Category: The Mundane
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Joys of warmth and cold . . .
Awaking early this morning to -4ºC, and a heavy frost that has the snowdrops sagging, it was such a joy to start the wood fire in our cosy room, the room we call the Craft Room, and to enjoy the warmth. Our heat pumps are struggling, but we have hunkered down next to the fire…
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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 joy of challenges resolved
Life has felt rather fraught, over these past two months, and joys have mostly been subsumed in fretting. So it’s a delight, finally, to share some resolutions to some of these infrastructural, if prosaic, challenges, and to be looking forward to new creative projects. Considering that the ancient Romans had wonderful spas, indoor plumbing, and…
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The joys of busy-ness
There are a lot of ways to find joy in life. I often think that creativity is the most exalted of those ways, but there’s a certain joy in being busy, in doing things that have an urgency. You could say, ‘just being busy’ but it’s more than that. The busy is yet another means…
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A musing on a silhouetted vignette
We sat together, my beloved and me, in our warm upstairs room, looking up over the hills behind the house, as the cat, bemused, looked back at us from its perch on the windowsill. The setting sun fired the sky through the dark clouds, and we thought, this is our life here, here in our…
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When a gate is not an entrance but a barrier . . .
The strong steel gate in our new-to-us driveway has served primarily as a barrier, to keep the friendly family dogs safely within the garden, over the past year. But it’s also been a barrier, or at least a huge hindrance even when fully open, to convenient entrance and egress by our ancient motorhome, Harry Hymer. And therein…
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Sighs of relief . . . it’s fixable!
Our Harry Hymer, beloved classic Hymermobile of 1997 vintage, went in for its MOT last week, and failed. The issue was the accumulating rust around both front jack points, indicated on a 2020 model above. The integrity of the support structure was totally compromised, and it was not at all out of the realm of possibility that…
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Warmth . . . on the first rung of the hierarchy of human needs . . . still valid!
Cold outside, and getting colder! Awakening to -8ºC the other day, and pretty much freezing thereafter in the early mornings before the sunshine arrives, we’ve been struggling to enjoy the start of our days. I began to insist that my beloved snuggle under the warm covers for a final snooze, while I finessed the coffee…
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A cup of lovely tea
It’s been a busy week. Productive, on the whole, but busy, and scarce time to look out for joy. But with rather more jobs accomplished yesterday than I’d thought likely, it was time at just around 4:30 in the afternoon to sit back and relax a little. I confess I don’t drink much tea, but…
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Getting ready for the road
It seems scarcely feasible that only two months ago Harry Hymer was stuffed to the gunwales with endless ranks of chattel, clothes, and everything that hadn’t made it into the big truck for storage. And yet, bit by bit, the stuff has been shifted out, and now Harry is clear for the next journey. That…
Roads to Joy 