11.05.2024 Tramp alert!

 ~o~

  Saturday 11th 49F/9C [7.30am] Bright white sky with early mist thinning rapidly. A dry, sunny day with a high of 18C/64F is promised.

A quiet night. Up at 6.30 after waking earlier. Deliberately staying in bed to rest in the mornings. I am trying to train myself out of negative thoughts and having to get up to escape them. My chest feels wet and bunged up and I have a runny nose. Another cold? Not sure what this means in the context of recovery and penicillin. 

 Two different, saddle dropper posts: A 150mm travel, Kind Shock and a 125mm travel XLC. Both presently separated from the e-bike by miles of rolling countryside. The KS 6" dropper exceeds the maximum insertion depth. So the saddle will greatly exceed the desired ride height when the dropper post is extended. While the 125mm travel XLC will have 30mm of seat tube showing above the frame's saddle clamp when fully extended. Not perfect, but close enough to a minimum saddle height. When the dropper posts is fully depressed, by my weight, after remote lever actuation.

  No real plans for today. I ought to try to cut the lawn but it will take time to dry out. I haven't been for a walk recently.

 10.45 Back from a walk to the lanes. Skylarks singing overhead. Two severe bouts of coughing. I was too warm almost from the start. Purple lilacs were going over but underpinned by white, daisy-like, wild flowers in two sizes. 

 There were several completely invisible warblers in the roadside trees. Try as I might I could not see them. Not even through my binoculars. A pretty girl was sitting in the road in a go-faster Golf. A dangerous spot to stop but presumably one without prior choice. She must have been waiting for rescue services or perhaps a boyfriend. She gave me a lovely smile as I passed.

 My lady, landowner and major landscaping neighbour. Was still working the banks of her newly raised drive. Several weekends of work suggest she has remarkable patience. She was raking up small stones in readiness for a first cut of the grass. ]Best guess. There is no shortage of stones in this world of ours]

 Dumping them from her bucket into waiting excavator buckets. Left casually along the length of the drive for that purpose. I pray that they don't mow over the Japanese knotweed infestation near the road! The result would be heartbreaking!

 Proof, if any were needed, that I actually reached the lanes. I never tire of that view. The juxtaposition of the intersecting curves. That sort of thing.

 The lady glanced at me but ignored my casual but friendly wave. Our paths have never knowingly crossed before. I was tempted to congratulate her on the superb landscaping but plodded on towards Chez Hovel. No doubt she was enjoying the exercise in the warm sunshine too much. To lower herself to chatting with mere peasant neighbours. Perhaps she didn't recognize the passing tramp as the hamlet's token hermit? Perhaps she did. 😏

 The guard dog was back on duty and dutifully barked at me. Short [or long] term memory loss? We usually see each other ever day of the year. Another new neighbour was cutting the grass. His son playing with a metal detector. Which reminds me that a harvest of dandelions awaits my own mower. I had better start earning my lunch!

 11.30 60F/15C. Time to do something useful. Latest load of laundry put out on the rotary airer. Then on with the mowing.

 12.30 64F/18C. Hot sunshine. I have all but finished mowing at a high setting. [10/12] The batteries need recharging before I even think about a lower cut. The Makita lacks the sheer power to cut through 4-6" deep grass. 

 The draught from the twisted cutting blade doesn't keep the exit port clear of damp cuttings. Causing stalls as the blade is physically blocked. Nor does it like picking up fallen grass cuttings. Clearly beneath its dignity.

 Now I am hot and knackered. My hands are shaking like jellies. I kept up a good pace to test my wind. Not great, but nothing serious. No breathlessness. Time to make some lunch. There are clean dishes and cutlery too! Whoopee! 

 6.45. Dinner will be toast. I have earned it. Not in great quantity. Nor riches in square yards of investment property. Two slices will suffice and no more. I shall have two poached eggs and be rewarded beyond measure. I deserve no more and certainly no less.   

 7.15. I went out to finish off the mowing and to tidy up. Brought in twelve, ragged t-shirts for a rainy day. Found the wren's nest under the shed overhang. No wonder it is using the sloping pole as a perch.

  There's been a glitch. No images can be uploaded. Google is preventing effortless blog editing again. It's a conspiracy!

 Yet again I experimented in advanced poaching. Desperate to avoid previous failures to perform on the cosmetic front. Small frying pan. Two glass cups. Up to their middles in boiling water. Sitting with a single broken egg within each. Trying to stiffen up the whites. Before they explode into soggy candyfloss. I still had to pour them into the pan anyway but they came out fine. 3.5 minutes after release into the wild was optimum. Success!

 However, Google wants the patent. There is no other explanation for their blocking behaviour. Preventing this "life changing" culinary triumph from release to a shocked world. It has to be "shocked" or there will be no viewers on YouTube. Everybody uses it. Even for sleep therapy nonsense and meditation. Or, if I was advertising, it would have to be: "taking Denmark by storm!" Or whatever.  

 11.00 Still coughing. Bed.

 11.20. Still trying to upload my dinner pictures and fix typos. Done.

 

 ~o~