Tuesday, January 6, 2015

In the midst of life, there is death....



5  January 2014

8 degrees - everything wrapped in fine white mist

OH's super duper new watch shows that it is only 10 degrees in his bedroom.  Open the windows to let some fresh air in and watch small birds running across the top of the barn roof whilst drinking tea (us obviously and not the wagtails haha)

Down town to battle with the slipping oven door shelf and move ceramic tiles.  Out comes the oven yet again and OH starts drilling.  My knees twinge painfully as I descend a number of boxes of tiles to the ground floor.  Have cup of tea.  The oven goes back in and the drawer now works!  Hurrah!  One more thing overcome.  OH takes over the tile transport and I start loading the car and manage to kneel on one of the seat belt receptacles. Appallingly painful.  OH is only ever sympathetic when there is blood.  There is no blood so he grumbles a lot and finishes loading the car.

My knees are not in good condition, largely due to the fact that I tried to learn to ride a bike in my mid forties and kept on falling off.  It is not in my nature to give up easily but was rather put off by the doctor who told me that my knee caps would need changing if I kept on abusing them.  I did toy with the idea of stabilisers (obtainable from America) which engendered much hilarity in my bike riding family - two of whom I had actually taught to ride a bike.  Alternatively I thought of getting a trike - not available apparently in France.  The only person I have ever seen over here on a trike is a very badly mentally disabled boy from down town.   Everyone can ride perishing bikes over here, it appears, apart from me.  There are some stylish trikes available in the UK in flat pack.  Shame Ikea don't do them.  Need to give OH time to recover from doing the last job before I suggest flat pack bikes.

DSCF0034 W.jpg

so this could be me,or alternatively

http://www.recumbent-cycle.com/en/recumbent-bike/4-windcheetah-hypersport#

which is a recumbent trike of the type used by Batman on his day off.  They are astonishingly expensive.  You could get a second hand car or, as OH helpfully points out, two mobility scooters.

Was on the way to buy bread and stopped to talk to two former work colleagues.  There was a sudden commotion and a woman ran into the shop and said to call an ambulance as someone outside had just died.   The ambulance service took a long time to answer the phone and even longer to turn up by which time it was too late to resuscitate the man.  He looked to have been a good age, from his white hair and liver spotted hands, but what a dreadful shock for his family.  He had just got into his car and started the engine and must have had a massive heart attack for he did not get as far as reversing.  

Back home for lunch.  In afternoon, showed our town property to one of my former work colleagues who is now working in the town agency.  She seemed suitably impressed and didn't quibble over the price.  Headed out into countryside to collect a key from a seller who is going to seek the sun in the Caribbean for three months.  The landscape sparkled in the sunshine and the lanes were golden with fallen leaves.

The agent who had revisited Saturday rang to say that his clients, whilst loving the house, could not buy it because they had not sold their own house.  They had been expecting an offer and when it had come in, had been too low so they had refused it.  What a lot of time and energy we spend with these people.  In just six years, I have done over a quarter of a million kilometres.  I could have driven around the world  6.25 times times or 2/3 of the distance to the Moon.  We have been to Southern Spain and to the UK.  This year I will go to places I have not been to before - both physically and psychologically.  

What has been different this year is that I have been free from the depression that dogged me during the whole of last year.  My head is clear and the demon of work is in its right place and not centre stage.  Eliminating negative thoughts demands constant attention 'watching for your next thought like a cat at a mousehole'.  I have signed up for the Kind spring kindness challenge http://www.kindspring.org/challenge/  Something on their site which caught my attention is that not to ignore the little things because, later on, we realise they were big things.  I kept a diary for more than ten years whilst the children were small and these daily jottings of ordinary goings on are now my treasure which I dip into from time to time, and extract forgotten pearls.



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