Time to think back!

I put the dish washer on too soon.

I wandered into the kitchen clutching a bowl and a spoon and with a pang of regret I heard the churning sound of a working machine. I shrugged inwardly because I don’t like dirty dishes lying around looking untidy.

A missed opportunity. The machine was too far into its cycle to stop, I’d just have to wait for the end. Damn!

Then I realised that I could, actually, wash the offending crockery and cutlery. And that came as a revelation. With that revelation came the realisation that I could dry them too. And put them away! Clean, uncluttered surfaces. Nice.

But it doesn’t alter the fact that my first reaction was, “Machine started: too late.” While I still have the capacity to wash dishes, my mind set has virtually eliminated the possibility of manually washing them.

In the same way; if I think that there is something wrong with the car then the only alternative is the taxi. What about buses and walking?

I like healthy(er) flat horizontal chips, but you just can’t buy them. I seem to remember my mother making them by cutting up potatoes. Why does that never occur to me?

Weren’t windows cleaned using newspaper and vinegar? These are commodities I am never without; yet dirty windows sullenly obstruct sunlight because I do not have the requisite can of task specific spray solvent.

At one time even quite small electrical items could be taken to a corner shop and be repaired. Now the only item which most people ever consider repairing is the car. I am sure that it is cheaper to buy a complete computer printer than it is to replace the ink cartridges that it needs.

My parents’ Hoover Keymatic (one of the first off the production line) lasted for years and when my parents bought a newer model I was given the old one and that lasted for years and years more. Nowadays you half expect white goods to evaporate after a few years; and you feel positively immoral if you have a washing machine which has reached its fifth birthday.

It’s a different way of thinking. A way of thinking that perhaps I will have to get back to.

I do not pretend that life in Catalonia is going to be the same as life in Cardiff. My house in Spain is not going to have the spaciousness of my home in Wales. Things (in ways that I can only guess at) are going to be different and I may have to revisit ways of living which are buried deep inside.

The selling of the house has moved on yet again. In the next two or three days we should have a more realistic moving date.

As I am not sufficiently old enough to have full control over my money I have a financial adviser to rip it out of my spendthrift hands and the meeting tomorrow is designed to ensure that the money from the house sale spends the least amount of time possible in any bank account I can get at!

The meeting tomorrow was also a wake up call. At first the meeting was going to be held on the Monday after the provisional date for completion and, as Phil asked, “Where will you be then Steve?”

Where indeed!