After a more than blustery night the day dawned better than one could have expected with scattered cloud and the all important sun.
The sun has been present throughout the day but not always as assertively as I would have liked it to have been. This has not stopped me, however, from resorting to the sun bed on the third floor and taking what rays were thrown in my general direction!
The tidying of the Third Floor continues at a snail’s pace with extraordinary displacement activity including sorting out a chest of drawers – which has, perversely thrown up more material which has to find a place on the same Third Floor which is over laden with material at the moment!
Another Herculean task waiting for me is the cleaning of the barbecue in preparation for the calçots. Rather, I have been told, the barbecue is for the meat and the calçots (which have to have ‘fire’ to get them to the state in which they can be eaten) are going to be cooked on some sort of grill which, at the moment, we do not have.
As the barbecue has been languishing in isolated glory in an unconsidered corner of the Third Floor balcony for the greater part of the year, you can imagine how ingrained the accretion of mess produced by pigeons, pine trees and perverse weather has been. All of this has to be cleaned away so that fresh meat can be laid on the bars without imminent danger of death from microbes that have been mutating for months on undisturbed metal.
I am a great believer in the miraculous effects of the substance contained in a little green circular tub that I purchased some time ago. This contains an undistinguished lump of slightly gritty material of a hardened mud-like consistency which really does get rid of those hard-to-get-rid-of stains on stoves, taps and especially, the bottoms of saucepans and frying pans. I am prepared to go for anything short of elbow grease to get results!
My reading has ground to a halt, though, even as I type there are various books literally within reach which are calling to me: “A Farewell to Arms” is asking to be re-read; “Culture” by Raymond Williams – which I bought for title and author and should probably now read; Eliot, Fitzgerald (F. Scott and Penny), Fowles (for self indulgency) and Frisch (for astringency) are all there, out of place and an-alphabetic but reaching out! Perhaps a play: doesn’t take long to read and gives one a sense of completion. Job done: Frisch it is. Given where I am, perhaps “Andorra” might be appropriate!
Barça are going to play Arsenal – divided loyalties, though there are Catalan players in both teams!
Tomorrow will be decision time!
The sun has been present throughout the day but not always as assertively as I would have liked it to have been. This has not stopped me, however, from resorting to the sun bed on the third floor and taking what rays were thrown in my general direction!
The tidying of the Third Floor continues at a snail’s pace with extraordinary displacement activity including sorting out a chest of drawers – which has, perversely thrown up more material which has to find a place on the same Third Floor which is over laden with material at the moment!
Another Herculean task waiting for me is the cleaning of the barbecue in preparation for the calçots. Rather, I have been told, the barbecue is for the meat and the calçots (which have to have ‘fire’ to get them to the state in which they can be eaten) are going to be cooked on some sort of grill which, at the moment, we do not have.
As the barbecue has been languishing in isolated glory in an unconsidered corner of the Third Floor balcony for the greater part of the year, you can imagine how ingrained the accretion of mess produced by pigeons, pine trees and perverse weather has been. All of this has to be cleaned away so that fresh meat can be laid on the bars without imminent danger of death from microbes that have been mutating for months on undisturbed metal.
I am a great believer in the miraculous effects of the substance contained in a little green circular tub that I purchased some time ago. This contains an undistinguished lump of slightly gritty material of a hardened mud-like consistency which really does get rid of those hard-to-get-rid-of stains on stoves, taps and especially, the bottoms of saucepans and frying pans. I am prepared to go for anything short of elbow grease to get results!
My reading has ground to a halt, though, even as I type there are various books literally within reach which are calling to me: “A Farewell to Arms” is asking to be re-read; “Culture” by Raymond Williams – which I bought for title and author and should probably now read; Eliot, Fitzgerald (F. Scott and Penny), Fowles (for self indulgency) and Frisch (for astringency) are all there, out of place and an-alphabetic but reaching out! Perhaps a play: doesn’t take long to read and gives one a sense of completion. Job done: Frisch it is. Given where I am, perhaps “Andorra” might be appropriate!
Barça are going to play Arsenal – divided loyalties, though there are Catalan players in both teams!
Tomorrow will be decision time!
No comments:
Post a Comment