end of peace

wake and
it is early, get up, unsteady, remember the story of the heart specialist yesterday. The man started to compare the heart to a car engine.
He stopped that silly comparison when challenged.
The heart does not work with petrol.
The heart works, but the timing is wrong. Or something.
The blood pressure is way to low, says the woman who changed from unfriendly receptionist to friendly nurse. She takes the measurement five times.
And that was yesterday.

Go to the bathroom, go for a piss. This is all silly.
Back to the bedroom, straight through to the kitchen. Everything is bathed in the morning twilight. The careless mess left by the family, the dishwasher is open. Find the parts for the coffee grinder, start the machine, let it grind.
Put some espresso into the silver sieve after having removed the old coffee.
A black cloud of coffee grounds in the sink, moving away in a swirl down the plug hole.
The sieve with the fresh grounds set into the machine, an empty cup, check the water.
Press the button.
Brown liquid, ready to waken.


Take the cup of coffee and the laptop into the sitting room to have a read.

Then the sons alarm starts to honk.
the end of peace. The day starts to fall into pieces.

mouth with turned down corners

The brick-red door to the old house is decorated with swirling wooden ornaments, attached to what would otherwise be a flat wooden door. The structure has been repaired many times, this is visible from inside the house where the door is painted in clear lacquer. Wooden insets, old planking cut off and replaced. Some is careful restoration work.
The structure on the whole is thin and rickety, all the repairs have left their traces.

Outside now, look up and down the morning street. A man on a motor scooter scoots slowly towards the church.  Follow it's jerky passage around the corner at the end of the street, watch it disappear around the corner, leaving only it's noise and a smell of petrol fumes.

A tall young woman is approaching, coming up the street on her right hand footpath. She is wearing blue trousers, her hair is tied back in a ponytail swinging back and forth behind her. Look for a short while, under a second. She has a self assured stride, a bag over her shoulder, looking at her mobile telephone as she walks.
Stop gawking like a mannerless idiot , turn close the door, take another glance at the woman crossing the road. Turn away, walk up the footpath, a neighbour comes out of her house, wish her a good morning. Cross the alley and walk on up to the junction. Hear the footsteps behind, look left then right then left again cross the road.

Look again, she is crossing the road too, behind, but closer now. Walk on, hear the footsteps behind.
She must be going to her car too, it is probably parked in a similar place to the small black car in the Freyung.
Cross the street, go down the little footpath. Look over to the other side of the street, straight into a pair of dark eyes framed in tied-back black hair, a mouth with turned down corners, over a torso wearing a blue shirt
They look away, fast and sudden.
Turn away, go on walking, heart racing.
Press the button on the key.
The little black cars lights flash.
The young woman passes, shoulders as wide as her hips, pony tail swinging, she looks left at the car.
Watch for a second again, she turns, looks back.

Pass her later in the car again, she walking on to whereever she is going to.
She looks up again as the car passes.

A strange encounter, a curious fancy.
The car has to be taken to the repairs place today, so just move on.
But it is nice to think of the young woman, the strange attraction, the imagined communication.
The reality is that the cars brakes are not in order, and that needs checking.
The reality is that the cars glow plugs are broken, and that needs replacing.
The reality is that there will be a nice walk through the waking town later on.

air

Thursday 29th ef August, 2019

.

about one kilometre before the Autobahn, there is a right turn to a filling station. It is an Aral filling station. The car needs air in it's tyres, the wheels are

soft. Stop, get out, and

go to the counter. Wait untill the customer in front has been served, then ask.

"Air comes from black tubes attached to the pillars at pump seven and pump thirteen.

Return to the car, and drive it over to pump number seven.

Attach the Tube to the valve of the front wheel, and return to the dial in the pillar. Press the button. With a loud hiss the

Tube disconnects from the valve. Replace the Tube, more firmly this time. Press the button.

The air pressure in the tyre climbs, up to exactly Three bars. Or-Twenty nine pound per square inch.

Repeat the procedure for all four wheels.

Roll the tube up, hang it on

the pillar at pump no. seven.

Leave the station for the motorway.

There has been an accident, and there is half an hour delay.

Be late for work.

Too bad.

construction work

Wednesday, 28th of August, 2019

The cobbles in the street known as the Freyung are rough and uneven, the small black car

feels every bump, It has a short wheelbase. The interior of the car has been done up with

red leather decor, this is strange in such a small car.

Wait at the junction, then turn right to enter the tunnel that goes all the way through the hill. The hill has a castle on top- speed is reduced in the tunnel, and it is long. Almost one and a half kilometres. The sound at the tiny three cylinder diesel engine

reverberates from the tunnel walls, the car experiences a jolt at every manhole cover in the road.

At the end of the tunnel, a green light turns orange. Accelerate, and take the sharp left corner. At the end of the town, another junction, another traffic light

Red..

Stop.

Wait.

Green.
Go

and so, leave Landshut behind

.

Ten minutes later, the junction for the motorway. Listen to the radio and roll on.

There is construction work

on the motorway,

the lanes are narrowed,
speed is reduced.

Pass big trucks, only a foot's length on either side of the car, between the roaring vehicles and the steel barriers separating the carriageways.

.

And all the Time, the radio plays,

switching from Mozart, to an interview

with a French musician to Mahler's sixth

symphony.

Work is only ten minutes away,

foucault

Tuesday, 27th August 2019

Park the black car in the corner of the gravel

parking lot. This is the space nearest to the

building, just a short walk away from the sensor which reads the employees cards.

The entrance to the small university department is made of glass bricks, a sparkling bright

structure.Inside, in the centre of the two

storey building's stairwell, a pendulum sways back and forth over a magnet. It has been swinging too and fro for a long

time There are devices measuring the vector of

each swing. It is a repeat of an experiment done by a man called Foucault, a French

physicist. A picturesque display, the black pendulum swaying back and forth, each swing

much longer than a second,

Rush past this pendulum to the lavatory around the corner, the mens room.

+ A relief after the car journey.

After the hands washed,

go bac to the stairwell. Look at the pendulum again.

The sight is a reminder of the passing of time, and thus also a reminder that the employees card was not passed under the

sensor. There is irritation that the employer's time was not spent pissing.

Check in, now things are good, paid time has started.

architect

Monday, 26th of August 2019

The cafe at work, the room for breaks.

A bright large room with floor to cieling

windows, at all around.

on three sides of the

room. This

makes the space

bright, still, lights are on-
For

some reason, the architect covered the whole

structure in a thick roof, held up by massive concrete beams. A nonsensical structure, a heavy depressing weight over everybody who& inside. There is no upper floor, but looking at the structure.

there could be a skyscraper on top.

A short distance away, there is another such café, but this is on the ground floor of a seven storey building. This cafe and rest area is light and tall,

the doors and windows open onto a patio, there is no sense of the enormous pressure of the building on top.

The difference is made by the

architect.

And a time difference of some

fifty years.

clear side lighting

The alleys and streets are fresh and bare this morning, cool morning air is invigorating.
It is invigorating, just a little bit. There are no cars driving, and there are many empty parking spots.
All the visitors to the annual Bartholomew's fair have left the town last night, and the fair only starts later.
The streets are empty because of this.
There is one woman with short grey hair walking up the street, she is carrying a paper bag in her hands. The bag has the name of one of the bakery shops printed on it, the woman may have just bought the breakfast rolls at one of the bakeries in the main street.

Take the small alley, the one that leads to the Freyung park.
The park and all the coloured houses are lit with the bright clear morning light, showing clear contours, the structures enhanced by the clear side lighting.
There is a big church in the centre of the park, built using red brick. Historic gravestones have been let into the walls, they are plaques in remembrance of people long forgotten, from a time when powers were in different hands, lives were shorter, and of a lower value.

The car was left in the parking lot belonging to the school. This was yesterday, when the town was filled with visitors to the fair, and the parking lot was open to the weekend public. Get into the tiny black car, start the engine. The engine is unsteady, it has cooled overnight. There will be a repair needed.

Slowly drive the car through the empty streets, the traffic lights regulating away despite there being no traffic. Take a place in one of the now available spaces in the very centre of town, just by the museum.

And walk back home.
The cat is looking out of the first floor window, it's purrs audible in the street.
The day is starting quietly

blanket agreement

The dog has shrunk, it has turned into a vicous little puppy dog, a yapping black thing. As if it were in the next room, the sound travelling through the space under doors, also echoing in from outside via the open windows.
But it is in another room today.
Good.
There are things to be done.
Go up and sand the door, wear the same old clothes as yesterday.
A stupid door, endless work. A new one would have been simpler. But not as nice.

And afterwards, read the demand from the brothers lawyer. A request to reliquish all future dealings, a wish to sign a waiver, a blanket agreement not to be involved in any future dealings.
Wonderment.
Just sign here so that you can be told that it is none of your business.
This sounds silly.
It is silly.

That dog in the next room is the same breed as Churchhills. And his growls are getting clearer.

hissing dog

leave the café with the son in tow, he wants to look at the market, the Friday farmers market at the end of the Neustadt street in Landshut.
All the dealers selling their wares,  cheeses and vegetables. There is a big man with a cowboy hat selling apples,  and a woman in a tiny stand selling the parts of free range turkeys.
It is all very pretty in it's way. All of the customers seem to be older people.

It is a dreary day, the sky is grey.
There are peoöle all over the place, even though it is Friday, a working day, the streets are full.

There is nothing for it today, no real observations to make. Go down to the big clothes store and buy two packages of socks.

The general feeling is that all of this is not going anywhere.
There are no dogs in the street today, but a black hissing dog in the head.
It is a thing to look forward to, to be back at work next week.

ripped

there are the habitual morning sounds, the bells and the aircraft. Six in the morning, all is well.
There is a sound of hissing in the head, a rushing sound like a mill race, steady. It is hard to define the pitch, it is just what the techinicians call white noise.

Get up, go to the bathroom.
Oh, never mind, today is thursday, and it is still time off work. Annual leave is what it is called in England, Urlaub in Germany.
And as the time of no work proceeds, get lazier and lazier.
Go back to bed, stretch the back, feel the muscles relax. All of these things are pleasant.

Guilt drives the lazy body out of bed, to the coffee machine, the family is still asleep.
Make a seven in the morning cup, sit down and read the news. Read about the american president, the man does not realise what he is doing. He will never be held to account, because that would require him to understand his own behaviour, he would be evil. The benefit of the doubt leaves him as a stupid rich kid who never grew up.
His choice.
Stop reading the news, the british prime minister, overestimating the importance of England, this is another delusional idiot.

Get up, now the son is up, go upstairs to look at the door glued yesterday. Remove the clamps.
The trousers catch on the table of the circular saw.
And now they are ripped.

New service

Enter the café with the son, the tiny bakers shop. The corner tables at the window are all occupied, by bavarians, talking about cars and property and purchases. Frequent general topics like thaTt. Perhaps it is all they ever talk about.

The woman behind the counter asks what it will be. The son waits a second, making his mind up and orders a farmers cake and a cup of milky coffee. She looks over, and the father orders a cup of coffee and a plain croissant.
Then she asks whether it will be a cup or a large mug.
A cup.
Then she looks at the son and puts his cake on a plate.
Then she asks whether it will be anything else.
He says yes please, a cup of milk coffee.
She seems to be having trouble with the till.
She asks again whether that coffee will be all.
Yes, but with a croissant please.
Oh, a croissant.
She pronounces it the German way, complete with a dirty look.
Then she seems to be having trouble with the till, trying to find the correct button to press for croissant.
Just a cup?
Yes please, just a cup.
Then the other woman comes over to help with the till.
The two of them study the available options.

The final amount is very much less than it usually is.
Pay, do not say.
This whole business is disastrous.
Then the two of them go over to the coffee machine.
There are more options there, more buttons to be pressed, more orders to be confirmed.

Finally, coffee and croissant, café au lait and Bauernkücherl.

Sit down, delighted that the negotiations have led to a successful completion of the operation.

tote Stunde

wait in a cafe, wait for the barber to be resdy. The barber has changed her enployer, thus she has changed her adress. To satisfy the curiosity, drive out to the village, and due to a misunderstanding now have an hour to kill. 

A dead hour, but that is fine.

The cafe has a terrace elevated over the villages main road, there are cars passing.

It is a sleepy place, only people who have no work are about on foot. There is a constant passage of card up snd down the main street, all of them just cars passing through.

morning errands

Simple,   go out of the building aEnd slam the door. That is the only way to really close this door, it will not lock if it is closed gently. This is a bug, not a feature, and is a troublesome nuisance.
Walk down the street towards the police station, round the corner and head towards the war memorial now. It is made of white marble and is a revolting statue showing a sort of tree with soldiers growing out of it.

Walk on and on, towards the bank. The street is long. There are mainly woman on the street, all hurrying to work, shops and offices, who knows what they do. The bank has just opened, the manager is talking to one of her clerks, she is still wearing her light rain coat. She must have just arrived.
Take two hundred Euro from the automatic telling machine, set up the machine so that it pays the money all in ten Euro notes.
Say goodbye upon leaving the foyer, and the people there say goodbye too.
A german habit.

At the end of the Neustadt market street turn left, go down the narrow street. The air is getting clammy already, even though it has just stopped raining. Turn right at the Altstadt street. You could say Old town market street. There is a smell of Diesel fumes in the air, it is the busses that arrive at and leave their various stops here.
Walk down to the opticians, and ask for a refill of the cleaning fluid for the spectacles. It is a small spray bottle, the alchohol mixture works well to free the glasses of grease, and it does not affect the lenses' coating. The young woman working there has her early morning grumps, and is short and to the point. She refills the little spray bottle, and then carefully wipes a few stray drops from the table.
She has long straight black hair, cut in a straight fringe across her forehead.

Then walk all the way up the street, it turns to a pedestrian zone and then back into a street for vehicular traffic, pass the arcades at the end of the street and go to the post office. There is a small formality to be dealt with here. Sign a paper, show the identity card, all done, say thank you and leave the building.                                                          

'phone call on a sunday drive

Sunday, 18th August

Leave the main road, take a turn to the right. There is an aircraft landing at some tiny aerodrome off to the left, and there is a man in a parachute descending. It is a parachute that looks like an inflatable mattress.

stop at the traffic light at the end of the small runway, and leave the car. Take the littletelephone and call the brother in Ireland. He is on a bay in Galway,

in his small house looking out over the bay at the Maamturk mountains.

Talk to him for half an hour.

Standing at the end of the runway at a tiny airport.

A two seater plain taxis to the end of the runway and waits. Then the motor sound increase, and it speeds down the runway motorway.

It is airborne.

Talking to the brother all

the whiee. and after the end of that conversation, a

small plane comes along, a motorized

glider. It is in the

- air almost at once.

Later, writing these notes, watch about

five buzzards gaining height over a

hill .

Sundaxy, 18th August

Leave the main road, take a turn to The

right. There is an aircraft landing at

some tiny aerodrome off t. the left,

and there is a man in a parachute

descending. It is a parachute that kahs

like an inflatable mattress.

stop at the traffic light at the end of

the small runway, and leave the car

tahithihltk telephone and call the brother

in Ireland. He is on a

bay in fahay,

in his small house looking aft after the

pay at the Maamtwh Hmntains.

Talk to him for half an hour.

Standing at the end of the runway at

a tiny airport.

A two seater plain taxis to The end

of the runway and waits. Then the

motor sound meaeases, and it speedy

down the motorway.

It is anhame.

Talking to the brother all

the white.

and after the end of that conversation, a

Small plain and along, a motorized

glider. It is in the

- air almost at once.

Later, writing these notes, watch about

five buoyrrds gaining height over a

hill I

a quiet morning full of sounds.

Settle down to  write now, now that the coffee has been made and the pills all taken, the one and a half, the one for comfort and the one lower pressure, blockers both.
There is the sound of the cat flap flopping, and the sound of bells from the churches tolling out the time.
Nine.
The sound of the church bells is not simultaneous, not all at once. There is a gathering of sound, a cacophony, a final tinkle and then silence.
Nine  o'clock and it is a silent, holiday-season Saturday in a small town.
The silence is broken by a police siren, quietening down as it vanishes into the distance.
Then there is silence again.
And in the farther distance the sound of the fire brigade's horn, called a Martin's horn. The police siren is such a horn too, the tone is slightly different. These are all rescue services.
And then the silence is back.
The cat calls from behind the closed bedroom door. Get up  and open it, let the cat in. It wanders about, nuzzling the corners of the furniture, sniffing the electrical cords of the computer, giving them a trial chew. Then a short jump up onto the knees, let herself be stroked a bit, deposit a few hairs from the copious supply in her fur, and then go away again, jump down to the floor, and go back to nuzzling the furniture. The cat seems generally interested, wandering around, sniffing things, stretching. Then she stops in front of the kichen door and commences to seemingly observe the light switch.
And she is purring all the while.
There is the sound of a compressor in the neighbours house, perhaps part of a refrigerator.

A quiet morning full of sounds.

evening fright

Walk back with the son, back from the shop, the grocery store in the basement of the shopping centre.
Before the shop, the cafe, and his strange conversations about his obsession with old cars from the GDR.
Return home, enter via the red door, that door now well over on hundred years old.

Check the plug on the trailer for the car. The correct adapter is in place. Today is the day the rubble from the last renovation in the old house is to be brought away.

And what was to be a short mornings job turned into a days work

and in the evening, not having eaten, measure the blood pressure..
The heart racing and the blood pressure low, low.
Every time standing up nearly falling down again.
Call
ask the son to make a cup of coffee.
Sit and read.
Tinnitus his is very loud.
It is all suddenly frightening.

awake yet

the room in which the work was done yesterday needs to be tidied. It is in chaos with tools left there where they had been used, all is covered in the dust of the wood sanded off the surface of the door.
Start by collecting the used emery paper from the floor, there is all kinds there. It is enough to fill a bucket, enough to overflow the bucket. Then sort the remaining good paper into sizes. Things are a little better now. Find the casings for the power tools, return these to their casings. Gather all the other tools and place them side by side on the scaffold, sorted by type. Hammers and other wood working tools, one array. Gather things lying about, bits of plastic packaging, put them into a yellow bag.
Now get the sweeping brush, and sweep the floor, all the dirt from the floor into a heap. Find the hand  brush, and the dustpan. Using these, transport the dirt from the floor to a bucket.
Things look better now, clear up the window ledges, remove the bits and pieces, discard old screws and nails that landed there. Then use a razor blade fixed to a red plastic handle , a scraper is what that is, to take the paint from the glass of the window.They are ready to be cleaned now.
And that is the mornings work, trying to get order into things.
It is important, so as to see what is to be done next.

Then go down to see if the family is awake yet.

low pressure

awake at seven, as almost every day now, awaken and make a cup of coffee to warm the soul or something like that. Still, all is a mess. There have been attempts to clean up the kitchen, just attempts.
No idea what is wrong, there is so much that is not right.
Take the two pills, the half a pink one and that capsule.
Now drink the coffee
read the news.
Take the blood pressure monitor from it's white casing, strap it around the wrist, press the button.
It pumps up. Then the pressure slowly relents. The numbers sink, sink, and sink farther.
The result is far too low.
Do the procedure again, make sure that the strap is fixed properly.
The result is too low again.
Take the machine back to the bedroom, put it on the table where it belongs.
The bed looks inviting, lie down for a few seconds.
Three hours later, awaken, sit up, lie down again.
The blood pressure really must be down.
Now, why?
What is going on?
Go out into the kitchen, the son is there the wife is there.
incomprehensible, dizzy,
Say sorry
and return to the bedroom
lie down.
This is strange.

wasted day like the one before.

up, alone and
furious at the mess
sit down, a cup of coffee, take the pills, one for the blood pressure and the other for the piss.
furious, such a mess, no progress.

it is nine and all are still asleep, this is just turning into a wasted day like the one before.
Go up to the rooms that need to be rennovated.
There is a floor sander, and a floor that has been sanded over roughly once. Go to the little room, the unheated one, the junk store, the one where the working clothes are kept.
Dress in a pair of old trousers, and the crocs used for house work and start the big noisy machine, and  continue the work of sanding the floor. Dust mask, back and forth in the room, holding back the heavy machine, it is noisy.
Layer for layer the wood is exposed, all the woodworm holes become visible at the edge of the planks, the machine grinds away the uneveness between the old planks.
Then the smaller machine, go over the corners. First with really coarse paper, then with finer.
Then the big machine again, with less coarse paper, back and forth.

This obliterates the rage, just a bit.

and later take a break
And then go back to the sanding.
And afterwards start to tidy things a bit.
and now it is five in the evening

sheds with pretty fronts

Mon, 12th of August, 2019

The traffic in the rain, moving smoothly and

quickly through the quiet town. It is hard to  describe the industrial area of the town where the motor repair place is. There are industrial buildings and parking lots everywhere, car

sales buildings, and electrical and electronic goods stores.. All of these buildings are separated by wire fencing, and large

car parking lots for the customers. There is no cohesive aesthetic planning, some

buildings are spectacular emporiums, but most are just sheds with pretty fronts upon them.

Neon signs, no not neon, but the

cheaper fluorescent signs glow out of the grey weather, informing passers as to the business going on in the buildings. The grey concrete,

the gray sky and the grey steel roofs everywhere.

Be first at the car repairman, before they are really open. It is just eight o' clock.

There is a man in the office, wish him a good morning. He checks the appointment on the

screen in front of him, and takes the keys for the car. There is a group of seats in the corner of the reception area. Take a seat,

wait, read the paper, and write these notes.

Watch a mechanic put a new tyre onto a rim

The reconstruction of the what this five minutes, it is all routine.

cake on sunday

A cake and three cups and saucers, the table set by the son for Sunday breakfast.
The wife is up now, and the son has used the giant Italian Espresso maker to make coffee for all.
He sees that one cup does not have a matching saucer, he rushes to the kitchen, to get a suitable saucer. In certain things perfection is important to him. In others, not so much.
After consuming two pieces of cake and two cups of coffee, and talked, about the new car, and about computers.
Not about the sun, outside, blazing out of a clear sky.

Go upstairs, to finish the work on the old oak door. The work is to remove the paint, using a hot air blower, built much like a hair dryer, but a lot hotter. Watch the paint blister under the onslaught, the scrape it away with a scraper, do it again and again.
Two hours, other people are in church.
All the windows are open, so that the smell of hot paint can escape.
Three hours later, the heavy coats of paint are gone, they are all on the floor.
Shrivelled scrapings, clumps of paint, a smell of linseed.
Take up the door, and hang it in its frame.
It looks awful.
It is not sanded yet.

That is work for tomorrow, for the sander is noisy
and Sunday is a day of rest.

a good day anyway

The son loves to go to the café, the one in the new market. Just to have a cup of milky coffee and a cake. His father pays for the luxury, for he has pleasure in sitting there with his son. It is always in the morning. He is on his holidays, so that he is sleeping longer these days.

In the flat, make the first cup of the day, standing at the small machine in the meanwhile filthy kitchen. It needs to be cleaned again.
The son walks in, still half asleep, just in the process of awakening.
A morning embrace, a hug.
The request to go to the café

Well, why not?

The day is dark and cloudy and pleasantly cool.
The big young woman in the cafe, deals patiently with the son's slow decision making. In the end, he takes what he always takes.

See above.

Outside, it starts to rain, the sky has gone really dark.

The lights in the café are on.

It is warm, outside, and when the shower is over, leave for the shops.
The air is still all damp and steamy, and in the basement of the shopping centre the air conditioning in the food store is a cool shock.
Meet the neighbours there, they are often here in the morning. They go shopping whilst their daughters are at home sleeping. And they are unsure whether or not they want to be friendly.
Well

wish them a good day anyway

scrawl, it is the number six

There is a sound of shouting in the alley. Really, it is only the

echo of shouting. It is not German or English, it sounds as if it is from the south east of Europe, or the 

west of Asia. It is an angry male shout at seven in the morning. Sit at the open window, until the

silence returns.

Today is the day that a new car is to be bought. Actually, it is an old car. But as far as the family is concerned, it is a new car.

Tak the morning pills, the one to keep that male gland in order, and the other to lower the blood pressure. All is normal.

After a short ride in the black car early in the morning, to the car tax office, sit in the waiting room with a number.

It is the number six

Today is a rapid day, a rapid morning.

WS

just the battery

awake in the night, but stay still, breath evenly.
There is light from the garden lights coming in through the window, like moonlight. Small glas

And then there is light from the sun, it is daytime now, seven in the morning. Get up to make coffee. Eat a plain biscuit from a package of them left on the work top of the kitchen. The mess is the same as every day.
Take the two little pills, half of one and one of the other. Pick up the blood pressure measuring device, take it to the living room. The noise that it makes pumpung up it's arm ring is loud enough to wake the wife sleeping in the bedroom. Wrap the device around the arm, start it. It shows a blood pressure that is far too high. Try it again, now the blood pressure is far too low. This machine is not a good machine.  Read the instructions yet again, and replace the device on the arm more carefully. The two measurements made now are both within the realms of possibility. The instrument is dodgy, as the British would say.

Make the coffee, take the cup to the sitting room. See the clock on the wall, the little Bulle clock. It is standing still. Take it down from the wall, remove the battery. The simple way to check the battery is probably just to replace it with a new one. Get a new battery from the bedroom, insert it into the container on the back of the clock's casing and rehang the clock. Give the pendulum a push, and let it swing.

Sit down to read the news, come to the conclusion that the most powerful man in the world must have been a spoilt brat as a toddler. And the British do not know how to behave. Currently, the French are not saying much. And Germany is having problems with helicopters, at least the German military is.
There are so many mistakes being made.

Half an hour later the clock is still running.
Probably was just the battery.

what is going on?

The many little lights hung up in the yard are shining, more than ten of them. They are powered by small accumulators that have been charged from their tiny solar cells all yesterday.

It is five in the morning, the alarm has just sounded, unnecessarily because of the holidays.
The light from the little lamps with their cracked glass surrounds falls on the concrete ground of the yard, making patterns, the leaves of the shrubs and trees casting their own patterns. There are yellow lights and cooler blueish ones, they are almost all still shining. Yesterday was a sunny day.

Turn to the computer, read the news. The big old american is refusing to call terrorists by their name, for they support him, and he needs all the support he can get. That is their nightmare. The British appear to have lost their common sense, believing the strangest tales of riches over the horizon, at the end of the rainbow.

It is five, why not take  the pills the doctor ordered. Blood pressure, heart fluttering, or something. Well, half of one, a small pink thing, and one of the other, the little capsule.
Well, so take them. Doctor's orders.

Then, off into the kitchen, make a cup of coffee on the espresso machine, a slice of toast in the toaster.
Sit down, read more news
Then suddensly, all goes dark, the balance goes, the eyes close.
get up, stagger to bed.
lie
down


Awake at nine, frightened.
Try the blood pressure meter
Way too high
that cannot be.

read the instructions.
try again
different value
still too high
This is silly, it was a cheap machine.
So try again
the wife complains over the buzzing noise.

leave it.
Feel better now anyway.

choice

The floor is wooden planking, the piano casing is made of wood, dark brown, the other piano, wood too, also dark brown. The golden brown secretary from the turn of the last century stands by the window. Brown wood, some polished some not , on all the furniture.

The little Bulle clock has stopped. Maybr the battery does not have enough power any more. The other clock, on the other side of the room, Brillie brothers from France is ticking away, keeping time.
And the untidiness is everywhere,  things are just being left where they were last used.
There is nothing lying about which does not originate with the son and the wife. The cat has left a glass marble on the floor, but that is not so serious. The five plastic keyboards stacked on the old table piano from the eighteenth century are more disturbing.
Oh stop being grumpy in the morning.
Every quarter of an hour the device attached to the arm by the medical people yesterday beeps. Then it inflates, constricting the arm, measuring blood pressure. Then it deflates, and a short beep indicates that it is finished. In one hour it will be removed.

There is the noise of traffic outside, the noise of car tyres on the cobbles. The noise of the  tyres is louder than the engines. The bells of saint Martins church ring, it is nine in the morning now.

Make another cup of coffee, the family is asleep, there is the sound of voices from the street.
Live with the mess or tidy it up.
Or leave.

cafe

In the entrance archway of the house in which the doctor's practice is located, two women are having a cigarette before they begin work. It is just before eight in the morning now, an early appointment to have a twenty four hour blood pressure gauge fitted. Well, actually it is just to be attached.

A friendly greeting, and then to the waitinag room, to wait to be called. There is a young woman wearing a pair of black trousers ripped at the knees waiting there already.


The call comes over the loudspeaker system, the name , and back into the corridor. Follow the nurse to a small room, at her direction take of the shirt.  A band around the arm, a tube joining this to a small box which is attached to the waist.

And that is it.
Leave the praxis with the machine hidden under the jacket.
It beeps and hums regularly. Then the inflatable band on the arm tightens as air is pumped into it.

After a while, the pressure goes away, the machine beeps again, and that is the measurement over.
Untill the next time.

Take the short walk home.

The son is there, he wants to go to the cafe.
Just to go there, have a cup of coffee, a piece of cake.
Be silent, sit there with his father.
He would not miss it for the world.

atomic power plant

sun, 4th of August 2019                                

On a rise, above the flood plains of the

river Isar, in sight of the atomic reactor.

There is a vertical column of steam rising

from the huge cooling tower, the reactor must

be producing current for this summer sunday consumer.

It is hot, and there are s

mad clouds

cumulus clouds> There are thunderstorms

forecast, But for now, it is just still and

hot

-

F-led the turmoil that is home, the sad

drmapiwtnot that seems tdo fill the place.

There is no question of giving Home,

there is put no knowing what to do.

The air on the rise above the flood

plain seems clean, there is the roar

of  passing cars

Made an attempt to replace the head

light bulb on the car, but this was more

difficult than imagined

.

The colours of the landscape are

in greens and the dull yellow

of harvested fields.

feline and canine

why bother
do not bother
the mess is of others making
clean up the mess and they will make more

Awake in the morning
there are things everywhere, on every available surface
even the floor.
there is nothing to be done

just go back to bed
There used to be a real black cat
now there is a figurative black dog.

stairwell

Climb the concrete stairs to the doctors practice. It is a house rebuilt crudely, the stairwell has no natural light, it is fluorescent all the way. The dim green light and concrete stairs. All very 1970's , depressing and cheap.
The name of the doctor is on the door, the two men who ran the practice originally with a brass plate, and the woman who joined them with a piece of paper fixed there with adhesive tape. Try the door, carefully. It opens, and there is the reception area. There are two young women behind the counter, one is dealing with a patient, The other one, she is wearing a pink shirt, says hello and indicates the door of the waiting room.
The waiting room is a room of about twenty square metres, facing south, it heats up during the day. As it is only ten in the morning now, it is not unpleasantly hot yet, and all the three ventilators in the room are running. There are few people waiting.
Sit down in the middle of a row of unoccupied seats along the wall.  An older man, hunched forward, comes into the room and sits down in the same row, one seat away. He has short cropped brown hair, and is unshaven.
After a short while a voice coming over the  loudspeakers on the wall requests the pleasure of a Herr Doktor somebody or other and the man gets up,  and makes his way out through the door again.

Then there is another call, and that is it. Get up, return to the reception area. A freindly young girl in a  pale blue shirt indicates that she wishes to be followed. Go down the corridor, and enter a small room with a fitness bicycle in the corner. The shirt has to come off, and then lie down on a couch. Suckers with tentacles leading from them are attached to the skin, the young girl is fast, she knows where all the leads have to be attached, There is a screen beside the bed, watch as all  the lines show a multiple barograph of the heart's performance.

Another medical checkup, the biannual one. There will be sonography too, and blood pressure will be measured, blood taken.
Again.
For a different purpose this time.
Also, the blood bank people turned the blood down two weeks ago, on account of it's not containing enough hämoglobin. Or something like that.

The first of August missing, and found again on the second

The first of August did not publish.

No knowing why
But the original was found

Thursday, 1st of August, 2019

climb up the stairs from the basement

a stairwell encasing the grey concrete stairs in

in red brick walls. The doors to the corridors

are glass fire doors, and each of the three

floors are much the same. Daylight comes

from the skylight set into the flat roof of

the building.

Leave the stairwell at the first floor, the

ground floor depending upon which side of

the building you find yourself.

Glass doors

glass doors, a grey-floored corridor

with dark wood panelling on the

walls, doors equally spaced along the

whole length of the corridor, the whole

thing may be eighty metres long.

Knock on the door of the electronics

department and unpack the chocolates

the son had bought for the electronics

technician.

That and a' thank you" note for repairing

the computer.

That is a good start to the mans day.

He earned it, too.