Month: January 2025
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When things work . . .
I’m a great fan of the mundane, things trundling along as they should, and being able to live within the constraints that make sense. My joy came crashing in, today, apparently because I managed to re-install our pair of passive antennae, so-called SlimJim dipoles, to facilitate communication of our smart meter to the electricity supplier’s…
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The ‘whew!’ of a successful road test (MOT)
The MOT inspector followed me and Harry Hymer into the inspection bay. ‘That’s an immediate fail,’ he opined, as matter-of-fact as you please. ‘Your brake light’s off.’ I know Harry’s been through the wars, and this particular side end has had an unfortunate encounter with our own little Fiat Panda as it scraped out around…
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Theatres . . . great joys from past to present
Snapshots from the past are often very evocative, and our January visit to Taormina, thirteen years ago now, hoves back into the present as my mobile phone reminds me. Those days seem like a lifetime ago, but then life has a way of crescendoing into its climactic periods before or after it’s been more of…
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The joy of dreams
In a previous blog post, I waxed enthusiastic at the prospect of minimal building work over this coming year. I felt delighted that we might contemplate settling in and living, rather than preparing for the lifestyle we’d hoped for. I forgot how much fun it is to plan and to anticipate the renovations, and then…
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In and of itself: the joy of creation
I was reading, just the other day, how a television series might be suddenly abandoned, after one or two seasons. The creator is cast adrift, and the article provided some evidence of their chagrin, their tristesse. Apparently this process happens much more often than one might think. I thought, as I read the piece, ‘Ah…
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The joy of collections . . .
I’ve been thinking about collections, lately, but more precisely, collections of poems. Small collections of poems are often collated by the poet into small leaflets, or the so-called ‘chapbook’ format. Not a book, more a small collection of a few poems loosely grouped into some sort of theme. I was prompted the other day by…
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Looking back, looking forward . . .
After a rush of busy, just at the end of 2024 and the beginning of 2025, the doldrums of mid-January are beginning to bite. I rushed around tidying up my workspace in the shed. I got my new Christmas present, a 3D printer, configured and making useful things. I replaced a faulty shower valve, and…
Roads to Joy 