Lazy Sunday Afternoon

I had intended to pay a visit to the launderette today, but that is something I should have done early this morning, and since I didn't get up until just after 10, and wasn't compos mentis until after the first coffee had gone down I now deem it too hot (and getting hotter) to hang around a launderette. A quick stock take of clean clothes show that I have enough of everything except shirts to keep me going for another fortnight at which time I can hit the launderette and do a mega wash.

Hopefully the weather will have broken by then, if only temporarily.

In the meantime I have three shirts soaking, and another three will go in the bowl later. May as well bend the power of this unnatural weather to the use of the forces of light and goodness.

I am coming to the conclusion that sweat is like machine oil for the body. The hotter it gets, and the more active the old pores become, the more my body feels like a piece of stiff old leather. I spend at least five minutes in every hour just stretching my arm and leg joints to get the stiffness out of them. And the number that crack when I do so is becoming almost alarming. Isn't that meant to mean a predisposition to arthritis in later life?

Lucky me.

What then of my plans to retire as the grouchy old bugger in the end terrace who shakes his walking stick a lot and scares the local kids...? Not a lot of people have such firmly planned eccentricity, and I would hate to have to adapt the plan to include a bath chair. It's the fact you might actually be able to catch the little buggers that gives the game its requisite threat and terror.

It is too bloody hot for even a walk to be an attractive proposition. This is the downside of living in a city. Heat, pollution and humidity. Less pollen, but more dust. If the weather is like this next weekend, and while I am chez the ancestors in Sunny Shropshire I may well take the opportunity to wander off for an exploratory walk. It is quite the different proposition out in a rural/semi rural setting, where there is greenery and fresh air. The humidity tends to be lower, too outside the city. I'm not sure that's strictly true, but the important thing is that it appears to be true even if only in a psychological sense.

More painting in the shade this afternoon, I think. It went quite well yesterday, but using thinners on the paint (which was drying very quickly in the heat, despite being enamel) has contrived to convert matt paint into silk paint and sometimes even gloss. Careful dry brushing this afternoon, then. Imagine too, my annoyance to discover that what I thought was silk white paint is in fact silk varnish. Bugger. I have no use for that at all, and I also find that I have no matt varnish.

Ho hum.

Now I realise that I am very short of milk, too. So a trip down to Sainsbury's is called for despite an increasing wish to remain hidden from the sun. Must remember to wear a hat. Quite apart from anything else, a sun-burnt pate is quite distressing.

More coffee now, I think, and then further investigation of the heap of CDs I picked up last weekend from wallabok.

Lazy Sunday Afternoon

I had intended to pay a visit to the launderette today, but that is something I should have done early this morning, and since I didn't get up until just after 10, and wasn't compos mentis until after the first coffee had gone down I now deem it too hot (and getting hotter) to hang around a launderette. A quick stock take of clean clothes show that I have enough of everything except shirts to keep me going for another fortnight at which time I can hit the launderette and do a mega wash.

Hopefully the weather will have broken by then, if only temporarily.

In the meantime I have three shirts soaking, and another three will go in the bowl later. May as well bend the power of this unnatural weather to the use of the forces of light and goodness.

I am coming to the conclusion that sweat is like machine oil for the body. The hotter it gets, and the more active the old pores become, the more my body feels like a piece of stiff old leather. I spend at least five minutes in every hour just stretching my arm and leg joints to get the stiffness out of them. And the number that crack when I do so is becoming almost alarming. Isn't that meant to mean a predisposition to arthritis in later life?

Lucky me.

What then of my plans to retire as the grouchy old bugger in the end terrace who shakes his walking stick a lot and scares the local kids...? Not a lot of people have such firmly planned eccentricity, and I would hate to have to adapt the plan to include a bath chair. It's the fact you might actually be able to catch the little buggers that gives the game its requisite threat and terror.

It is too bloody hot for even a walk to be an attractive proposition. This is the downside of living in a city. Heat, pollution and humidity. Less pollen, but more dust. If the weather is like this next weekend, and while I am chez the ancestors in Sunny Shropshire I may well take the opportunity to wander off for an exploratory walk. It is quite the different proposition out in a rural/semi rural setting, where there is greenery and fresh air. The humidity tends to be lower, too outside the city. I'm not sure that's strictly true, but the important thing is that it appears to be true even if only in a psychological sense.

More painting in the shade this afternoon, I think. It went quite well yesterday, but using thinners on the paint (which was drying very quickly in the heat, despite being enamel) has contrived to convert matt paint into silk paint and sometimes even gloss. Careful dry brushing this afternoon, then. Imagine too, my annoyance to discover that what I thought was silk white paint is in fact silk varnish. Bugger. I have no use for that at all, and I also find that I have no matt varnish.

Ho hum.

Now I realise that I am very short of milk, too. So a trip down to Sainsbury's is called for despite an increasing wish to remain hidden from the sun. Must remember to wear a hat. Quite apart from anything else, a sun-burnt pate is quite distressing.

More coffee now, I think, and then further investigation of the heap of CDs I picked up last weekend from wallabok.

History

Today Poland commemorates the 60th anniversary of the Warsaw uprising which saw an attempt by the Polish Underground Army to expel the Nazis from Warsaw after five and a half years of brutal occupation.

BBC report here.

( Historical rant here. )

History

Today Poland commemorates the 60th anniversary of the Warsaw uprising which saw an attempt by the Polish Underground Army to expel the Nazis from Warsaw after five and a half years of brutal occupation.

BBC report here.

( Historical rant here. )