23.05.2024 Giving it all away.

 ~o~

  Thursday 23rd 57F/14C. Heavy overcast but still dry. Rain is promised for much of the day. The radar presently shows a strip of heavy rain traveling NW just below Fyn. 

 Up at 5.30 after a quiet night. I have an ear wax removal session just after lunch time in town. I shall take my guest with me in the Morris. She can potter down the shopping high street while I am being treated. It is usually only a short procedure but waiting times vary. 

 I can ask about progress on my e-bike while I am there. The bike shop has had it in the workshop since the 10th! A lack of non-standard, Magura, hydraulic brake hose fittings apparently. Imagine having a Magura brake problem while on a cycle tour! No brakes for a fortnight? I have completely missed a uniquely warm and sunny spring. Albeit while suffering from the worst cold in human history.

7.50 Returning from my walk. Just down the road and then looped around the old and new drives. The result of yesterday's tractor drawn mowing was obvious. The Japanese knotwood had been literally mown over. Every fragment can result in another plant! It is highly invasive and subject to strict rules in the UK.

 It started raining lightly as I reached my own drive. The dilapidated, twin carports have been demolished at the old thatched house. They had been leaning and overgrown for years. With the adjoining field trying to flow over it. Now it is difficult to see where the structure once stood.

  8.35 Torrential rain! That will wash the dust off the cars.

 11.30 It has been raining hard on and off. I am going through the kitchen cupboards. To rid myself of stacks of crockery. All of it decorative but only a few of each item or singles. Lots of stainless steel pots I shall never use. It will all be donated to charity. We managed to fill four boxes in the end.

 14.45 Returning from town. It rained until after we came home. Magura brake hose spares unavailable apparently. They will try extending the hose with Shimano fittings. Possibly next week? I had my ears scraped. Appointment to go back in six  months. 

 We visited several charity shops. Delivered the boxes of donations to a rather low key acceptance. I found a nice little table for the rubber plant at a £5iver equivalent. Giving the plants more room to breathe in that corner of the lounge. I think I am finally getting somewhere now. The whole arrangement is more relaxed. The ceramic pots I bought yesterday were not much bigger than the plastic examples the plants came in. So I will have to go back for the bigger size.

 Dinner was home-made meatballs, brown mushrooms and chips. Eaten at the table with organic red wine. Birds flitted from tree to tree in our north facing view of the back garden. The dappled, golden sun piercing the tall trees of the windbreak to the west. The tall, half-dismantled observatory badly spoiling the vista. It will have to go! 

 My visitor saw a deer sneaking through the garden. It exited over the new gravel pad I have been building. It is years since a deer has been seen in the garden. Not helped by the former gate on the drive at the boundary. Now demolished and gone to the recycling yard.

  ~o~