feeling so bad.

The ruined roadside inn near Moosburg

 The man on the telephone, the man from the insurance, informed that the cost of extending the cover so that the son would be included would double the premium. Oh well, that is the way it goes. I did not even ask how much a separate policy  would cost, it is bound to be even more. A call to the motor club confirmed that this was in order. 

So much trouble for simple things, an enormous time had to be spent on the telephone to obtain this information. On the coming Wednesday, when the results of his test are known, it will be necessary to make another call.

It is cold today, a short walk to the café at the city walls and a long wait there for service. The people at work there are strangely incompetent, stepping on each other's toes, chatting to each other, ignoring their waiting customers, having arguments. The story is that there is no trained help available.

It would be good to splash out and train some help.

The rolls on sale in the early afternoon are stale already.

Return home, and realise that the cold is eating its way into the bones, and that nothing productive will be achieved whilst feeling so bad.

concentration on this problem took till midnight.

 There was a sleepless night after Saturday, the alcohol in the previous days drink disturbed the sleep after the initial effects had worn off.There was no sleep for three hours after three in the morning. And it was not that much of the alcohol, the body is just getting older.

Yesterday was Sunday, this is Sunday's entry done on Monday.

There is no way that past errors may be unmade, things that have been learnt cannot be unlearnt.

Sunday had a surprise, the son made coffee and cake for his parents. A strange meal in the late afternoon, He spoke of his upcoming driving test, he will probably pass, and then he will motor off to a further part of his life.

He talked about cars and traffic and testers. There was a promise to make sure that the insurance covers his use of the car.

There is no conversation between husband and wife, why should there be? But it was nice of the son to make the attempt, an attempt to return to old times.

Spend the rest of the evening trying to correct the fact that the date inscribed on the pictures made of the old guesthouse on the B12 road were wrong. The camera had been to repairs and the date was wrong. The concentration on this problem took till midnight.

Yesterdays blog was forgotten.

acquaintance

 A long day spent talking to an old friend, she is unhappy, just a bit , and unsure and requires confirmation of her actions. 

The son spoke of his projects in the morning, and then he said that he had to go, it was an appointment at eleven. A few more things in the room, then read the post from the mailbox, This is a tax reminder, there are several hundreds of Euros to be paid next month. It is thoughtful of them to send a reminder, but this only means that they can impose harder sanctions in case of default. Leave the reminder on the table, there are two weeks to go until it is due.

Leave the house and go to the weekly meeting, and listen to the people talk about illness and the medical treatment of the same. At two o’clock see that the young women is keeping her appointment That is great, leave and go out to a café , the one with the nice coffee. It is one worth visiting. The conversation is flowery, and it continues. Go  on to a restaurant, the waiter overhears the food part of the order and brings the drinks instead.

Never mind, drink the drinks.

Later, much later, return home.

It was a nice day listening to recordings of music, and conversations about mutual attraction.

It is nine in the evening, and it is time to post today*s post.

bad bad day

 A day started with illness, illness from not drinking enough, a long long sojourn enthroned on porcelain early in the morning.

At five, that is really quite early.

The rest of the day, or the morning, was spent recovering needless to say. The reading of a novel in bed calmed the aftereffects, just a quiet morning. The excuse proffered by illness is not to be turned down. But with all this chaos and change, forget that to write the blog. And now the day is over, and there is no heart in it.

In the late afternoon a pleasant time was spent in the cafe, in the expensive one. Chatting to the young Muslim girl woman who works there doing the service. She explains how she hope to study dentistry. That was another hour, and the rest of the time is spent trying to fix up the printer. It will be necessary to get a profile to be able to predict the results on the screen.

And the last part of the evening spent working on the pictures of the derelict house at the junction.

Before realising that the blog has been forgotten. 

Things may be better tomorrow.

Ruined Roadside Inn

 The complaint that the washing machine was leaking caused s flurry of activity. A resolution was made that buying a new hose was better than wrapping a towel around the water tap and turning it off when not needed.

Resolve to drive to a different jardware store today, one in the next town. A different firm running it and different service policies. A change would be as good as a rest.

Driving to the store miss the turnoff and drive into Moosburg town. After doing the U-turn resolve to look at the old building standing at the crossroads. It used to be a public house, a truckers stop. This would have been in the times before the motorway to Deggendorf had been built. It is a derelict now, the house is almost a ruing. It is a strange building standing in the middle of an open space.

Take pictures of it, it is strange, it has an air of desolotion, it is like aomething left over from long ago, not preserved in any way, but still standing. As a roadside in it is inviting in its own way, but there has been no service there for a long time. Take the pictures, color and black and white, 

Then there is the pipe to be bought, and then wash the car at a self service pressure hose place. This is cheaper than an automatic car wash. Afterwards, fill up the tank and go home.

Replace the hose.

Now it is possible to use the washing machine again at less risk of flooding.

no home when this unhappiness

The depressions will not let go, it is hard to move against them despite the knowledge that inactivity is ineffehctive in dealing with them. They will not go away on their own, but they stop any activity. Then there are the physical problems. that strong course of antibiotics that ended today. There is no energy available for any movement no feeling for anything. The cold in the rooms does not help,

Listen to the evening news and wonder what all this power mad behaviour in the world is supposed to be good for. So many forms of government only appear to work in the face of opposition, it is almost as if they have to create opposition even when there is none there.

Today was spent at home, despite the wish to get up and be active, hardly any movement was possible. There is the possibility of flight, but where would one flee too?

Where indeed, there is no place to go to, there is no home when this unhappiness is everywhere

The whole weakness stops even the writing of this simple blog

warmer than forecast.

 Shrove Tuesday for the English speakers is Faschings Dienstag for the Germans. Fasching is not a translation of Shrove either unlike Tuesday and Dienstag.

Surveying the mess and chaos in the kitchen and living room leads to the thought that a psychologist might be able to help. Even the thought leads to the consideration that there may be personal aspects to this situation which both sides cannot cope with. 

If you take things out to use them tidy them away afterwards.

There is no need, for they are in constant use.

Nothing needs to be tidied away because it will be used again.

There is no need to clean the sink for it will get dirty again by its next usage.

It seems self evident, but it is not obvious.

Things are wrong, and a screaming fit will not help, it might even make things worse. That things could be worse is concievable. This does not mean that things are good.

It is all so basic, really, breakfast upstairs alone in the bedroom was a pleasure. There were no pancakes or anything particular, just toast and poached eggs. And the day holds promise of being warmer than forecast. 

It is sad that the son had to speed from the house this morning, he avoiding sight of his father, not even wishing a good morning.

needs to be done

 Why wake at half past four in the silent night? That seems just to be the way things are, there is no reason apparent. Go to the bathroom, just in case. But that was not the reason. Open the computer and see if there is any news, perhaps the machine pinged during the night. There is no news, it is all too bad, it is almost sad. Go back to bed, and think of sleep, do not even consider counting sheep.

At half past eight, it is light, and now sleep has ended and strangely enough, it was refreshing. Let that simply be accepted. Put on the dressing gown and make breakfast.

It is no longer so very cold, winter has receded a small amount at this time. Going on past experience in this area, it will return and be nasty.

Eat breakfast and read the news and take out a change of clothes and try to think of something that needs to be done today. Something that will relieve these constantly returning depressions, the fear of their return being a serious problem in its own right.

It is still early, something needs to be done.

common thread

 Downstairs first thing, that is the call of nature, the call of need because of living in simple accommodation. Be welcomed downstairs by the cat, the only one awake at half past seven this Sunday morning. Breakfast is made quickly, finding space between the items left lying around by the sons and the wife's activities of the night before. There are the skeletal remains of a mackerel in the sink. This is fishy...

The cat is attentive untill she realises that there is food left over for her in her plate. She eats, and then wanders off somewhere.

Breakfast is brought upstairs again. It being Sunday, there is no mail to look at, spend the time looking at Facebook entries. The things are currently not worth looking at, just silly superficial things between dog rescue and aeroplanes from the 1930s. Given another seven years and they will be one hundred years old.

Breakfast eaten, start to write this whilst consuming the last dregs from the coffee. It will be necessary to finish the tax things today.

And to start working through the pictures taken during the last three years. It is time to look for a common thread.

wonder why people are showing some of these things at all.

 Wake in the dark of todays early morning, it is now six twenty six and breakfast has been made and taken.  It is so early that not even the cat was in attendance for breakfast today. That distinctly plump cat.

Well, what do you expect with three people feeding her without communication, one to the next? The feline is fed four times a day, and she is used to that now. But she was to lazy to get up for her first feeeding.

The taxes were done yesterday, a long fiddle, for there are documents to be found and entries to be made.Proof of income is not required, but proof of necessary expenditure seems to be required twice and in the original. They are no different from other people, when it comes to money.

It is dark still, the lights are going on in the neighbouring buildings as the people prepare to go for work. This person may as well go back to bed to warm up for another half an hour. Deal with the social networking first, and wonder why people are showing some of these things at all.

this is the post for the seventeenth, yesterday, the seventeenth of February.

 To repair the damage done by the failure to write in the diary it has become necessary to remember, it becomes clear that the days are forgettable now, they are lost as soon as they have happened. The new pill ordered by the doctor may well produce spectacular results, or it may produce none at all. The visit to the doctor yesterday has left a shock, it is easy to see his concern that there may be something amiss with this old body, the last attempt with powerful antibiotics, and then an attempt to find an early date for an operation. That will be the path when there are no other paths to be taken, and the sixteenth was spent in concerns about this.

This entry is for the seventeenth, and that day was spent with the joys of spreadsheets, trying to work out where the money had gone. It was a lot of money, really, all the money spent on the survival of three people and a cat over the past year. The reckoning is required by the tax office, so that the government may have the money to solve its problems. Tax returns have to made, and there is the year all in figures, all the incomes and expenditures.

The incomes are taxed, and the expenditures have been taxed many times already

And this is the post for the seventeenth, yesterday, the seventeenth of February.

but enjoyed, and sorry for the lack of entries for the sixteenth

 This is already a search in the memories, a search in what is now a past that has gone, Two days ago the decision was made to go to the local public house for a drink in the evening, The result was that a person was met who had not been seen for a month and the one drink turned to three.

The night finished when a group of women in fancy dress turned up, all quite merry.

It was the end of Weiberfasching, the day that women dress up and go out in groups to have a good time. That was the end of that day, that was Thursday. It was pleasant. Listening to all the others talk about music, a complex subject not well understood.

but enjoyed, and sorry for the lack of entries for the sixteenth

worry

 Tomorrow is the day that the doctor has proposed for his examination, and as a patient there is not anything to be done against his proposal. There is just this matter of having to drink a lot of water. 

Perhaps it will work.

Earlier time was spent in the old café. and realise that they have become horribly expensive. They will have to drop their prices sometime.

An old woman sitting in a wheelchair and begging for money drops her paper cup. A young man with his girlfriend walks past and sneers at the old beggar. Bend down and pick the cup up, and put the loose change from the pocket into it. That earns a toothless smile from the old woman, and a thank you in some Roman language.

Tomorrow will be a nasty day, the doctor is a worrying man.

another antique

 An afternoon visit to the dead mans workshop. This is being cleared out by his son, and what had seemed like an unsurmountable task is making progress. The trees and wild hrubs around the property have been cut back, and the disorderly piles of waste have been turned into orderly piles of waste. The son is still cursing the father for the disorganised mess that he had made during the last thirty years of his lifetime.

There are still five old cars in the workshop, old Opels, over twentyf-ive years old each, they look as if they were made in the eighties of the last century, they are all full of corners where modern cars are rounded. And they are small, even though they are station wagons.

The old man had been working on a monument to himself, a near indestructible concrete grotto, a shrine to his life's work. Like this work, it was unfinished, bare concrete. There was wooden moulding still attached to contain the concrete. Spend an hour removing this, the structure itself will need to be disposed of. And the people taking that kind of thing reguire it to be of one type of waste only. That means concrete and steel, but no wood.

There is an old table from the sixties of the last century, a beautifully made functional formica covered kitchen table. 

Rescue that, it will need cleaning, and it will do well as a kitchen table at home. A strange antique.

The day turned cold, and it was a long slow drive back home, alone with the table in the back of the car.

meat balls

 The attempt to accelerate the first rites today and to get up and get out and to be dynamic fail miserably. They fail about ten minutes after taking the morning pills and then half an hour later tell the voice recognition software that it is to please sound an alarm in one hour.

The seaside melody makes the sound , get up and try to start functioning properly.

Take a long drive to the furniture store to buy a new bedcover. The furniture store is irritating with its Swedish joviality, all the mottos are friendly and the service people are complicated, even unpleasant. Order a meal in the cafeteria, receive a blank stare upon thanking the man for the plate full of meat balls.

Walk through the store, end up buying more.

The journey back is relaxing, resist the temptation to do as the germans do and drive back slowly, taking pleasure in the relaxed pace of driving. It is sufficient to know that the car could easily go twice as fast, instead of taking  twenty minute the motorway part of the  journey would have taken ten.

That would have been a saving of ten minutes, not counting delays due to the traffic.

At home, assemble the simple item of furniture, a rack to absorb the clothing.

It is winter, spend a lot of time relaxing.

rushed blur.

 Take it that illness of some kind is taking its path through the body and driving it to rest. Rise early and then spend most of the day sleeping, even lie down on the made bed and throw a spare cover over stay warm. It may be those blood pressure pills, there is no way of knowing for sure really.

It is evening quickly, decide to to go out regardless. Forget the telephone by the bed and go back for it, in that short period somebody has telephoned. It is the talkative egocentric photographer. Call him back and let him talk for half an hour, walking in the park by the river. The man has eyes and ears only for himself and for his wants, and for his need to monopolise the issue at hand. 

By the time he has decided to stop there is barely time to go into the small café to have a cup of coffee and a sandwich. The sandwich is reduced because it is late in the day. Take a photo through the window of the shop, showing a cartoon figure of a baker and a member of the café's staff as a rushed blur.

time machine

 A friend is playing the music in a local bar,  a strange place, full of local office workers. Dainty women and big husky guys all drinking fancy drink constructions, all with orange slices and paper umbrellas. It is strange to see a man in a lumberjack coat daintily sipping a martini. He is not a lumberjack and he is with his girlfriend. Drinks are the kind of thing that have to be complex.

The drinks have to be complex and sweet, a sort of silly take on seduction.

The friend knows his job, playing and cutting the music, but there is no chance of catching this crowd. No chance at all.

Two girls shyly sit down at the table. They are the first to dare, and they say thank you. It is a pleasure, of course. See all the husky guys with their dates searching the place with their eyes, they would not dare to ask a strange guy with white hair whether or not a place was free. Their fancy jackets probably cost more than many other's weekly earnings.The day was a depressing mess, a fiasco- The son is in terror of something, and will not say what. The wife is angry and will not say why. Life is difficult this way.

Things are better when the mail from the lab arrives with the pictures scanned from the film sent in last week. They are of high quality, they are all worth looking at.

It is so nice to see results typical of that old Kodak film, without the pain of the darkroom work. It is now possible to take pictures as if things were in a time machine.

Please give this information....

 Today has started well and there is hope that it will not end badly. The things that should be done have not been done yet, and yesterday's forgetfulness should be left where it belongs, yesterday. 

What is happening? It is a question to which there is not a satisfactory answer. This may be due to the fact that the problem is being viewed from inside, from the darkness there and that this darkness renders the problem invisible. Maybe this is what is happening.

The bed was made this morning. It was made with care, in an attempt to signify the end of sleep and the start of diurnal activity. This was a symbolic gesture, there was no activity other than stupid reactions to events as they occur. This is a distraction from things that are important, such as the reckoning of the heating bills and their just division, and the collation of all the documents from last year that are relevant to the tax situation. These things are to be done and are important.

The flurry of room cleaning and surface repairs from the past days are not important.

Reading about the disasters in the world is important, but what is there to do? To supply money to a corrupt government is to give it away to people who do not deserve it, and it would be nothing but a sop to the personal conscience. Those who deserve and need help would not receive any. What is to be done?

Please give this information....

in memory of the ninth

 The ninth was left out

That was yesterday

That was a day that was depressing, a day of failures, a day that died the way today is dieing.

A fit of optimism led to the belief that the blog had been done.

wheras it was not

café splendide

 Go downstairs, and upon returning see that for all the work put into it the repair to the door was just not right. Perhaps door fitting should be left up to door fitters, people who know what they are doing. But it closes without squeaking and strange resistance now, so it is an improvement until the next disaster unfolds.

Upstairs again, lie down in bed again. Perhaps it is age, maybe it is just laziness, or else it is fear of the cold helping another bout of influenza or something. Sleep on until half past eight is over, and then go downstairs, make breakfast.

Downstairs again, later, use the shower after shaving. It is a good clean feeling. The parts for the vacuum cleaner arrived today, take them upstairs. Install the parts in the machine, test it, and see that it does not work. Too bad, put the machine aside.

The gas heater does not work either. The device is a cheap heater for bottled gas, for outdoor use only. The safety systems keep on shutting it down. Gas heaters can be dangerous, resolve to throw the thing away and to buy a new one.

The highlight of the day comes when the camera store rings to say that the camera has been repaired. That is good news. Tidy up the mess around the place, change the clothes again for the old ones are now covered in dust from the vacuum cleaner, and leave the house. Spend a friendly time chatting with the camera salesman, buy a new strap for the camera and pay the repair bill.

Go to a local cafe and enjoy a splendid cup of coffee,

repairing the door

 The building supplies today to buy new hinges for a door that has become quite unhinged. It is the door in the corridor to the bathroom, it is probably the most-used door in the place. It had been fixed temporarily some years previously and now the hinges have become bent. They were too weak and they were not installed correctly.

Drive to the building suppliers and find the place in the huge building where all the iron fittings are kept. Find a pair of hinges, two two-part hinges. They are in a plastic bag with a number upon it. Enter the number on a printer and the sum to be paid is printed out. Go to the cash desk and pay, again, everything is automatic. Take another reader and read the amount on the tag. Now everything is in order.

Go to the grocery store next door and buy a few things, and become a victim of a long queue at the check out. Some woman has bought an incredible amount of things and the poor woman at the checkout is somewhat incompetent.  It takes almost three quarters of an hour.

At home, inspect the hinges and discover that the plastic bag has a small hole in it, there are only three parts there when there should actually be four. There is nothing for it but to drive across town again and to go back to the building suppliers. 

After a conversation with the woman at the returns desk return to the bin with the parts in it. Discover that all the packaging there has been damaged, and that there are numerous single bits and pieces in the bottom of the container.

All is well that ends well, and spend the rest of the afternoon repairing the door. More time was spent obtaining the parts than the actual repair of the door.

hell and pigtails

sitting on a tall bar stool in a german pub the name of which translates as "The Black Cock". Sit there enjoying the second beer of the evening. The beer is called Landshuter Hell. That suits the mood. There are men with their hair in pigtails and young people with their hair in brilliant colours screaming out their human synthesis. It is likr s monkey's arse.

Think of the short walk today, by the old castle and then through the park.

A reminder of the activities one year ago.

corona

 Start the day by tidying things and attempting to get on with the work as it had been planned, or at least thought of . Trying to deal with things to try and get the life in order.

This failed with the cold and the misery and with the fact that there is no wish to on the part of the family to talk, to try to take up contact, there is no wish for any thing. The kitchen is a mess, the living room is an untidy disordered heap of disarranged furniture cocuments and old stacks of clothing that has not been folded.

And it is cold.

The cat is friendly, 

And the feeling of illness in the form that has not really gone away since the infection with the corona virus last summer is still there, somehow destroying any will to any kind of activity.

It is the lords day, Sunday, so instead of feeling bad about that also. do nothing eccept huddle up with a blanket and snooze.

The situation is depressing,

 The tailor from Kurdistan looks up at the new customer. Show him the trousers and say that they need to be about two fingers tighter. He smiles and says that the only way he will work is to have the trousers marked as they are being worn. 

Inside his plywood changing booth put on the green trousers that are much too wide at the waist. Because there are holes in the toes of the socks put the shoes on before leaving. It would be shameful to wander around outside with the toes showing through the socks.

He checks and marks the trousers with two pins, and then go back in and take off the trousers again, put on the black jeans, and leave the box with its curtain. Give the tailor the trousers, and a visiting card so that he has  a name for the job.

Buy eggs and apples in the supermarket, also a loaf of bread and some cheese. That is all for the moment there is nothing else that comes to mind right now.

At home pack the bit of shopping away, and flee from the kitchen, which is in a state of total disorder once more. The situation is depressing, and it will stay that way.

simply be wasted

 A short telephone call and the answer is that the original telephone call was an error. That is too bad. But then, it is one way to make contact. Just leave the telephone in the pocket and accept that there will be a chance pressure on the keys. Make a date for later in the morning

Two pictures printed out this morning are successful. That is quite reasonable really. Each picture twice, once on glossy and once on matt paper. Each has it's own beauty, so that is all perfect.

Pack up the pictures and get dressed for the street. Leave the house, and walk around the corner, all is well, the weather is a tiny bit warmer today. That is good. Visit the friend in her flat, she is still preparing to moan about her boyfriend who has left her. She is sorry for her position now, she is going to have to find work. Talk about pictures and passepartout formats, about things that need to be done and things that are not done and taxes.

Taxes are a thing that cause her pain.

It is strange how quickly time passes when you are talking.

At one in the afternoon leave the immaculate flat and head for the river. Then change the old mind and wander on to the cafe, this is crowded today.

And then go home, and try to work out what needs to be done next.

Frittering time, it is frighten how time can simply be wasted.

As the day grows dark, wipe down the stairs in the stairwell. They are upsetting to look at when dirty, and at least this is an effort.

slow game

There are things to be done today. There is the annual visit to the urologist, a man from Iran with a keen sense for the arts. He is concise, fast and precise, he does his examinations, his helpers take blood and he makes a new date for the sixteenth of this month.

An operation will be necessary, he attempts a discussion as to whether a paring or a laser treatment is better. I point out that it is all up to his expertise and his recommendations.

Well, whatever, things that should not have got bigger did, and this will probably affect the show for the rest of the year.

In the early afternoon return a gas bottle to the building suppliers and buy a new one, full of gas. Wander around the building suppliers, see that some things are cheaper and that others are now more expensive. This is the way things go.

Return home, bring the gas bottle upstairs.

And then off to the town hall, there is an interesting gathering there today. The mayor and his people are to discuss the new traffic organisation plan, and there is an organisational problem. They want to improve the system. And there is an invitation to go. It is interesting.

Arrive there, go upstairs and settle down to listen to the town parliament.

It is boring.

Not interesting, politics is a slow game.

After two hours the decision is deferred to another time.

even though it is slow

 There is mail in the mailbox at the door, a small package has been placed there by the postman. It is adressed to the wife, bring it upstairs.

She opens it, there is a plastic bag inside containing the two carbon commutators for the washing machine's motor. These have been expected since Monday. 

Get to work. Installing these items would be five minutes work for an experienced maintenance person, now it takes a bit longer. Compare the old and the new for compatability, then drop a screw into the body of the machine. This is unthinkably clumsy, but manage to retrieve it with a tweezers. Then realise that both commutators are slanted the same way, even though one should be for the right hand of the motor  and the other for the left. This means that one has to be put in upside down or else it will be facing the wrong way. Then the one screw will not allow itself to be tightened. Loose the other screw and then it works. Check that everything has been tightened correctly, then replace the bottom cover on the machine. Tighten the screws down and turn the whole machine over. Heave it into place on its rubber mat and attach the waste pipe and the water pipe. When all is done, let the machine run.

It works.

The first thing is to get the washing of the last two weeks done.

The camera that arrived yesterday is a joy to use, it is a humble camera from the late sixties, one of those much-beloved small german rangefinders cameras. Buy a film for it and start to take pictures, using a light meter, setting all the settings by hand.

It makes sense, even though it is slow