Not a metaphor for my human disposition, but the old boiler from the kitchen wall. Twenty-six years old, working but with a threatening rattle. I positioned the carbon monoxide alarm right by it, as if that might help.
Here, unceremoniously cast out to the front lawn for pick-up by someone who assures the engineer it'll be recycled.
These days we never can be sure. Apologies if it ends up in a trench at the side of your A-road home.
Ten pairs of headphones!
I only have two ears and I don't use headphones. I walk around with the radio talking to itself in my handbag. This lot wraps around 20 ears and suggests some dedication to isolation.
Anyway, this is the 'one thing a day' - my decluttering rule - going out the house.
Just because there's 10 items doesn't make it 10 days. That would be cheating. Yesterday the 'one thing' was a crumpled piece of paper, so I reckon it will all balance out by the end of the year.
This is the 'one thing', leaving the house soon. It's a blood pressure monitor. Husband used it frequently.
I don't know why some items have been harder to part with than others. The clothes went immediately. As did so many of the books, because I couldn't open the door.
Planks of wood, I reused. Electronic kit and strange gadgetry all made steady departures. Stored floor to ceiling, some items - like the dial-up modem in an elegant oak box - made it to museums, for which I'm strangely pleased. Forty meters of shelving I gave to the man down the road. His wife now won't look at me if I pass her in the street.
The reel-to-reel was the last Big Thing to go. It went, ungraciously on my part. I felt guilty about that. I left this seven hundred pounds worth of ex-BBC tape technology on someone's drive with a 'take it and fuck off' face. I don't know why exactly; I think resentment that it was more important than me might be something. But I blew up his computer by accident, and I felt that solved a problem. The carpets, all gone to the skip. The table, Indian rug, both to his sister. The wooden Ganesh, sold. As with the Mexican cat that no-one liked. I still use the library desk because I love it, and I steampunked the broken 1940s swivel chair, and use it daily. The Hong Kong evidence, I quietly keep. One day, it might redeem me, or damn me.
Anyway, the blood pressure monitor. It fell into the category, 'might be useful'.
It was too, for about a week. I had this horrible experience at the hospital as 2025 ended, kicking me properly up the backside with a departing December gift of peritonitis symptoms. While I was laid slab-like, talking about my inability to wee, the nurse observed I had low pressure too. That's unusual because apparently the very sight of a white coat normally elevates it to Hypertension Stage 1.
So I started using this handy machine at home, pumping blood out my arm and squeezing my limb half to death. From Day One it returned alarmingly high readings. After Day Six, I couldn't take any more of the anxiety. I took my body part off to the surgery to have it properly gauged with a calibrated machine. Which returned a reading of normal. And the day after. And the day after that.
Now this is out the house. If it's not collected (for free, with story, listing of its failure, and general cautions) then it has an appointment with the recycling depot. It's lived here, long enough.
Usually ends up with a hammer, nails, and glue. Superglue, Hard as Nails, Sticks Like Sh*t, all good. I also have a fearless hand with the drill and handsaw collection. I'm less keen on the power saw. Should I shake so much with the vibration? Is that normal? I can literally feel my brain case rattle.
However, we have someone coming, so it's a DIY day. Tightening door handles, repairing plaster, window catches, smooth opening doors, that sort of general housey stuff. Until I electrocute myself I'll have a go at most things.
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Evening at the pub, for the stand-up comedy where we agree on Peter Brush and Raymond & Mr Timpkins.
I find this the most difficult challenge set so far by the Photography Group. Fortunately, my portrait partner is funny, helpful, patient, and forgiving.
Feel sorry for the trees in this garden. We have six or seven small trees depending how you count them, and the fact that some of these should not be trees at all.
What they represent is maturity. I can't buy that at the garden centre, so I let these wandering beasts be. Part of me loves their spirited wandering; they do as they please.
But I know this is not management. I leave these wild things for years, until one starts leaning perilously towards a garden gate, and within a few months I can't open the gate.
Today, it's a choice between tree or gate. My only defence is that I waited until winter, when it would be asleep.
I work on this Victorian house, bit by bit. In one wriggle way, there is a tiny hallway, leading to an office and living room. It's so tiny, it's like a cupboard. With three doors, plus some more cupboards.
I decided it would be interesting as a Time-travelling tardis, so I'm setting about this, slowly.
Today I rehung the cupboard-under-the-stairs-door (taken off in 2015, don't ask why). Note the junior chisel set on the floor! And the Morris Wallpaper sample on the back of main fire door! (I'll hang the wallpaper after I've sorted the beading and attacked the doorframe.)
And here's my Tardis on reverse. (Fairy lights, obviously, because I can't fit in real stars.)
Visited a local town for an evening event. I cannot say the experience was delightful. More, it confirmed all my intent never to return.
The landscape of this particular town is bleak. Imagine how they have flattened everywhere to create 6-lane highways, endless quantities of Lidl and Wren Kitchen outlets, and a defunct gas works.
Once inside Town X, I avoided a car accident by a whisper and the quick judgement of the other driver. As in, you get 2 yards to switch lanes, despite previous signs assuring you of straight-on-and-right-turn, now it isn't. Stay put, and enjoy a one-way routing, one more time. (Or switch, and test the reactions of the driver behind.)
The usual car park was shut due to building works. Necessitating the NCP and a 20-minute walk. Not too bad, I thought, as I could get my exercise steps.
The dark alleyways to avoid the no-pavement route of the A-road were going okay. Until I realised the horror of an unlit underpass. Which was also flooded.
Fortunately, a kind soul had hauled concrete blocks to use as stepping stones across the lake. Unfortunately, the kind soul was possibly the same local drug lord, holding court, by use of a head-torch, behind a brick pier half-way along. For a brief moment, when the whispering stopped and the staring started, it crossed my mind I might be shot.
Eventually, after crossing the building site safely thanks to my phone light, I arrived at the venue. To find the main doors locked. Like, how are you supposed to enter a public event (albeit in the middle of a building site) when they lock the fecking doors?
Someone let me in after I banged on a window.
The event passed peacefully, with only a small amount of shame and despair on my part.
On the way back to the NCP through the late-night deserted streets and pelting rain, a gentleman of the night, possibly tired and emotional, threw a water bottle at me and assaulted me with a tirade of abuse for, I don't know, walking. On the plus side, I managed the remainder of my daily 10,000 steps at a considerably quicker pace than when I began.
Here's a photo of the ceiling at the venue. Regulars may recognise it. For those who don't know where it is, I will never name it. Suffice to say, Mark Steel has not yet ventured.
The first half of February will have me watching Shelter, No Other Choice, Hamlet, Iron Lung and Send Help. Coming up is Good Luck, Have Fun, Don't Die, Wuthering Heights, Cold Storage...
Well, it's winter. Dark and cold. Perfect to escape to a fantasy land. Alongside other humans snorting and slurping, gasping and laughing. Warmth, a comfy chair and a real big cinema screen. Winter? Holiday home here.
Get me! I watch a darts match! More than one, probably, but don't test me. I'm learning. This is called, 'Going round someone's house because they promise dinner in exchange for me watching the darts'.
This winter I made a conscious decision to cook.
Moving from a household of partner and three offspring - where cooking is daily continuous - to a household consisting of me and my shadow - where cooking is weekly optional - is a mixed experience.
A fried egg sandwich, tomato sauce, a tin of mackerel, slice of toast, separate or together, who's to please but me? I love it!
But sometimes, I miss the hazard of cooking for others. The perils of adding extra cumin. Last minute dollops of creme fraiche to celebrate or regret. Basil and chilli in dangerous amounts. Confessing to the table what's really in the pan.
Today, an opportunity to cook rice pudding in the slow cooker. I don't think I've ever done it. Turns out beautifully. In honour of someone else, nostalgia propelled me to add whisky to the oats and Marsala to the fruit. Enjoy!
Spending time at the studio, stitching my Knicker Drawer Note Books (memory books, journals, dirty diaries, books for playtimes, characters, made for themes, moods, crafty creatives etc etc), all in prep for Valentine's Day.
A day I always honour. Single, separated, divorced, dead, married, not important, doesn't matter.
We simply should each have a day, somewhere in the year, to put the horror to one side, and play.
At someone's lovely 1970s apartment. It's filled with detailed design from the decade, and it's a joy. Pioneering architecture of a decade that - the further we move away - needs protecting more, not less.
For example, it has a small fire escape from the back of the bathroom to avoid the front door should a fire impede main access. How carefully thought-out is that? It's amazing!
But then I hear power tools in the stairwells, boots on steps, and voices of purpose. Here it is, this super crawl escape, being blocked up. It's the law. Nothing to do with us. Present-day fire regulations say this little curiosity, reflecting the fears and strategies of a different age, must not exist.
These lovely apartments are not likely to merit the courts for the Twentieth Century Society. And there's no protest stump on which to chain myself. It's just another ordinary building.
Each year, there's a Bard elected here. I'm sure, in recent years, I recall stories of love and warm humour, mischief and tease. Stories for big arms, wrapped around the neighbourhood.
These are different times. Bleaker, angrier, stories of betrayal and resentments, rough justice and pain. The times we live through.
The unprepossessing entrance to the pub in a nearby village. It's the Photography Club social. Where I discover -ta-dah!- I'm runner up! To the Photo of the Year competition! (Taken January 2025, you choose.)
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Two straight morning hours in the garden, starting The Great Winter Progress.
Sunshine, 8C degrees, beating heart, full bin, perfect.
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Sto imparando l'italiano, lentamente.
Iere, Mnc - lei è una buona amica - ha cucinato il risotto nella mia cucina. È stato fantastico! Ha vissuto in Italia per due decenni! Parliamo italiano. Io, lentamente. (E male.)
Oggi è il mio turno con un libro.
And I had fun, playing with my phone camera settings.
On the minus side, when I hang around at the back, staring intently at my phone, it looks like I'm an irredeemable addict. Tsk. Youth of today.
I got into the Secret Maps exhibition at the British Library! Ordinarily I wander in on a whim, but today the entrance queue was round the shop. It was a full-to-capacity, one-in, one-out.
Amongst the crowds I did manage to snap one of my favourite maps - Glebe, Number 6, Smallburgh, Norfolk. Dated 1582.
Also, the exhibition closes in 24 hours, which might account for the queue.
For Death of Gesualdo, 'a theatrical concert fusing music, puppetry, and tableau vivant'. Fantastic! I am reminded to put St Martins back on my Things-to-do-in-London list.
And more out-of-focus photography...
The last few weeks have been challenging. But today I decided to do things I love! Like walking in the rain. What could be better? (Maybe I'm variety outdoors British.) I love the constant scattering of raindrops and cold wind on my face - bright and breezy, I'm alive! I have no need of a brolly. It wasn't up to the job anyway, so I photographed it as it fled the scene.
