I'm making my house big again. I have a big house; it used to be a school, and for many years was the biggest public building in the village. They used to hold dances here, and that was before we put in a second storey and added a couple of bedrooms upstairs. Somehow over the years it has become cramped and full of STUFF...
OK. I'll tell you something now. How I write my Blog is like this: I switch on the pooter first thing in the morning - for some reason, lost in the mists of time, all my clothing is a chest of drawers in the office - so while I am finding socks and pants I fire up the machine and often read my mail by the time I am dressed. Then the machine stays on, on-line, all day. I stop by every now and then during the day to chat with M at work via Google Talk if she's free, or check my mail, not that any bugger ever writes other than to remind me about stuff I was supposed to have done ages ago (Ilona) or to try and sell me OEM V!49r4 at massive discounts but only if I mail them first with all my eBay details which they need to unlock several Millions of British Pounds in a Liberian bank account of the... yadda yadda yadda delete delete delete (everyone else.)
At some point during the day I may have a wee moments internal monologue which is slightly above the average background noise of
Today that first paragraph up there was written about 1pm. And it's true; we do live in a whalloping big house. Linda (long time ago ex) and I used to play badminton to try and knock the cobwebs off the ceiling, there was no other way to get up there, and it's true we do have an awful lot of clutter that has just spread. There is just too much stuff here. I seem incapable of parting with anything. I have untold hundreds of books, CDs, LPs... piles of STUFF. Merriol is, by her own admission, not the tidiest person in the world*. Add two kids aged two and four and several Metric Tonnes of brightly coloured plastic and I have almost forgotten what the floor looks like (big horizontal thing made of wood as I recall). For the past couple of weeks slowly and surely, and with Sue's help, I have been pushing back the tide of kipple and today I realised what it was I was doing. Instead of just dealing with individual little messes and crisis-managing the clutter I suddenly understood I was actually making a difference. I was making my house big again!
At 4pm, three hours after jotting down that first paragraph up there, Kath, my oldest friend in the village, came round. Could I do her a favour? She needs to store some furniture for a bit, not a lot, a wardrobe, six dining chairs, a gate-legged table, a...
*Non-UK residents may like to consider the well-known traditional average Brit's tendency to underestimate and downplay their own massive achievements here.
OK. I'll tell you something now. How I write my Blog is like this: I switch on the pooter first thing in the morning - for some reason, lost in the mists of time, all my clothing is a chest of drawers in the office - so while I am finding socks and pants I fire up the machine and often read my mail by the time I am dressed. Then the machine stays on, on-line, all day. I stop by every now and then during the day to chat with M at work via Google Talk if she's free, or check my mail, not that any bugger ever writes other than to remind me about stuff I was supposed to have done ages ago (Ilona) or to try and sell me OEM V!49r4 at massive discounts but only if I mail them first with all my eBay details which they need to unlock several Millions of British Pounds in a Liberian bank account of the... yadda yadda yadda delete delete delete (everyone else.)
At some point during the day I may have a wee moments internal monologue which is slightly above the average background noise of
"wheredidIput...ifIputthewashingonnowwillIhavetimeto... WhattimedidMerriolsayshewasworkingtilltonight?... WhatAREwehavingfortea...?".If I remember this thought or idea next time I'm passing the machine, I'll slap it down into the performancing plugin window on Firefox. Later, I may add other bits as they occur to me. It gives me something to think about sometimes as I'm doing the washing up, or sorting socks. Later at night when everyone else is asleep (or at least in bed) I write up what I want to say properly. Sometimes it doesn't work and I just delete it and go to bed, sometimes it doesn't make sense and I leave it till the next day.
Today that first paragraph up there was written about 1pm. And it's true; we do live in a whalloping big house. Linda (long time ago ex) and I used to play badminton to try and knock the cobwebs off the ceiling, there was no other way to get up there, and it's true we do have an awful lot of clutter that has just spread. There is just too much stuff here. I seem incapable of parting with anything. I have untold hundreds of books, CDs, LPs... piles of STUFF. Merriol is, by her own admission, not the tidiest person in the world*. Add two kids aged two and four and several Metric Tonnes of brightly coloured plastic and I have almost forgotten what the floor looks like (big horizontal thing made of wood as I recall). For the past couple of weeks slowly and surely, and with Sue's help, I have been pushing back the tide of kipple and today I realised what it was I was doing. Instead of just dealing with individual little messes and crisis-managing the clutter I suddenly understood I was actually making a difference. I was making my house big again!
At 4pm, three hours after jotting down that first paragraph up there, Kath, my oldest friend in the village, came round. Could I do her a favour? She needs to store some furniture for a bit, not a lot, a wardrobe, six dining chairs, a gate-legged table, a...
*Non-UK residents may like to consider the well-known traditional average Brit's tendency to underestimate and downplay their own massive achievements here.
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