Sometimes I think to myself “I’m retired, maybe I could be taking it easy”. That is only a fleeting thought, there’s simply too much to do.
One of the many reasons why I love Rachel so much is her bright ideas. For instance, we have some Globe Wernicke bookcases, a.k.a. the barrister’s bookcases. There’s definitely a certain charm to them and they fit the ambiance of the house, something I’d like to preserve as we gradually put our stamp on things here in the Quirky Museum. We have them dotted here and there around the house and Rachel thought it would be an idea to consolidate two stacks into one.
Her brilliant ideas tend to involve me at some point, in order to avert too much huffing and puffing, when instead it would be better for me to step in to help out. Now the books are in, we might build another stack on the other side of the window; it’ll look really nice but I know sooner or later we will have to dismantle them when we give that room a makeover. This, by the way, is the biggest room and will be a challenge to get right. More on that another time.
We have had some fencing done in the garden and we are pleased with the result. Tomorrow we are having a new carpet fitted in my den and, with a bit of luck, a carpenter is coming to take a look at the windows and put in his proposal. I hope we can make a decision by the end of April.
You might think that this is progress at long last, I suppose it is, alas things remain sluggish or feel like they are stalling. We are still waiting for the boiler man to look at the boiler, which has now developed a fault with the time switch. We are waiting for two separate solicitors on some legal matters. We are waiting for the roofing man to fix a leak in the roof and we still have lots of ‘stuff’ to sort through for eBay and so on. It’s never ending!!!!!
Looking after our own well-being
I went to see my mother during the week, only for a couple of days. This involves a round trip of 320 miles on the motorway, it gives me plenty of time to think.
The Quirky Museum is a never ending task, a bit like the Forth Bridge. It would be wrong for me to devote too much time to it, trying to push things faster than I can realistically achieve. So perhaps it’s time to divide my time up more, to include some hobby things. Rachel is spending quite a lot of time supporting Hannah, so all these things need careful balancing.
With this in mind I have been thinking of picking up my camera and art stuff once again ~ I do miss it and I think some creative stuff does me good. By chance, I came across some old photographs which I quite liked at the time, back in the early 1980s.
The first, above, is someone I worked with for a short time, while I was a student trying to earn some extra cash. I thought he was an interesting man, certainly very clever and got on well with him. He kindly agreed to me photographing him and when I was driving him back to Cheltenham I remember him asking me a question. He explained he was gay and asked if I was gay. He then followed this up by saying he didn’t think I was camp, but instead a sensitive person. I was taken aback, I don’t think I’d ever met a gay person until that point. He went onto explain he was living with his boyfriend and just wondered if I wanted to join their scene. I politely declined, thanking him for his kind compliments and I confirmed I was straight. I was quite pleased at the photograph, it worked well in black and white, perhaps it records what a gay man looked like in the 1980s?
Speaking of black and white, I also found this photograph of my friend Chris.
Now I quite like the dramatic lighting but it doesn’t really work. You can see he was smoking and I was trying to capture that and, to be honest, it doesn’t really portray his character at all.