Things I’ve done in the last 24 hours

Had a Shingles vaccination jab (first dose) yesterday, having recently hit the “big seven oh”.

Arm is a bit sore, but otherwise no reaction.

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I’m sure my wife has plans to keep me busy. :thinking:

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Two fairly big jobs (for me) done in the last 2 days.

Some years ago we had to put a lot of stuff in storage, and I moved most of this to shipping container storage around 3 years ago as the nearer Safestore had become increasingly extortionate.

3 shipping containers now reconfigured to two. Really should be none.

Yesterday afternoon in the sweltering heat my son and I shifted dozens of boxes from an 80 sq m unit into an existing 160 sq m unit after freeing up some space.

Reminds you that most of what you store is worth bugger all, but once you’ve accumulated it there’s extensive time investment required to sort and get rid of things.

Anyhow a win for the day and it saves £1440 per annum.

Today felt spurred on and managed to get a load of waste wood from house renovation (years ago) to the tip. I’ve made many trips before and it just shows how poor the builder was at getting rid of waste despite me paying for several skips. The ‘plan’ sold to me was that it would be a great source of fuel for the new log burners. Nope - would I really burn decades old painted internal wood waste which might have lead paint?

Anyhow got rid of maybe another fifth of the stuff having cleared maybe 3/5 before.

Knackered.

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You’ve looked around our house then! :laughing:

Sue & I have four decades worth of stuff……but it’s difficult to part with our family’s shared history (including five “serious” HiFi systems!)……

For example. six months ago S. says, “you have 1500 DVDs in the study; most need to go!”. So we did a cull on the DVDs and boxed up around half of them to go to the charity shops. The boxes were left in the back conservatory……temporarily…where they still are!

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I am slowly ‘‘decluttering’’ in case I feel the need to downsize .

On Thursday I went to see a developer about a much small maisonette , in many ways ideal and with a small garden.

Fortunately or maybe unfortunately they would not sell to me if my house was not under offer .

Such is life , in my heart of hearts I know that a smaller dwelling will be much easier to manage with my arthritic knees etc , yet it will be a helluva wrench

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I’m staying put! Undergone too many heart-rending changes in the last 5 years to subject myself willingly to more😝

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I very well understand that, I live in a lovely, remote village and have to think about what happens if I can no longer drive , and already the house and garden are getting a little too big .

So I am de-cluttering , getting jobs done etc

Following the local lightning storm affecting SW England today on the lightning tracker software. A bit close for comfort as the internet went down for a few seconds after a strike near the farm just down the road. Strangely, the rest of the country seems unaffected.

I’ve been doing lots of decluttering and am always inspired by the William Morris quote about having nothing in the house that I don’t believe to be beautiful or know to be useful. When my dad died I ended up with a load of stuff - a coin collection and a stamp album that were both worthless, and a load of old photos of people that I didn’t know - and eventually got shot of it. The only thing left is his WWII medals that I really don’t want for various reasons. Unlike some I have no spare audio equipment whatsoever. When Mrs HH retired we went down one car. These days I’d rather do things than buy stuff.

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I am working my way up to decorating the hall and landing, for the first time in about 20 years. We have two large bookcases on the landing and one of them has to be moved to be able to paint the corner adjacent to it. We both dislike getting rid of books, although most will never be read by us again.

So I have proposed a different approach. Rather than agreeing together what we should keep, I have suggested that we each should remove from the shelves what we wish to save and the rest can go to Oxfam. I have taken about 10% out as my keepers. Now will my wife engage in the same exercise, I wonder!

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Had to remove a small spider earlier today

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Jeepers. Are those your hands? They are like shovels.

They’re certainly are

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Wowzer

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Eeeekkkkkk! :stuck_out_tongue_closed_eyes:

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You haven’t seen his feet😳

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Let’s not go any further!

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Congratulations. I made the move 3 months ago and haven’t looked back, not missed work in the slightest. It’s a cliche but I don’t know how I had the time to work.

I have discovered that retirement is full on 24x7 so have concluded that to get a break from it you have to go on holiday. We’ve taken three so far with a fourth later in the month!

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So much for retirement - a day’s agro fixing a leaking kitchen mixer tap valve. Complications were that the securing screws on both were threaded (£#@!!) and this was an old tap so straight replacements problematic. Used a screw extraction gizmo with drill to remove the threaded screws (took ages but it worked) then found that the spline section on one of the valves was sheared ! Both plumbing suppliers near me drew a blank on the replacement part so it was a case of measuring up the part dimensions, sourcing it on the internet and arranging 24 hour delivery.

The morale of the tale is - just book a plumber and go for a whole new tap unit !

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We drove up to Puyloubier for lunch today and had a lovely meal in the square. It’s at the bottom of Mont-Saint Victoire - beloved by Cézanne - and then bought some wine from the Co-operative in the village. The vendange started a week ago and the smell of crushed grapes was rather overwhelming. Here’s a snap from where we parked our car. You can see the mountain from our campsite too.

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