forms

 This day started off with a long lie in, as they used to call it. It was tiring to get up, and sleep only came in the early morning. So stayed in bed, after taking a shower. The son had occupied the kitchen, and he does not like his father to be hanging around whilst he is preparing his food. He has never explained why this is so.

The late rising brings bad news in the mail. There are official things to deal with concerning the sons studies, and his child allowance. It is mid afternoon by the time the stuff is in the post.

The wife has a problem with her bicycle, she never uses two spanners to release the wheel to repair the tyres. The result is that the gears become mal adjusted. It takes an hour until the problem is understood and the system is repaired. See that there is damage to the tyre, she will have to get a new one sometime soon.

During the walk through town meet the owner of the gallery. There will be no chance to meet up tomorrow, tomorrow there is work to be done near Passau.

And the rest of the evening is spent filling out more forms, this time for studies grants. The son does not realise that this is important, and all that needs to be done is for forms to be filled out.

frittered day

 The day ran by so fast, it was like watching a second hand move for a whole minute and then that was that. The day was a day of strange chance meetings with the son and then a walk to the car. The car was brought to a place  with pressure hoses for hire and washed down. Just for fun sprayed it with a wetting agent to make the old machine shine a little. Still, it was hard to remove the bodies of all the insects that had lost their lives flying into the speeding mass of sheet metal.

Later on deliver a few pictures to the artists. With time, there has been a too intensive occupation with these pictures and there is no personal distance any more. The thought is now that the pictures are not that great. This is just personal, other people still seem to find them good.

Return home to speak to an elderly lady mourning her husband and wanting to pay somebody to help arrange his collection of photographs and to put them online. It is difficult to visualise the exact extent of the problem. Make an appointment for Monday.

And then drive to the doctor's practice for a prescription for those pills that are supposed to keep the blood pressure down. And upon return to town buy the pills and walk to the supermarket to buy something to eat.

sad to be treated with ignorance, sad at the status quo

 The sadness does not go away, it is strange. Spend some time printing an order for prints, pack them, then do the washing. Repair the dishwasher, replace the drain house with a new one, remove the temporarily repaired old one. The cat comes up to the study and jumps onto the lap. Use the flexible cat brush to brush her back, she purrs in snorts. The cat seems content.

The sadness does not leave, on the street, walk to the shops and buy some bread and cheese and eggs and butter. Living of dairy produce is probably silly. On the way back home drop into the drugstore and buy the cat food they sell in their basement household department. The cat eats it, so it cannot be all bad. Go home, be treated to ignorance by the son and the wife. Pack away the shopping and go upstairs. Eat one of the Elstar apples, it would all be in order, but there is still this continual sad feeling. There is some pain in the chest too, but there is really no point in going to the doctor, she will take some measurements and say that you are okay.

The sadness does not go away, the ignorance remains, and nobody will say what is wrong.

It will probably be good to take a holiday in France, a week or two should do no harm.

sad and tired

 It is three twenty four in the morning and yesterday's blog is late. It was forgotten at the excitement of the day, a long tour looking at galleries and museums. First in a small town called Deggendorf and then in Passau. A meeting with a graphic designer who works for the churches and takes photographs.

It is all very pleasant.

But the tiredness will not go away.

In the evening, sit in the corner at the pub, sit there in misery, for the welcome at home has fed the realisation that there is no home to return to.

This is not a happy post, even though the day was a great pleasure. The evening was a misery, somehow just a sad affair. There was no wish to be part of the socialising. Go home and go to bed. Wake again at three in the morning, as above, unable to sleep. And now this post is back were it started.

tired

 The brother who makes jewellery for a living has his birthday today. Wish him a happy one, why not? There is no sense in not communicating, even if there is nothing to communicate.

It was a strange and awkward experience collecting the car, it is difficult to say whether there should be gratitude to the mechanics for having fixed it or whether it is all a waste of time and the car is really just a stupid nuisance.

The train journey to the repair shop was interesting, and very short. And the return journey was strange, there were two near misses with people just ignoring the right of way. It is just strange, who wants to drive under these conditions anyway?

The tiredness is getting steadily worse, the afternoon naps are becoming more and more necessary. Age or something must be taking its toll, it cannot all be the aftermath of that operation which is now quite a few weeks ago. Tomorrow there will be a tour of galleries, and it would be good not to be so tired.

anger in the space

 The day started early enough, it was before six in the morning. Downstairs, the cat is demanding food. Feed the cat. The cat wants to leave the flat. Open the door to the stairwell, tail erriect she wanders off downstairs.

The saucers have been placed elsewhere in the cupboard. It is a minor annoyance. Find them, replace them in the usual place, swallow the anger and feel it festering just below the heart.

Go upstairs again, breakfast, a small sense of order. Open the window, look out. There is the cat in the neighbours garden. Call her, she looks up. How did the animal get there? All that cat proofing seems for naught. Go downstairs and open one of the windows in the never-used rooms. The cat jumps through those vines planted by the neighbours. She seems to be happy to be back inside, it is almost as if the small animal has forgotten the route back home.

Take her inside, then she disappears again.

Today will be the day to have a small journey to Vilshofen, a small town on the Danube east of here. Things are packed as far as is possible, and the anger is steadily increasing in the space below the heart.

organise

 today's post was forgotten until now, and now it is being written. The day was lonely and silly, the ma from the car repair shop rang inquiring as to where the tyre had had been bought that so irritated the engineer from the safety inspectors. Look up the bill, give the name and address and that is that. The day is beset with strange aches and pains. It is just that age is taking its toll.

The day is just spent trying to organise idea.

so it was, and the car is a dud

 The sound of the rain outside is delicious. It is peaceful. It is a continuous rattle, no pounding rhythm, just a steady white noise. Relax, and allow the body to catch up with all the stress.

The day was strange, the mechanic failed to fix the car so that it would pass the safety inspections. There was a flaw in one of the wheels, and a discrepancy with the type of tyre fitted. That was too bad.

A long walk to the station, in vain- and a long walk back in the rain.

That is the kind of day that it was.

local pictures

 In the morning, a package came with the drainage pipe for the dishwasher. Before that the heating engineers were there, but they were unable to clearly define the fault in the system. They left, there will most likely be aT bill for their observations.

In the early afternoon take the car to the nearby village to be repaired. It needs to be examined and certified as roadworthy and safe in traffic. Leave it and proceed to walk back home. There is a shortcut under the motorway, then it is possible to walk along by the river.

The passage under the motorway is closed,  so walk around the nearby small airport. Stop to have a bite to eat in the restaurant there, this is not like an international airport, it is quiet and  also not expensive. A most beautiful young woman comes to the table and explains the things that are available. She is so friendly and helfpful that the price is forgotten.. Ask her for an alternative route to town, and she is helpful, but not entirely correct with her directions.

It is all no matter.

Pay, leave a tip, walking is even nicer with such pleasant wishes for the journey. Take the shortcut over the  small bridge over the motorway, and then the distance to Landshut is only nine kilometres. A short walk, but this is the first walk lie this in a long time.

Afterwards the legs and the feet hurt. But all is well, and there is a gerneral feeling of satisfaction.

Tomorrow, the legs will be sore.

And in the evening, there was an offer to exhibit pictures in the local.

no company at all

The cat needed a lot of attention this afternoon, it practically forced itself between the human legs and the wooden table to sit and have its back stroked.

A small device for measuring colours arrived. Perhaps it will do what it was supposed to do. It does not really seem to be a device with any relevance to photography, but time will probably tell. It looks like a tube of pills, white with a black cap.

Walking around town today was unsatisfactory. The noise of people talking seems to currently reverberate,   people seem to be shouting more than they used to. Also. everything is garish and bright.

Return home.

Stay at home.

Rest, the operation weeks ago has not healed up yet.

In the evening, the cat returns and wants attention.

The cat is not great company, but it is better than no company at all.

the wife rescued a bat from the cat

The nights activity is explained in the early morning by the wife. There was considerable noise, and sound of running and the slamming of doors. The wife had been chasing the cat which had been chasing a bat. The wife likes bats and she locked away the cat and freed the bat from behind the dishwasher.

In the morning, after breakfast, fill the dishwasher with the dirty dishes and start it. Solve a wiring problem with the wiring for the router whilst the machine worked away, then emptied it. There appeared to be water coming out from underneath it, this was unusual. Pull the machine out of its recess, and see that the drainage hose is damaged, probably during the night's activities. Turn the machine upside down and remove the base. Disconnect the hose.

Spend the next three hours establishing that this is definitely not a standard hose attachment. Every hardware store in town has hoses, but none of them fit. End up way outside town at an electrical supply discount store and end up buying a hose connector as a kind of repair. When back home, spend a short while installing the pipe again, fixed as a temporary measure, and then replace the machine,

All of this because the wife rescued a bat from the cat.

looking forward

 Sitting in the-pub after a long telephone conversation with the youngest brother. He has had a long wet day selling his plants at his garden centre in Dublin. The conversation was outside the pub, out in the rain with the smokers. The hot weather has been replaced with s cool damp cloudy evening .

It was pleasant to be out with the son, he cheered up markedly after polishing off a large plate of mushrooms with dumplings.

but everything is slow these days.

The big thing to look forward to is the journey to France

day seven or day one, depending upon your view.

 That birthday party yesterday was nice, it started out wit a Vernissage and ended with a birthday party. The paintings were pleasant, and the party was fun. There was no computer for the daily blog, so the entry was fumbled onto a mobile 'phone.

Todays awakening was simple and pleasant, and there were chores to do. The pictures were numbered and the postage stamps were printed.  A walk was taken around town, the town is full of people performing things, giving concerts, acting as clowns. It is the last day of the annual buskers festival.

Have the son take a passport picture and then apply for a new passport online. There are a few difficulties with making the artificial intelligence accept the entry, but eventually the problem is solved. After an online payment of 50 Euros it may be assumed that all things are in order and that the new passport may be expected in the mail within ten days. The son is rather proud of his photographic abilities.

A walk through the town to the post office was a success, there were interesting shows from the buskers. Two British men had fun doing stunts for the populace, and there was a very proficient guitarist to listen to as well.

It was just a relaxing Sunday!

leave ir till tomorrow

 Today was a srrange day, a post forgotten misplaced and not

to be found any more

Lost on the evening party circuir nea r home

this chaos is to be explained timorrow

fourteenth

 Yesterday was a day with s sedate beginning and a lively ending. The day started with the usual small errands around the house, nothing great and nothing serious. 

Then there was the journey to the reactor, the one that used to be the source of employment and income. There were difficulties obtaining access and it was strange to be treated by the security people as a stranger. It was nice to take a tour of the plant, and to also see areas that had never been seen during the work in the place. There were whole areas that had been hidden from view during the work in the place.

It all took too long, and there was an invitation in Passau to listen to Luise Meier read from her book. This was personally important, it promised to be an interesting and pleasant show.

But there was really not enough time to get there.

Normally the journey would have been fast, but there was a road blockage due to a traffic accident and a major diversion.

And then there was suddenly no time, the only way was to drive quickly. The old car was still capable of driving one hundred and ninety kilometres an hour.

Despite being ten minutes late for the show, it was interesting. The collector was there, and it was really a pleasant evening in the old town of Passau. There was a meeting with a woman whose birthday was also on the fourteenth of September. It was nice to talk to her.

At the end of the day there were more diversions because of road works, and the arrival here was early this morning.

This morning and this afternoon was spent working on the pictures, sorting, checking and printing. There was little time left for other things.

There was no time to look at the pictures of the young author from the night before.

rescue the flat little device from its plight

 Apart from realising that yesterday's post was a part of some dream, and never took place in reality, the day starts of well with the little breakfast and the welcome from the cat. The worry over the file transfer to the cloud showed itself to be groundless too, which is a relief.

All is working well, and now it is midday. The age of this writer is now sixty eight years, more or less exactly. It would never have been considered possible forty years ago to reach this high old age. And now, being here the only thought is as to how will it go on. There is no chance for another sixty-eight years. 

No chance, none at all.

There is a siren call at eleven this morning, the sirens are being tested. The sound of the sirens is terrifying, that mournful howl sounding over the rooftops, the harbinger of disasters. There is no sound from the mobile telephone. There should be, but there is nothing to be heard. Upon reflection, understand that this is not in the least surprising, the telephone is in the car, still attached to that magnetic holder.

Leave the flat and rescue the flat little device from its plight.

from conception to the dream of accomplishment took place yesterday, the dream of the tirteenth.

 Yesterday's entertainment at the ceramicists place was a good day, the pictures were sorted, and a breakfast was taken. The work continued at home, checking lists, and recovering the files from the endless mass of files on the hard disc. It is so good that the things are numbered, comparing images would be blue murder.

At the end of the thirteenth the entry for the days blog was concieved in the mind. It is no longer there, and it is not here either. 

The step from conception to the dream of accomplishment took place yesterday, and there is nothing to show for it but this excuse.

let things work

 In the early morning the cat shows that it is feeling hungry by following its human everywhere. To the bathroom, to the kitchen, to the crockery cupboard, it follows everywhere. Put on the water and put on the coffee. Then pick up the cats red plate and open a tin of cat food, placing two small spoons full of those smelly lumps onto the plate. The cat eats as the coffee machine burbles and the eggs boil and the toaster pops. It is early, and this is an early breakfast.

Have a shower, it is gratifying that the water is hot today.

Upstairs, get dressed and get ready to leave the house. Go shopping for cat food, and buy a bottle of soap for the kitchen as well.

Later, take the car to look at the decaying works belonging to an old sandpit. Take the camera, consider that these might be worth a few pictures.

They are dissapointing, it was not worth going to the bother.

Return home, and try to make the computer work the way that the people say it should.

all is quiet

 It was twenty two years ago today that history changed, and here nothing has changed. All that there is now is that a marriage has gone up the spout, there is no holding it any more, there is nothing left to hold. It was then a life in a cheap dwelling, the chaos was blamed on the dwelling. Now the dwelling is rather upmarket, but the chaos is still there. There is no looking into the future, there is no telling how it will end.

Enigma one way or another, it is taking weeks to recover from what was explained as a simple operation. There is still that occasional issue of blood, there is still the sudden pain which indicates that a visit to the bathroom must be absolutely imminent. If not, then the trousers are destroyed yet again. Doctors do not endure the suffering when the patient is not there, and why should they?

Spent a quiet day, trying to make the cloud program work and to do the things that are required of it. It is more work to understand this all, but in the end after an email to the hotline a solution is in sight. Still, a mechanism that was supposed to save effort has caused a days work. Now it is evening,  There is a Monteverdi performance on the radio, and all is quiet.

small progress.

 Upload is slow, there are so many files to lodge in the cloud. The cloud seems made for downloaders and not for uploaders.

The morning is spent tidying a bit and glowering at the computer. It does not glower back, it just keeps on working. It is not the machines fault that there are four hundred gigabyte of files to upload. That is a lot of data.

Water the plants, give the balcony ones a little, and feed the big ones downstairs pots and pots of water. Let the water flow into the basin and fill it and fill the buckets from the filled basin. It seems quicker that way.

And then go upstairs again and look at those numbers on the computer which are just not going anywhere significant. This is the way of things. that is why the system is known as asymmetric.

Then take the car up the hill to the beer garden there. Enjoy a soft drink and a cold meat dish known  as a pressack. That is nice, it is a traditional dish around this area, and they do it very well here.

Enjoy th beer garden for an hour, it is hot and pleasant, and why not? Resolve to visit a cafe that is about half an hours drive away.  This was not a good idea. The coffee is no good, and the company is poor too. This is all too bad. And then, upon returning to Landshut, realise that there are no parking spots left any more, drive around in circles for twenty minutes. At last a space is found. Upon returning to the house meet up with the incredible musical reporter, who can only talk of his unrequited love. Be an asshole for a few minutes, tell him that the young woman is only treating him politely.

Then he cycles away to look at some exhibition or other. 

Go home, and see that the computer has made some small progress.

y not

 In the morning, go shopping. And then when it is afternoon, visit the crowd of elderly gentlemen in the baking hot garden restaurant

Have a cup of coffee, try to listen, but it is all rich peoples shit. they are talking of property and tradition again.

That is all.

Drink my coffee, and using the poor health as an excuse, go back home. This day was made to be wasted.

Fiddle with the software on the computer, and suddenly the upload times to the cloud are ten times faster than they used to be.

Good.

And there will be a drink again tonight, for why not?

2

It is now turning into a chore, this daily scrawl into this blog. After all it has been more than ten years now, there are more than three thousandthat.

 six hundred and fifty posts now. That is quite a few, really.

Now in the pub in the middle of the evening. Today is the towns arts night, and all the arty people are rushing about from show to show, all dressed in their gaudy clothes. It is awful, all laughs and giggles and arty crafty approving stares, stroking non existent goatee beards and making smart and knowlle dgable comments. A decent drink in the pub cures all this disgust and a second one cures it more.

It is not my fault

 Today the waking was nothing to laugh about really, the first visit to the toilet shows clearly that the wounds from the operation are still open. Take a rest, and then go down and make breakfast, this is the high point of the day as you may have gathered by now.

After that, wash, and then wonder what to do with the rest of the time. The bleeding is probably going on, so resolve to take it easy.

At midday, leave the house and walk over to a café. The feeling of discomfort and laziness will not go away.

And in the early afternoon speak to the wife about her unfortunate purchase of a house with no walls. Astonishingly enough, just in time to prevent her putting it on offer at a value that is below the value of the land it stands upon. Have a long conversation. At the end of it all, she is snapping again and spreading blame and accusations.

It is not my fault

And in the evening resolve to go out yet again, to have a pint and maybe a chat.

laughs

 The son is packing all his things for his holiday in Croatia. He has his hat on so that he does not forget it. He is nervous and cranky, then he needs new lens cover. The lens he has for his camera has an enormous front element, surpisingly enough, for it is a cheap zoom lens. Search through all the spare lens caps, there is none to fit.

Suggest that he uses a plastic bag.

He frantically gets his things together,

Then he comes upstairs to say goodbye. Give him a parting hug and watch him walk down the street with his suitcase.

Upstairs again, use the computer to find information on several things that had caused worry in the house.

Spend a lot of time trying to sort the stupid questions and the silly answers out. Then hear the sons speedin up the stairs. He has forgotten something!. Go down to his room, he says that he has forgotten a few books.

Go downstairs, and speak to the tenant. She would like somebody to check her post box whilst she is away to make sure that it does not get too full. She will be away on holidays for ten days. 

There is the sound of the son running down the stairs,  the door bursts open, he stammers something, and then he runs down the street dragging his case behind him. He always said that he was slow in sports.

But wearing a hat  and a rucksack, and dragging a case behind him, running to catch a bus, he is very, very, fast.

The tenant is amazed, she says that she has never seen him run at such speed. Explain the whole story to her and she laughs.

fading

There is no wish to do anything at all.

There are plenty of things that should be done.

But why bother with any of them?

Downstaits, breakfast, give the cat its required attention. Put on the day clothes, and start to tidy up the workshop a little more,

Then wash the hands and go around the block to the barber's shop and make an appointment. And then return home again.

Tidy up the tools a bit more, then have a short conversation with the son, he is barely awake.

Then the aftermath of the operation forces a rest again. Take it easy, lie down.

At one, go downstairs and carefuly clean the fingers, brushing the dirt from underneath the finger nails.

At two, go to the barbers and have a hairctut.

Take a walk about town, and feel like nothing sensible at all. This whole business is not working.

A holiday will be nice.

At eight, there is a jazz session in the local. A guitarist and a bassist play, Not so many people really listen.  Keep an eye on the musicians mobile telephone, with which they are making a record of their show.

It is a pleasant evening, it is good to be left alone.

time for bed

 The morning was spent walking about town. A walkabout that was inneffective, there was no comfort to be derived from it. In a small shop buy two small balck torches of the LED kind. These are to work as a part of the camera equipment, so that the controls can be illuminated in the dark.

The third clock in the room is running for its third day now, perhaps the repairs functioned. There is a permanent ticking noise in the room, all the various lengths of pendulum ticking away at their own frequency.

The early afternoon, just sleep until the tiredness goes away, and then go downstairs to the workshop and commence tidying away the tools. They need to be sorted into sets, and sadly, not all of the sets are complete.

And in the evening go to the pub, talk to a few musicians. After a while they start to talk shop and to bitch about the one who is not there.

Leave.

And now it is time for bed.

cheap and bad

 The day breaks early to a clear sky, get up; there is urgency to go the toilet. And then, when downstairs, make coffee and breakfast anyway,

Take the lot upstairs and think and try to glean news from the computer. There is not much there, for it is Sunday today, and all the regular sources of information are  silent. Start to look at all those posts on Facebook, then stop that. It is really just a waste of time, a steady flow of mildly curious useless information.

Start to tidy up the rooms, clearing the tables, sorting away the rubbish. Water the plants, those peppers are really doing very well. Turn on the radio, listen to music for a while. Then go out, leave the house, this is not leading anywhere.

This rapid action does not lead anywhere either. Walk about, cross the river and walk down by the river bank.

There is a stall selling Döner Kebab. Eat one of those, but it is not particularly tasty. It is cheap and pretty bad.

beat

 There is a rumble of drums and bass in the background, this may be heard all over the old part of the town. Somebody has started to run "music events" at the castle, and these are extremely loud. They are some kind of dance event. All that is to be heard are simple rhythms, pounded out of some beat machine by a somebody calling themselves a disc jockey.

Headaches and inattentiveness all day, hopefully it will not go on for long.

Today is a day of weakness and inattentiveness. The son exchanges a few words, the cat purrs and the wife makes not a sound.

The only constructive thing done today is to place the dirty clothes in the washer and to start said machine.

Perhaps a headache pill will help.

what can be done about it?

Today is a day of quiet, apart from the recurring thunderstorms outside. These are loud and short, and are always accompanied by rain. This rain has filled the river, it has turned from its usual sluggish milky tea colour to a rushing mass of green bearing a freight of trees from the woods farther upstream. There is no serious flooding yet, but there may well be in the near future.

There is not much done today, but for the tidying of the drawer. Recovery from the operation seems to be proceeding well, with a small setback yesterday. The journey to Bayreuth proved a little more strenous than would have been expected. 

Use some contact glue to stick the zip into the small pouch. The zip had been ruined, and this is a new zipper. It is a tiny bit short, but this does not matter. The next thing will be to stitch the seam, and then the whole item will be ready for use.

Otherwise, there is not much to do. Endure the angry scowls of the wife, she is not happy with her husband at all. She is preparing for work, and that does not correspond to her wishes and expectations.

The thunderstorm has ended, the evening will be peaceful. The tensions and difficulties are hard, but what can be done about it?

driving skills are improving with practice

 The last day of August was spent travelling, taking a car journey with the son to Bayreuth. The trip started early in the day, there being an appointment with a man who wished to show a flat. The traffic was bad in the morning, but it was possible to get to the small town by eleven.

The tiny flat was a disaster, and seriously overpriced. The man showing the flat was a strange person, dressed in copious quantities of pale brown leather. His hair was dyed a pale brown as well. After the meeting it was possible to take a walk around town. The wind was strong, and it was quite cold in the town. Later on it was decided to visit the university.

The institute for information science is a new building, plain and white and well constructed. Walk aroung the building for a short while, and then spend a few hours in the universities botanic garden. This is a very beautiful display of plants from everywhere in the world, it also has several greenhouses for the various tropical habitats. The entry is free. There are many grasses, plants that have a latin name and a number, but no common name at all. 

To end the day in Bayreuth there was a small meal in a local public house opposite the city courtroom. The food was good, they appear to do their own cooking.

The son drove all the way back home.

His driving skills are improving with practice