2008 — 27 August: Wednesday
It's already nearly half past midnight. Don't know where the rest of yesterday evening got away to, but now it's time for tonight's picture of Christa, taken in Old Windsor. To be precise, in the entrance just by the front door, which she cunningly turned into one of her office spaces:
Christa and her office space, Old Windsor
You can see a couple more of the cold-cast acrylic plastic paperweights into which I embedded various objects. In this case, a couple of those deliciously kitschy "Love is..." erasers. G'night.
Unsunny morning has broken
No rain, but still rather grey and overcast as of 08:57. Bro is now safely back home and has been fed and gently guided into his jet-lagged NZ bed (probably for the four days before he's off back to Chile).
I'm pleased to report objective evidence of positive progress. Back in January I noted how upset I was after merely looking in the two garden sheds. Today, I ran an extension cable down to the foot of the garden and gave the last remaining patches of grass a jolly good strimmering.1 En passant, I also now know where Christa kept her rubber diving gear for use in the pond. And no tears. How's that?
Of course, I may yet get into trouble over yesterday's acquisition of a Sainsbury's chicken korma for one, but how hard can it be? (Ironically, I'm half-listening to a radio phone-in2 about obesity right now — it's 12:28 and I'm getting peckish.) I've also just chucked out a spaghetti meal and some cooked dead chicken 'cos they were both a full week past their "use by" date. Christa would shoot me.
Snail mail solicitation... dept.
Mr Postie dropped off a survey from the firm of solicitors Christa's bank (well, mine too, of course) had us (well, me) use while sorting out probate. They want to know how they did. They insist my views are valuable, and they look forward to hearing from me. (Indeed? We shall see!) Wonder if I can work in a fine phrase in legal Latin to convey the precise shade of meaning of "money for old rope"? Korma down, David. Go out for a pootle in the car, why don't you?
Results of minor-league pootle (down into Southampton) this afternoon for a couple of hours:
I admit I skipped quite hastily past rather a lot of the autobiographical (concentration camp) first part of the Frankl, but have already now devoured his "logotherapy" section. As for the Chesterton, I was aware of, and reading about, this particular novel just this morning and decided it looked interesting. We shall see. I'm pretty sure Christa has, or had, a couple of the Father Brown stories, but I seem to remember they were in German translations. We never did really deal with the linguistic barrier in our libraries over the years. Having a bilingual wife was an interesting experience, though. (In fact her French was good enough, too, to handle some of her patent work.) My only real grasp of languages other than English are several programming languages, all terribly old-hat these days, but good enough at the time for a reasonable flow of freelance income.
Upcoming family duties
Being a dutiful nephew, I have just offered to swing by Northampton on my way up to my Aunt Peg's funeral to give her sister-in-law3 a lift from there over to the crematorium near Dudley. I thought I'd better get the offer in pre-emptively. That's going to be quite a wearing day; the round trip distance is some 420 miles, but at least I've been promised a cuppa! Let's hope the chief organising Aunt Mary doesn't set the ceremony for too early in the morning... Mind you, as she will be coming up from Okehampton in Devon, I don't suppose she will. I suppose I will also have to try to persuade dear Mama to attend, too. Mind you, in the most recent conversation she is now claiming not to remember having seen her sister Peg last Thursday (two days before she died). Families, heh?
Good grief! When did it become 22:15? Answer: twenty minutes ago!