because they were rarely within easy reach. For attending to the thick layer of dust and cobwebs. The tall display cabinet in the lounge remains untouched. Full to the brim with countless china cats. All different from each other.
12.30 First signs of brightness outside. Sunshine on the distant ridge. I'd better make lunch while I have a rest from my labours. It is horribly depressing to handle my wife's possessions for hours on end. Making constant decisions on keeping or discard. Charity shop or recycling yard? Or just the bin. I found her old and worn, wooden hairbrush. Cracked with age and the bristles still viciously sharp. What choice do I have but to discard it? It wasn't her last brush. That was a plastic thing with scalp friendly, plastic blobs on the bristles. I had my own. Colour coded to avoid confusion.
My wife had a long pony tail for decades. I was occasionally called upon to trim it. Even after She no longer ventured out. She always demanded I cut just so much and no more. She would be perched on a stool in the kitchen. So any fallen hair could be easily gathered from the tiled floor. The light was better in there as well. Despite the yellowed, translucent tarpaulin over the kitchen window. Which denied her a view of her colourful shrubs. A golden Cornus with red stems and several others.
The last time she perched on that stool was when she supervised my making pancakes. By then She was too weak to stand unaided. My only formal, cooking lesson. She was unusually complimentary on my efforts. Even managed to consume probably more bulk. Than she had in all the previous months put together.
15.00 +1.5C/35F. Cold and mostly cloudy. I have just returned from a 10 mile ride to buy some fish fingers. Went by the hilly route and the forest. Hard work on the long climbs. Not my legs but my laboured breathing. Returned by the busy main road. I wore the GripGrab split mitts and found them comfortable at this air temperature.
Long, thermal underwear under a cycling jersey, shorts, cardigan and windproof cycling jacket were ideal. No danger of sweating on the climbs. To be tortured by icy cold on the descents. Total overkill for a ten mile ride I suppose. Layers and wind-proofing are essential. I keep in mind that I might have to walk for an hour in the event of a mechanical failure.
I usually ride on with a rear wheel puncture. To avoid being chilled beside the road. While I change the inner tube. Unless there is some distance to get home. Then the constant bumping of the valve on the road soon becomes too tiresome. Schwalbe Durano Plus tires have proved superb at avoiding punctures. Even on flint strewn roads.
I made an appointment to have a haircut after the museum. A message and email tell me that my computer parts will be delivered tomorrow. To a pickup point in the same village. The Danish post office has warned that it is closing a couple of hundred parcel pick up points. Thereby threatening the survival of many small, rural shops. Which often rely on people collecting their parcels. Doing some shopping at the same time. The Post office says that the number of parcels being sent is shrinking due to inflation. Making it uneconomical to continue delivering to some outlets.
Dinner was fish fingers, pasta and tinned tomatoes. I didn't make quite enough pasta but it was still fine.
W11 installed but the tiny, internal, SSD is on the brink. My hearing aids are streaming audio directly from YT on the mobile phone. Yet doesn't stream from the PC. Perhaps a Bluetooth setting needs to be changed?
I notice my ad blocker is no longer visible nor functioning. YouTube without an ad blocker is an insane form of torture designed by a raving, sociopathic AI. Or just another predatory, serial psychopath within the Google asylum for the criminally insane.
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