Sunday 23 October 2016

Good things still happen


This title is a quote/predicition from Rachel, who is currently sunning herself in balmy Siberia, and she is right.

Every morning right now, I have a very strong urge to simply write-off the day by staying under the duvet, but I resist it. It is usually hunger which gets me out of bed, but then again it is usually hunger which gets us to do anything isn't it?

Just as there are two brief periods in the year when our butter will spread perfectly on bread when not straight out of the fridge in our compact but adorable city apartment, there are two brief periods when I am blinded by the light through the window as I try to type on this computer which is backed onto it. I think both times are something to do with the sun and the Earth's relationship to it, but I could be wrong.

Today's task is to go to Daughter's compact but adorable city apartment and feed the cats as she is in Cornwall. While I am there, I will take advantage of their washing-machine, because - believe it or not - we do not have one. Oh, don't ask, but if you must know, I have spent 26 years trying to convince H.I. that her room - being on the back - is the only viable place to site a washing machine and associated plumbing in this fucking compact but adorable city apartment, and she goes for the sparse, uncluttered look in her bedroom.

Yesterday's task was to repair a wooden browser for the 44AD Gallery which I hope you signed the petition for. I only discovered that they are called 'browsers' after I asked the gallery director if they had one of those things which you can put unframed sheets into so that people can leaf through them and hopefully choose one to buy. 'Browser' is a much more concise way of describing them, and she said that she also did not know what they were called until she had to buy one. I wonder what she typed into the search.

She said they had one, but it was a little damaged and in need of repair. This was an understatement. I really don't know what happened to it, but it looked as though a 20 stone man (or woman) had taken a 20-foot run-up to it and thrown themself on it, arse first.

I had to buy new hinges for it (they fold), make a new piece in hardwood, knock the joints together again and pin them where they had burst apart, reassemble it in the right position until it looked as though it ought to work, then the job was done. I will be a hero, just for one day.

When I had finished it, I thought that maybe it had been a good idea to get out of bed after all, and then I went to the pub.

A quick question - what is it with all these people who walk around in the street, drinking coffee from paper cups?




31 comments:

  1. Tom, before reading this post I didn't know that those folding wooden display racks are actually called browsers. The gallery is very fortunate that you made that call to them.

    Every time I go out for a walk, I see hundreds, if not thousands of people walking around with coffee in paper cups. I don't really like drinking coffee from paper cups even when sitting down and won't go to places that serve it that way.

    Good days can sneak up on us. Yesterday, i finally began painting my annual watercolor Christmas tea cup cards for friends. I enjoy making them even though it takes quite a while to complete the 40-something I paint. This morning I got a notice that someone has bought something from my Etsy shop. That gave today a good start.

    (The last time I had my own washing machine was when I lived in the very spare, but huge, Soho loft. I actually strung up a clothes line across part of the loft to dry the laundry on. Indoors outdoors sort of thing. Now it's weekly laundry in the shared basement laundry room of the apartment building.)

    Best wishes.

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    1. Every year, I make one Christmas card by hand, then I get about 40 something printed. I admire your committment. Nobody is buying anything from my shop, so I admire you there too. This coffee in the street thing has been - like many other things - adopted from America.

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  2. A quick question - what is it with all these people who walk around in the street, drinking coffee from paper cups?
    Multitasking has come to Britain.

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    1. I am not sure they are thinking at the same time as drinking. They don't even look where they are going.

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  3. I did drawings about this a few years ago - not being able to survive without a paper cup or a water bottle in hand. One day it will go full circle and end. We used to survive without and so we will again.

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    1. When we were young and out an about, this is what we heard:
      1. You should have had a drink at home.
      2. Wait until we get home (this went for the bathroom, too).
      3. Look for a drinking fountain (last resort).
      4. Don't be crying about it.

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    2. I can understand people who are going running on a hot day needing water with them. ( though why they run on a hot day is beyond me…or even run at all!) Walking round the streets with a coffee in the hand ……well ….words fail me!!

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    3. I don't even understand why anyone would want to run when they could walk. It's a bit like pheasants who would rather walk under cars than fly over the top of them.

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  4. I met a German woman and her daughter travelling in Russia from London tonight, 84 and 47 respectively. The daughter was worried about something in her flat at home in London. I said we are all here, this is what matters. We shared wine and mother smiled and nodded at that and cried and then we all cried. Every day is alright when we are still here. The mother was so like mine is why I cried but I didn't tell them that.

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  5. A paper cup in one hand, a phone in the other.

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    1. As if they were too busy to sit down and drink it.

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  6. I remember well my life without a washing machine and I did not like it, except for one thing. Next door to the laundromat was a restaurant where the owner's mother made a cheesecake that was the very best I've ever had. So while the clothes washed ate...I

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    1. I associate laundromats with magazines you normally only find in doctor's surgeries, and for that reason I hate them even more.

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  7. I have not seen people walking and drinking coffee from paper cups here...yet; Starbucks are wanting to open a coffee shop in Milan.
    Well done on repairing the browser.
    Greetings Maria x

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    1. The French (see Cro below) and the Italians are far too stylish to drink coffee whilst walking. Think about it - any nation which takes the entire family out to a smart restaurant to spend an entire day over one, expensive meal is not going to drink coffee from a paper cup in the street.

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  8. We had to save up to buy a washing machine (never had anything on credit apart from a car once) and I used to do our laundry in the bath by hand. Seems like madness to me now. As for the coffee drinkers? who the hell knows...I don't drink coffee and I'm not a 'joiner'....if wearing an eye patch were suddenly to be in vogue somewhere then eventually all the 'joiners' would be wearing them - needed or not. How lucky H.I. is, in that you are so handy....the browser looks a little like a manger don't you think? Rachel is right (and I liked her comment about meeting the people on the train and sharing wine) good things still happen and ALL WILL BE WELL.

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    1. We do most of our washing clothes in the bath, but the sheets are getting too big for us now. I try to tell myself that all will be well at around 4.00am every morning, but I just cannot work out a way of paying off my debts at the same time as buying food. I never expected the financial crash of 2008, you see, so I spent too much time living in the moment.

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  9. Thanks for the comments - I'll reply tomorrow. I'm knackered through watching washing.

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    1. That's what you often say.

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    2. It is true, though. My faculties have been destroyed by watching a washing machine, and I try not to post in the evening in case I start swearing at people after a glass of wine. I always do come back and reply though, don't I?

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    3. Also, remember that I do all the cooking in this place, not just the eating.

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  10. We have not got a dishwasher.....much to the disgust of some of my colleagues

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    1. A family of two doesn't (in my bigotted opinion) need a dishwasher, but maybe you take it in for the village? I bet you've got a microwave too.

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    2. Yes but only three rings on the cooker work

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    3. I haven't either, and have no intention of getting one. They are the work of the Devil. DING!

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  11. Of all the things we don't see over here, one is people carrying paper cups around with them. Others include people's knees falling out of their jeans, any sign of life between mid-day and two, and the obese.

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    1. See comment above about the Italians too. When everyone wore their favourite blue jeans out until they split JUST ABOVE the knee, they carried on wearing them. Levi Strauss picked up on this and began - firstly - by making jeans dirty and worn out before they hit the shops, then tearing them deliberately RIGHT ON THE KNEE where they would never naturally fail. Anyone who buys these are somewhat silly I think, unless they are silly just by being a child.

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  12. After the first cup of the morning, the only point of coffee is as a means to sit in a cafe.

    I'm shocked that you don't have a washer and dryer. I've always considered the existence of in-house laundry facilities a measure of my self worth and I am feeling sorry for myself in this apartment because I have to go down to the basement to wash my sheets and towels. The communal machines are so poorly maintained that I dare not put anything I like in them.

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    1. Now you understand the level to which my self-esteem has sunk.

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