I saw a mouse flee Fred’s curiosity and go into my hall cupboard. That led to me removing the stuff on the floor so Fred and Ethel could do what is natural for them, and one of the things I removed was a very large box with “Memories” written on it in felt pen.
The box was the repository of souvenirs from my life. Programs from both visual art shows and performing arts events that I conceived of and produced, and lots and lots of photographs. I found a promissory note from asshole Iqbal Grewal who stole $4,280 of grant money from a project I’d hired him to help me with many, many years ago. He has never paid a cent back.
I also found a postcard that I sent to my beloved Aunt Audrey from here. I wrote it when Don and Connie and I came here to stay when I was a very young whippersnapper. The front is a lovely pencil drawing of Surf Lodge where we were staying and where I go to eat quite often. And I found tons of stuff pertaining to my search for information about my birth parents.
I threw most everything away as I have no children to give it to. It was sad to discard it all, but everything has been in that box for decades and I never go into it, so why keep it. I’m on a mission to get rid of everything not essential. One thing I could not discard was a photocopy of a note Françoise, my birth mother, had written to the orphanage I was in.
I went to the orphanage when I was about 25 years old. That’s when I was given the letter and it thrilled me to see the handwriting of my true mother. But they had redacted it. There were a couple of black bars through things in the letter that the orphanage did not want me to know, the fuckers. Within days of receiving the photocopy, all the words had faded away and only the black bars remain. I find it to be a very poignant souvenir of the absurdity and unfairness of adoption practices back in the day.
I abandoned my work on the box to take Her Highness on our morning walk on a very beautiful morning. We were too late to hear the dawn chorus, but we had a long and wonderful walk together, and then we came home. I puttered until lunchtime, fed the brood and got on the chaise to do some reading. But I didn’t last long staying indoors on so beautiful a day.
And what a fucking miracle it was that I found my mojo for garden work. I got off the chaise and went out to work on the Raspberry bed. It felt very good to be outside and working on the gardens. There are weeks of work ahead on the beds, and I will have to order wood for next season soon.
I put up eight heavy rebar rods in the bed and then used twine to create a soft fence that would help to keep the canes upright. And when I was done, I did an hour of work on tidying and cleaning up the shed. The shed was messier than it has ever been, but now it looks much better. I’ve more to do, but I’ll get to it soon. I am now in outdoor mode when it is not raining.
There were a lot of empty cardboard boxes in the shed, so I decided to burn them and to burn some of the deadheaded detritus that was in the yard. So, I uncovered my burn barrel and lit my lighter. And I am eternally grateful that I decided to use the barrel. As I worked on loading it up, I heard water trickling into my cistern, and it didn’t sound right.
I went out to the cistern and was shocked to see that it was practically empty. It sounded like a child was pissing into it. I fetched the ladder and climbed up onto the cistern and discovered that the lever controlling the water flow was stuck. As soon as I freed it up, a thick stream of water started flowing. I was very relieved that the problem was so easily solved because I feared having to bring in the heavy artillery.
I’m going to have to do more work on it. I will spray the lever with WD40, but I left that to do on the next sunny day. For now, I just want to get the cistern filled. I am so glad that I worked outside yesterday and noticed the problem. I am profoundly grateful for my love of being outdoors on fine days. I discovered the problem just in time. Just a couple more showers and I would have been out of water.
Totally chuffed about getting started on my outdoor season, I quit at 15:30 and took Her Highness for a walk. I’d earned my right to a trail walk and then some reading time. Crisis averted.
The evening was like just about every evening of the past five months. But I read more in the evening because I am seriously enjoying my first (of six) Kate Atkinson detective mystery. I’m loving it. The best part of my evening was hearing from Eoin and François. We are going to the Surf for dinner together on Sunday night. Woo hoo.
Today is going to be wet, but man-oh-man is it lovely and warm. When I got up, I was out in the dark checking on the cistern, and it is very slowly filling up. And thank God! We’ll walk this morning with our friends—well, some of them. Friday is a day when several often bail. Later today, I’ll read more of the book that I’m loving, and we’ll have a nice lazy day.
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