2013 — 1 January: Tuesday — extra jumpy White Rabbits!

Surprise, surprise. Just like yesterday, I'm now in tomorrow and feeling distinctly in need of some further sleep stuff... Unlike yesterday, however, I now know exactly how many MP3 files I have whose performers' names begin with the letter "R".1 I shall defer until later today my processing of the over-crowded "S" folder.

It's a good job I'm not obsessive about this silly self-imposed task.

Something very...

... very unusual is going on outside. The sun appears to be shining, and it doesn't seem to be raining or windy. All designed to lure me outside, I presume. My spy tells me there were unpleasant hordes of shoppers around locally yesterday. I shall therefore content myself with some overdue vegetative slicing and dicing for a while. Chaps cannot live forever on a diet of pancakes, now, can they? [Pause] The next crockpot is now set to "stun" my tastebuds2 later this evening, the slicing and dicing having been done to the accompaniment of a nice radio portrait of the nature reserve down on the South coast at Keyhaven — I know it very well, of course.

Meanwhile, I've arranged a lunchtime rendezvous tomorrow with Iris, agreed to lend Len the first title in each of the "Parker" and "Dortmunder" series by the sadly now late, great Donald E Westlake, and made a start on the mountain that is the letter "S".

I reckon I've earned my 'lemonses' cuppa :-)

Oops

My cunning mid-afternoon wheeze — starting the year as I mean to go on by foisting myself on the genial proprietors of the 'Roger & Eileen' afternoon tea emporium — has just been thwarted as they are both in the process of coming down with what sound like heavy winter colds. Nothing for it, therefore, but to soldier on with the massive meta-re-tagging exercise.

I've just dealt with Sandy Denny (as it were) which will give some clue as to my progress. Mind you, I've also tackled the six "16 Horsepower" albums I've so far been able to afford as "16" collates ahead of "Sandy"... As does the strange heavy metal thrash grunge death punk (whatever) "Saltatio Mortis" that the niece3 of one of my German sisters-in-law insisted on leaving with me after we'd accommodated her for a week or so in 2005. I still can't make head or tail of the lyrics of that one.

My goodness... almost time to put the lights on, and it's only 16:10 or so. How tedious. Still, KBO.

[Long pause]

Well, the effect of...

... the mint jelly was mighty subtle. The surplus crockpottery is now chilled and in the fridge. The kitchen is clean (I won't say "tidy"). And people seem to have run out of fireworks, bless 'em.

Remind me. Is it a Good Thing to stumble across another 869 previously-overlooked high bitrate world music tracks buried in a badly-labelled subfolder... or a Bad Thing? I'd been wondering where — for example — all my annual Charlie Gillett (ex-BBC Radio London DJ but now, alas, no longer still with us) sets of "World" CDs had ended up. Not to mention all that lovely old stuff Bob Dylan played when he was doing his Theme Time Radio Shows a few years back. <Sigh> I think I need a change of hobby for what little remains of the evening. Wonder if the TV still works?

  

Footnotes

1  2,550 should you wish to know.
2  Experimenting by adding a couple of spoonfuls of Bay Tree mint jelly to the already rich melange that is my evolving "lamb special".
3  Friedericka was endearingly both in awe of, and adored, Christa (which was obviously completely understandable to me). They had been regularly corresponding since her early childhood, and Christa had become an honorary aunt. Our young house guest was an intense, very tall, not-entirely humour-filled, lady in her early 20s who was then seeking help and advice from Christa with the thesis she had come over to the UK to finalise on William Caxton and (if I understood correctly) how he stacked up against the equivalent German figure, Gutenberg.