19.11.2023 Having a good moan.

 ~o~

 Sunday 19th 41F/5C. A very wet day is forecast with over 20mm of rain expected. 64F/18C in the room. 70F/21C at bedtime last night. Up at 4.45 after tormenting myself with memories. My efforts to escape the past, via the e-bike and MM and expanded social commitments, are fine, while I am actively engaged. 

 Alone at home I feel sad, lost and completely unmotivated. There are so many things I should attend to. When all I want to do is run away. Everything feels like a series of increasingly large hurdles looming ahead. Just tidying the place to keep it presentable is becoming an increasing chore.   

 Yesterday I had a look online at houses for sale at the very bottom of the price range. Apart from their situation, many on main roads, all of them were better looking than my hovel.

 My isolation on the end of the long drive continues to protect me from reality. Or the need to do anything much at all. I keep imagining pulling my two storey observatory over with the car and a rope. With it lying on its side I should help me to dismantle it safely. Without my being too far off the ground. I just need to unbolt the uprights from the foundation blocks and hey presto! Or not.

 The problem is doing so with a large dome parked right in front of the planned fall line. The shed beside the observatory is not immune from external damage if anything goes horribly wrong. The observatory building forms a circle in plan. It could easily roll sideways. So another Catch22 situation prevents progress. Towards a simple, home built carport to protect the MM. [Morris Minor.]

 The loss of the towering observatory would smarten up the place no end. To what purpose? The hovel would not sell and I have no plans to move anyway. So the observatory looms. Reminding me of my endless escaping from reality. While my wife suffered the long years alone, indoors. Enveloped in the detritus and beauty. Of our years of collecting and hoarding. So that it was difficult to reach most of the space available.

 That which I haven't donated to charity is now inefficiently and untidily filling the upstairs spaces. My small, early victories in tidying and removing the unwanted now seems utterly pointless. I don't even like going up there any more. Where we lived together for over a quarter of a century. In heat and in cold. As the downstairs became ever more full of excess storage and the furniture to house and hide it all. If it were not for my clothes and laundry up there. I would no longer have to climb the steep stairs. To suffer the countless memories it brings. 

 7.00  I have just been out in the dark. With the outside light on. To empty the overfull recycling waste bin from the kitchen. It was already pouring with rain. I return to the brightly lit kitchen and the glaring untidiness. The tubs of decorating materials and bags of cement and tile adhesive. All untouched in probably over a year. I'll ignore it, as usual. Light the stove instead. Return to the familiar keyboard. To pour out my petty woes. When, in reality, I am more fortunate than most other people on the planet. Get a grip!   

 12.00 21C/70F in the room. I wanted to go for a walk but it has been raining all morning. Am I waterproof? Some of my clothes are. Excuses? None that matter. So I went anyway. The Gore-Tex jacket darkening with the rainfall at every step. There was a traffic jam at the entrance to the new drive. The drainage beck had overflowed its banks. While the standing water around the pond was much increased in area and depth. I took a few snaps and retreated back to the warmth of the stove.

 21.30 Dinner was sausages, brown mushrooms, boiled potatoes, mini carrots, peas and gravy. 

~o~