Tag Archives: heat

3,101 – Inspiration is Difficult in the Heat

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It seems that yesterday’s post was number 3,100.  At 3,000 I was happy at my achievement. Then I developed an ambition to get to 3,100. Now I’m looking forwards and wondering when I will get to number 4,000.

Yesterday I sent off three poems for a members’anthology. It’s not a great challenge – I’m pretty sure all members get one in automatically. However, the good bit was that I had the acceptance within hours. In the last year or so I have been submitting so late in the cycle that in some cases I’ve only waited days for a decision. Now that I’m submitting three weeks before the end of the cycle I have to wait at least three weeks. It’s definitely not as exciting . . .

As I’m starting to submit a bit of mainstream poetry again I’m going to have to get used to this sort of thing – many of the regular poetry magazines take three months or more to get back to you.

It’s been a bit hot today, but not the worst it’s been. I’m not going to complain because this i possible the best weather we’ve had all year and it’s going to finish soon. Give it a couple of months and it will be cooler. In fact it’s just a couple of weeks ago we were thinking we might need a touch of heating on. We normally last until late September or even into October in a good year. Withe price of power still being high, every day is a bonus.

These days I do not watch the approach of winter with the same relaxed attitude I used to have when I was in my 30s. The cold and damp hurt more, for one thing. Bills are higher, draughts are keener and duvets are no fun when you sleep with a woman who gathers the bedding round her with the grim determination of a hibernating bear (and snarls in much the same way as the aforementioned ursine when you try to get a little of it back).

It seems that Royal Mail filled a form in wrongly and the Irish Customs have charged the customer nearly 150 Euros in duty. We are now having to provide copy paperwork to help her reclaim the overpayment. The postage was £15 so you’d think they could get it right. That filled a good part of my afternoon.

Incidentally, last week while I was away at the funeral, we had two parcels returned by the Irish Post Office. It’s taken six months. There is something seriously wrong with the Irish postal service. Out favourite theory is that it is their revenge for Brexit. They were OK until Brexit and it all fell apart at that time. Same for Germany. Italy was always chaotic, even before Brexit.  I could have walked to Ireland, delivered them and walked back in that time.

Postal charges are going up again – for the second time in the year. In April First Class letters went up from 95p to £1.15, which was a bit savage. In October they will be going up to £1.25. Three price rises in 18 months. Meanwhile the quality of service goes down.

Heavily stamped envelope

Day 202

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I am writing quickly before going to work on Day 203. After days of heat, sleepless nights, chest infection and various niggling worries, I finally had some quality sleep. More like unconsciousness really, as I spent three hours in a chair dead to the world, even though Julia tried to wake me several times. On finally returning to life it seemed silly to wake myself up by writing so I went straight to bed.

That’s one of the keys to my current sleep pattern, and various other problems. I nap during the evening, wake around ten or eleven, use the computer, wake myself up and end up working until the early hours of the morning. This is bad for brains, blood pressure and weight. It’s not even particularly good for writing as I’m not sure I produce my best stuff at 2am. Mainly I hop from site to site, adding to my store of general knowledge and forgetting what I really mean to do.

This lack of focus is probably the thing I most need to get under control.

Work was warm and stuffy. Phone calls have picked up again – several times I had only just finished one when another came in. A day like that can really slow you down, because it takes longer than you think to adjust your thinking. I was listing a collection of enamel badges – advertising, civil defence, and Yogi Bear all came into the picture, but no sooner did I get into the zone for 1960s kid’s badges when the phone rings with someone wanting a valuation, or wanting to know if we open on Sundays.

Sometimes it can be very difficult to give a polite answer.

Teasel – temporary photo

Photos are just to add some colour, I will add new photos when I get home tonight.

Day 199

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The Welsh established a new temperature record yesterday – 37.1 degrees C – near enough 99 degrees F. For a country that is famous for its mountains, rain and coasts, this is hot.

Meanwhile, approximately 100 miles east, I have been given the day off. There weren’t enough orders overnight to make it worth working in these temperatures. So I have a bonus day off. It’s 10.16 now. I have dropped Julia off, returned home, browsed the internet, attended to emails and am now planning a cup of tea and a touch of TV with a fan.

It’s a hard life, but someone has to live it.

One of the emails was an apology and a postage refund. I had, you may recall, a surprise brassiere delivered by a company that was supposed to send me ink cartridges. This cost me just over £3 in postage to return. They didn’t send me the money, and they didn’t reply after I reminded them. Last night I sent them a second reminder. I’m pretty laid back but it’s now five weeks, and it was their error, not mine.

My second reminder was the sort I like to think of as “crisp”. It’s not rude, brusque or sharp. It doesn’t seek to prove a point, place blame people or lecture, because I hate letters that do that.  It avoided terms like “debt” and “recovery”. I merely pointed out that I was owed the money, had asked previously and would now like it within seven days. Result – apology and £4 sent. I’m not going to go broke for £4 but it’s owed, and should be paid. After all, I could just have binned the bra and said nothing.

Ah well, time for tea, TV and some evaporative cooling. No point in taking chances.

Day 198

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It was quiet this morning as I dropped Julia off. The final roundabout of the journey is usually quite busy and can have a queue stretching back up to 400 yards. On average it is probably about 200 yards. With cars taking up about 6 yards that’s 30 cars. I really must try to count them one morning. Today, however, there were four. It wasn’t really a queue at all.

We were short handed in the shop because one of us had been visiting his mother and the trains weren’t running back to Nottingham. My observation that when I have car trouble I get a taxi, didn’t go down well. Anyway, at 1am we went home. We had packed 14 parcels, had no customers and had not even had a phone call. it’s like the whole world has gone into hibernation.

Tonight, as I struggled with telephone banking again, I had a text telling me not to go in tomorrow unless we find ourselves flooded with orders. due to eBay’s new policy of wanting to use One Time Passcodes I now find I can’t log in to the work system. That’s the beauty of modern technology – always altering to make life more difficult.

When I rang the bank tonight I couldn’t complete the security protocol because I couldn’t remember my “significant date”. I haven’t a clue what I chose 25 years ago. I t wouldn’t be my birthday because that would be too simple. It wouldn’t be my wedding anniversary because I have never been able to remember it.

There are other questions that they could have asked, but I had to be transferred to someone else to “be taken through security another way”. Sounds ominous, doesn’t it?

It consisted of asking me how much money I had in my account, what I bought when I last used my debit card (it was eight days ago – I couldn’t remember) and various other tricky questions . . .

I have to go now. As I type, I’m listening to two poets talking about poetry and I am losing the will to live.

A Warm Day

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It’s been a bit warm today, which is never a good thing in the UK, as we tend to go red and get tetchy. This is despite our hot weather not really being hot,e get to 30° C, or near enough 90° F, and start to complain. Tomorrow it will be back to normal at 21° C, or 70°, so summer is over.

I packed more parcels, loaded more things on eBay (taking time to make sure I didn’t accidentally wipe it all this time), and generally did as little as possible.

After picking Julia up from work we bought cold drinks from McDonald’s  (slipping back into the clutches of the corporate Antichrist) and returned home to find a grasshopper standing on the footpath,

That, plus a bit of writing and a nap in front of the TV, has been my day. I am tired now and am finishing here.

I will post more photos tomorrow. Today’s photos are abstracts using the coloured walls of the school shed.

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School shed

 

Razors, Lies and Misadventures

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Contrary to my gloomy predictions, I didn’t sever an ear, so mentions of van Gogh proved to be premature. However, I did spend several minutes trying to shave my head without producing much result. A moment’s thought revealed the cause for the lack of progress – I’d neglected to remove the clear plastic safety guard. Well, it’s a very small, clear plastic guard, and I was tired.

I’ve had a variety of problems with razors, apart from stupidity. The main one is theft.  Even the most respectable people seem prone to criminality when faced by a bag of razors.

I the early days of our marriage I used to employ a razor once every couple of months to tidy up the edges of my beard. I would return to it periodically and always find it clogged with dark hairs and congealed shaving foam. This was strange, as I always clean my razor after use and have never had dark hair.

Julia, who I will characterise as a dark-haired woman with beautifully smooth legs for the purposes of this story, always denied any knowledge of how this happened.

For the last twenty years I haven’t bothered with tidying the beard, but I have shaved my head from time to time. I would have shaved it more but I never seem to have a razor when I need one.

The normal scenario for that was that I would decide to shave my head and find no trace of my razors, despite buying a bag of razors and using only one or two.

Further enquiries, including interrogating Julia and the boys resulted in no useful information. Either my two smooth-cheeked sons and my smooth-legged wife were part of a web of deceit regarding the theft of my razors or, more likely,  a local cat burglar was targeting my razors.

Obviously this seems unlikely but, as Sherlock Holmes pointed out “When you have eliminated all which is impossible, then whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.”

As a note for future generations, the car thermometer was reading 38.5 degrees C tonight on the way home. This is 101.3 degrees F. Julia recorded the same temperature in the gardens. This is hot for the UK. I wonder if someone, reading this in twenty years, will laugh ironically at the thought of this being hot.

At least, with no hair and a drastically trimmed beard, I felt more comfortable than I have done on previous days.

Sixteen Minutes

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I’ve not been sleeping well in the heat, though this difficulty seems to disappear if you stick me in front of the TV. As a consequence tonight has been spent watching quizzes, snoozing, wrestling with an automated bidding system, eating a delicious meal of sausages and Mediterranean vegetables and taking Number Two son to work.

That leaves me with sixteen minutes to write this post.

There was an interesting radio programme on tonight, about invasive species and Acclimatisation  Societies.  These societies were an aspect of imperialism that is still damaging things today.

The invasive species in UK include Zebra Mussels. Their main effect in the UK, according to the programme is that they colonise drains and water supply pipes and choke the water flow. Not a problem I’d ever thought of.

Three minutes to go. Phew!

 

Another Day of Mixed Fortunes

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The good news is that I had a slightly better day domestically. I’ve nearly been forgiven for the laundry debacle (despite my protestations that, being poorer by two pens, I’m actually the victim here) and after a liberal helping of  bleach we’ve nearly restored the white blouses.

Breakfast demonstrated the folly of buying cheap cereal. It was my own fault for shopping whilst in the grip of an economy drive. However, as I’m keener on saving money than I am on eating expensive hamster food the cheerless breakfast may be a fixture for some time to come. Or I may eat more eggs. Eggs, as I often remarked during my time in the poultry industry are both economical and nutritious.

If I save money on food I can spend more on visiting piers. And replacing Julia’s linen tops.

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View from the end of Southwold Pier

My main project for the day on eBay was to split the English coin section of the on-line shop between decimal and pre-decimal sections. There’s no real instruction book for eBay and it took a couple of tries to find the right method, not helped by a set of instructions that left several things out.

I won’t bore you with the details, but it took four hours in the back of a stuffy shop to get it nearly done. Actually that isn’t quite true – the first two hours were stuffy, but the final two hours, after we opened the back doors, were like working in a wind tunnel. A very boring wind tunnel.

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Railway Medallion
Stevenson’s Locomotion
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Apart from that I packed parcels, put three Edwardian Love Tokens up for auction and put eight railway medallions up for sale.

Edward VII 6d Love Token
Edward VII 6d Love Token

The sixpence (above) is actually 20mm in diameter and the threepences are 16mm. I managed to lose the scale when I took the photos. I missed out the obverses from the bottom two as they are the same head as the top one. Once you’ve seen one bald king you’ve seen them all.

Edward VII 3d Love Token 1
Edward VII 3d Love Token 2

It doesn’t sound much of a day but I think it’s seen off a fair number of brain cells as I decline.

 

 

Spiders, Shopping and Dead Butterflies

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A couple of days ago I noticed something fluttering in the front garden, It turned out to be the remains of a Small Tortoiseshell, enangled in a sider’s web. It was past help, but I thought I’d take a few pictures. If I ever need a picture of a dead butterfly with a spider I now have one in stock.

It was quite a cunning plan on behalf of the spider, stringing a web between the Red Valerian flowers and lying in wait for a passing pollinator. I imagine that it wou;d have preferred a nice juicy bee, but it got a butterfly. There must be plenty of food in a butterfly, but the wings are a bit of a waste.

I  tried to get some close-ups, but must have touched a web, as the spider made a rush for me, defending its lunch. In such a David and Goliath situation we were always going to have a non-traditional outcome. I was never going to fall over after taking a rock between the eyes. Fortunately the spider didn’t push its luck and, after a sneer, it went back to eating.

Moving forward to Bank Holiday Monday,  we went to the garden centre so that Julia could buy more plants. We always seem to be buying new plants. After the first half of the trip I hobbled back to the car, making much use of my walking stick, and allowed her to enjoy the centre without me holding her back. I am so noble.

There is, of course, nothing wrong with me, apart from laziness and the inability to put up with heat. I’m just a very bad husband. However, I was able to sit in a car in the shade and enjoy the breeze instead of sweating round a variety of converted polytunnels masquerading as a shop. I feel a little deception was good for my health.

Whether or not it remains good for my health if Julia reads this, we will have to see.

As I sat in the car I took a few photos. There wasn’t much to photograph, but when in doubt take a picture of things that look like a pattern. That’s why I took the pots and compost bags.  They aren’t good photos, but they look like they could be. The one with the pots would have been better if they’d been stacked on the level. Or if I’d noticed they were sloping when I took the photo.

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It was nice day, even if it was too hot for me, and even better when we were able to drive round with the air-conditioning on.

At least we weren’t disappointed by this garden centre.

It’s now even hotter…

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We’re back from the bread session, and the temperature has risen to 31 degrees. There’s a light breeze, but it’s not really helping.

In the care home everyone was so hot, despite the application of medicinal ice cream, that they found it hard to raise the enthusiasm. I didn’t get an ice cream, despite my sterling efforts at bread plaiting and various other forced jollity. However, as you can see from the main photo, I have now gathered my hot weather survival kit (fan and ice cream) and am feeling much better.

Only one lady could raise the enthusiasm to comment on my plait.

“I don’t like plaited bread.”

That put me in my place.

Another lady had been a sausage-maker in the family butchery business and many others had baked in school, so we did do some good by bringing back old memories.

However, “From the ashes of disaster grow the roses of success” as they say.

Next time we are going to make sure we have a cooler day (as if we have a choice!) and we will make pizza. If there’s one thing I can do well for an audience, it’s make pizza. And, when we have our (yet to be) famous afternoon tea sessions with Quercus we are going to invite them out to the farm. Some have been to a bread-making session here and enjoyed it, others prefer not to travel. They might travel for tea and cakes. I know I would.

I’d better get planning those afternoon tea sessions…

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Day Lily
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