Ease of expression

New Lockdown, third week, Monday

 These are the first words that I have typed with my new keyboard.  After many years of good-natured abuse of my previous keyboard, it has finally, if not quite given up the ghost, then it has decided to be whimsical with it allowing certain key keys to work.  It is difficult and frustrating to have to check every word that contains an ‘e’ or an ‘i’ to find out whether the damn thing has worked.

     Rather than allow my default position to come into play (i.e. buying new immediately) I allowed myself to be influenced by Toni who suggested (not unreasonably) that, armed with cotton buds and wet wipes, I attempt first to clean the thing.

     A determined cleaning of a keyboard is immensely shaming because of the sheer amount of filth that you are able to dislodge from between the keys (in spite of the fact that you had, you really had gone over the keyboard regularly with moist tissues to clean it) and the shocking amount of detritus that falls out when you turn the keyboard upside down and gently knock it about a bit.

     And, I managed to convince myself, it all really made a difference.  Except it didn’t, and wishful thinking does not supply missing letters, but Amazon does.

     So, within hours of placing the order, I am now the proud and much poorer possessor of a new Magic Keyboard. 

     The new version of the keyboard is smaller and thinner that what I suppose I ought to refer to as my old ‘vintage’ keyboard.  The function keys are the same size as the letter keys and the rechargeable battery is built in and charged via a lightening thingy.  There is less key travel than in my old one, and the old separate tack pad looks as though it comes from a separate universe and is nothing like the same size and colour as the new keyboard.  But it works and I am damned if I am going to pay Apple prices for purely aesthetic cosmetic reasons – which possibly shows that I am not a ‘true’ Apple owner!

      So far, so good.  The keyboard appears to be working well and it is a relief not to have to look at each word with suspicion to see if the most common vowel has made an appearance!

 

 

 

There is something deliciously ironic about Johnson having to self-isolate while averring that No 10 is a Covid-secure environment, in spite of publicity photographs released showing Johnson without a mask and inside the appropriate physical distance from the MP who later proved to be Covid positive.  Johnson doesn’t really seem to learn from past infections.  But then ¡he doesn’t really seem to learn essential lessons from anything, so perhaps no surprise there.  Again.

     And to think this was the week that Johnson was going to re-set his chaotic ‘government’ after breaking friends with his bestie and finally going to get the easiest trade agreement in history.  Withering contempt does not even come close to what I feel for that vicious charlatan.  Well, he won’t have Cummings to blame for things going less than well (!) when the end of the year finds the UK totally unprepared for anything that is likely to happen.

 

I spent my time on the bike this morning wondering if I would get back home before the rains.  It was one of those day when what you thought the day was going to be like depended on which direction you looked in: to the south east the sky was bright and there was some glimpses of sun; to the north west the low cloud cover was dark and, as I cycled nearer to Port Ginesta I actually put my lights on!

     In the UK, I would have said that rain was inevitable, but by the time I had turned around at Port Ginesta and started to make my way back, the sun came out and, although not entirely convincing, it hung around for a while to make the journey more positive.

     Now, we are in the customary ‘brightly dull’ weather at which Castelldefels excels. And which gives hope for future sunshine.  I hope that is frequently realized, even when things look hopelessly dank!

 

The first steps have been taken towards making a Catalogue Raisonné of my ‘artistic’ holdings a reality.  I don’t think that there is any point in producing a purely academic version, so I think that I will make it a chatty one and use the art described as a way of encouraging more discursive writing.  The technical bits I can attempt to make as academic as is required, but the descriptions can be a little looser and, as ever, a trifle more self-indulgent.

     I can tell that I am going to have problems with dates and names.  Most of the art works are not dated and the names are either indecipherable or not there.  And for the single piece of Ewenny Pottery that survived my childhood fingers – how to describe it and date it?  And if pottery is included, why not glass, even though most of my glass is commercially produced and at the moment it is in storage because neither of us is drinking very much wine at the moment? 

     And china, even my everyday plates and bowls are now no longer produced, perhaps they merit inclusion! 

     And what about my discarded ‘vintage’ keyboard, that surely has a right to be catalogued, though as I no longer have the box I cannot get full dollar for its resale value!  And the keyboard suggests that old computers and aged but not discarded mobile phones should be candidates for inclusion.  But, perhaps I am getting beyond myself and I should stick, at first, with the more conventional elements of art.

     The research for this is going to be fun!  And I hope informative, though the accusation of cui bono could always be levelled against such an enterprise.  As if mere logic and utility have ever been compelling guiding principles for me!

 

It’s the thinness of a piece of pork lion that makes the difference.  At least this is what I have been told by Toni, who has rejected the present pieces of meat that we have and demanded daintier.

     And that gave me an opportunity.  There was no way that I was going to throw out a whole tranche of loins (or lions as I first wrote) because they were a few millimetres too big.  So, I decided to make a stew.  It’s a long time since I’ve made a decent stew and I am looking forward to dinner this evening when Day 1 of the stew will be sampled.

     The real joy of stew is not the Day 1, run-of-the-mill offering that you get (satisfying though it often is) but rather the Day 3 or Day 4 version with the delicious accretions that make each Day of Stew wonderfully different.

     It will, alas, be a singular pleasure as Toni deigns to eat such things – and it is also the reason that the stew might last until Day 4!

     At some point I always weaken and add curry powder and perhaps a few pieces of pasta to the softened potatoes already there and, together with a few nuts and some dried fruit always give it a bit of a zing!

     Just in case all of the preceding sounds a little too professional, I have just realized (having taken the finished stew off the hob) that I have added no onions, garlic or leeks – which were specifically bought in our last jaunt to the shops (to get out of the house) to add the flavour that all expect.  I am now debating whether to go back downstairs and add the ingredients that nobody (nobody) forgets or wait until tomorrow to give an entirely different taste to the experience.

     The hell with it!  What’s an extra hour with a slow cooked stew?  I’ll add them before I settle down to a little artistic research!

     Essential ingredients duly added – roll on dinner!