gather dust

 The day is long and silly, the son is non communicative and the wife is not talking. The family is distressing in its dysfunctional ways. Perhaps all that means that it is not your standard type of family, but what is a family if not in some way standardised. There is a steady stream of explosions outside as people set off their bangers early, for whatever reason they may have. The sound is muffled by the triple window glazing. On todays walk about town they were piercingly loud. People love making loud noises.

Today in the café there was a man with two cats, both with walking harnesses. They were black Bencoon type cats, very large for house cats and with tufts in their ears much like a lynx. They seem very calm, even-tempered animals, curiously examining the café. They have a most dramatic appearance.

Go home and try to finish working on the pictures. They all apear a bit overworked, it is no longer pleasant to look at them.

This work will continue in the coming year.

Now there was  a phone call at just this moment, now it is time to bring over the glasses to the host of the party. He needs them and they just gather dust here.

enough

 Awoke and noticed that the self was a casualty of the host of the last night's generosity. The head hurt and there were cramps in the legs, waking was pleasant enough but getting up was hell. That is the way the day starts, after a long conversation with yet another artist who wants pictures of his things. This man was worth talking to, the works are incredibly good, a man who lives in a retiring way.

He will give a new years party, that has been marvellous in the last years, and should be great tomorrow. The beginning of yesterday night was spent sweeping his studio.

The end was spent in discussion over the planned pictures, the commission that was hoped for.

Today was a sore awakening, and a small walk about town did not help. The day was spent correcting the exposures on the pictures, preparing them for the printers and tryingu to predict their limitations to attempt to make up files that could be easily and well used in the production of the catalogue of the artists.

It is now half past eleven on this Saturday night, thank God if he's listening that it is the last of this year. A half of beer in the pub and another at the Italians, that is all and it will do.

nothing ever does

 After breakfast, take the father in laws floor sanding machine downstairs. It is incredibly heavy, take the steps carefully, one at a time. Do not put the machine down, for that would mean bending over and risk straining the back two more times. At the foot of the stairs, put tthe machine down carefully. Then take it out to the back yard. Get the compressor, turn it on and wait for the pressure to build up. Then attach the air pistol and blow the loose dust out of all the crevices on the old machine. Open the flaps on the side to remove the wood dust from the spaces underneath. Oil the fastening screw for the belt cover. Then wipe the whole machine down with an oily rag. Go upstairs to collect the hand machine for doing the corners with and clean that too.Find a sturdy box upstairs and put the cables for the machine into it, then later put the small machine into this box as well. That is the first chore of the day.

Then upstairs again print out yesterday' order for prints. This is not a bad idea, this will just get that out of the way.

Take a walk about town. Somehow, it is all as if something was about to happen, but nothing ever does

go for a drink-cheap night out

 The depressions are blocking out any prospect of joy at the thought of the years end. This is both bad and sad, things will have to be changed. But there is no power and no ability to change things constructively. Just running will do no good.

The day started with strange noises emanating from the basement,  Go to the bathroom, and a greeting comes from the bottom of the stairs. It is the son, and he announces that he will now be takeing the train to Bayreuth to collect some things that he had forgotten. It is six in the morning and pitch black night outside. The son does not like the lights being on so leave them off. What that particular madness is good for is unknown.

The son vanishes into the dark, and make some breakfast as the day progresses. It is not light yet, but there is no harm in having an early breakfast. The last batch of unripe avocado pears from the supermarket has ripened meanwhile, so breakfast is three eggs, two slices of toast and and an avocado. Of course, also with a cup of coffee.

The day threatened to be mercilessly awful this morning, and now it has turned out that way. It is not because anything particularly nasty happened, it is just the some of all the small unpleasant things and the woeful depressions.

It is evening, and perhaps a visit to the pub would be in order.

It is now eight minutes to eleven at night, and two half litres of beer have been consumed, one regular and one free of charge. And a small order for ten prints of a show covered some weeks ago. Return home happier after a cheap night out.

rhythmically

 now it is mid afternoon and the circle of the day runs its course. Time was spent ironing, smoothing shirts for the cupboart to let them all be tidy. This takes time, two hours, ten minutes per shirt. There are probably better ways to spend time, but that is one of them.

Last nights concert was a group playing known tunes from the sixties of the last century, just exactly like they were done on the records. Leave before anger sets in.

The pub is crowded, it is full, Speak to a man who claims to be a professional, ask him whether he knows of a printing shop that could proof something. He does not know, and then starts to importantly type things into his mobile 'phone. He shows the message. Realise that he did not understand the question at all, not in the least.

Oh well, finish the drink, and then go back to the italian's and listen to more bad music and watch a crowd of  middle aged women move to the beat.

They are german, there is always the danger that the men will start to clap their hands more or less rhythmically.

mornings end

 Last night projected itself into this morning, after listening to records selected by a friend from his record collection yestedrday. It was a nice Christmas meal at his place, well worth attending. The streets on the way home were icily deserted, sporting only their Christmas illuminations.

The awakening was both early and unpleasant, today on Boxing Day, as it is called in England and Ireland.

But there is no harm done, the cat wants to be stroked, the hair washed, breakfast made, the order of memory is not sequential any more. There is that telephone call at ten, there will be a meeting at one and then there will be a walk in the park for a few hours and then hopefully that will be that, for that relationship will go nowhere.

Lie down again to to gather strength for the coming difficulties, and awake again towards the mornings end with a cautious feeling in the head and a mild tinnitus on the right hand 

The day was spent in comfort of a man with depressions, a man trying to gain strength from easy company, a man who never learnt to grow into a situation. It is hard to refuse attention to one so needy

The evening was spent listening to a dreamer telling his tales in the pub, dreaming of the completion of plans made years ago and celebrating his good education which never helped him, not at all.

There is a concert in the restaurant on the corner of the road and it is rough, it is well played cover versions of rhythmic tunes, the lyrics sung so roughtly that nothing remained but the muscle jerking rhythem of the drums and bass

mess

 A sense of weakness, dizziness, and an insensitivity to the cold in the room now all add up to a almost complete lack of Christmas spirit. Wake up, realising that it is bright and late, and go downstairs. The kitchen has no clear spaces or surfaces left, the wife is fiddling about making coffee. It is late and she is early. 

It is strange being awake and yet not at all present. It is like being both observer and subject at the same time. That what you see is not real, but still the left over coffee in the pot is really burning hot.

Ask the wife whether she still wants the dregs, the pot needs to be cleaned out before fresh coffee is made. She grunts from the sofa, the television is showing morning news. Understand the grunt, bring over the coffee maker, she stretches out her hand with the cup in it for filling. Fill the cup, then wash out the coffee maker under the kitchen tap. Use cold water to cool the hot device down, there is no need to burn the hands.

The water is boiling for the eggs, crack the eggs on the edge of the saucepan and put them into the water that already contains salt and vinegar. Finish filling the coffee pot, and put it on too. Two slices of toast, into the toaster. These things are all not difficult, it is just the fact that all the left overs and unused and used utensils from last nights cooking are all over the place and there is nowhere to place anything. The work surfaces of the kitchen are all occupied.

The butter dish needs to be rinsed in hot water, a fresh package of butter is placed under the glass lid.

Then all is done, the buttered toast and the poached eggs are on the plate, and the coffee is nearly done.

Balance it all on a plate, and take it all upstairs, to enjoy the simple meal in the mornings peace and quiet. Let all the abilities dormant during sleep gradually resurface in their entirety and regain their capabilities to deal with the day.

The bells in all the church steeples around the old town sound, ringing more than they usually do. It is Christmas day, and the faithful and the faithful guilty come into town to pray.

slightly mad

 This was a day of no conversations at all. Not really. A walk about town in the miserable rain and wind this is Christmas eve. It is hard to endure when the situation has left you alone. Back at home, read more about the colour management of proofs. A problem with all the instructions is that they do not clearly describe sources and objectives, they just seem to offer solutions for undefined problems.

Read on, try to explain the confusion. 

Then settle down and listen to Christmas Jazz from ABC radio. They are all wishing good mornings. That is the international nature of the Internet.

The son calls up, he has cooked for Christmas. That is very nice of him, bring down the bottle of Prosecco that has been resting on the shelf upstairs since summer.

A vegetarian Christmas dinner, cooked by the son.

A very nice idea, but that is it for Christmas this year. 

Tomorrow there will be a big party at the slightly mad radio reporters house.

a day of silly conversations.

 The day is strange, the clock showed the wrong time to start with, and there were strange telephone calls asking for peronal experiences of that recent surgery: Well, happy Christmas to you to, this is not a matter of advice to be given just out of hand. Talk about the difficulty of instructing surgeons faced with a problem  whilst anaesthetized. Ridiculous, the whole conversation is not worth thinking about.

Help the son to repair the wheel of his moped, because it is easier with four hands than two.

That is all, then visit the mosaic maker, she is friendly and hands over a copy of the catalogue for which we had made a picture. It is good that it has gone down well after more than three quarters of this year.

And after two glasses of mulled wine, return home and lie down for an hour, she was an exhausting person to talk to.

And then settle back into the personal problems, and the difficulties of understanding color management when something goes wrong. It all seems straight forward from the outside, and then it isn't any more.

The evening is spent trying to make the small Mac computer work, but it is steadfast in its refusal to download and then to install the latest version of its software.

Sad.

No pub today, just early to bed.

Scroogey

 It is strange how tiring driving cars at night can be. It was not much of journey, to regensburg and then back again this morning, but it has left the old body tired now.

The son is up and is repairing his moped, a project upon which he has been working for a number of years. 

His youth still lets him do things like that, and that is good.

In the morning, sit down and work out what went wrong during the last two days whilst attempting to use the home printer to proof a file in an attempt to produce a preview of a properly printed work. It turns out that the problem was trying to correct something that had already been corrected. The simple logic was that the correction was done by a computer, a machine without intelligence and blind and uncaring. And the real problem is that this was forgotten.

Walk around town for a short shopping spree, there is nothing worth getting, except for cat food, that has been sold out almost everywhere.

Christmas has not been worthwhile yet, today was spent alone, like Dicken's character Scrooge. Tomorrow is a chance to go for a short walk to visit a woman who makes mosaics, make a visit and get some wine. That was an invitation. Then there is the invitation on Christmas Day.

25 2 2

 It is past midnight again. Upon returning in the evening from visiting the phone rang and the son said he was stuck in Regensburg. A severe storm had disrupted the railway services. The result is  a drive to regensburg. a short wait and then the return with a bedraggled son who had to talke the last part of his journey on a bus provided by the rail company as an emergency service.

It was a quarter past midnight upon leaving Regensburg already. The journey back was fast, but still, it is late now. 

It is almost twenty five to two.

and then it was midnight

A long day today just solving the problem of not having a reasonable proof mechanism to deal with the pictures. Well, at least the system shows inconsistencies. But this has taken all day now. What with copying files, converting the same and then renaming and then printing them and Its being menial stupid work, but somebody has to do it and it has all turned into a flurry of nuisance.

And now it is mainly done, after the printer had stopped working once because of a network failure. It is a mistake to use domestic networks for commercial purposes.

But it is like work used to be, just testing for the possible and making preparations and trying to absorb all those future disasters.

mean dream

 The day started with a hallucination, a waking dream. This dream said it was midday, so lay here cursing the weakness that causes sleep to drag on under the warm blankets. Then think that there is only more to be lost by lazing on, throw the blankets aside and step out into the cold room. Look at the watch, it says nine twenty-four. That was a mean dream, causing guilt for nothing. Check the mobile phone. it shows the same time. It was a mean dream.

There is a mail message and then a phone request for some more prints. And an invitiation to dinner, that is nice.

There is a collapse in the afternoon, for no reason, so slow down and take a rest for an hour. Then go shopping, and then drive out on the now well worn path to Geisenhausen.

lost soles

 The afternoon was spent solving a few database problems for the artist couple. The morning, on the other hand, was just spent trying to catch up with the left over nonsense of the past few days.

The afternoon was a success, thearning is to ne forgotten. The highlight was a walk to the shoe repair place with the sons boots, the ones that are losing their soles

Laut

 A stay at home Sunday, for what is there to do in this filthy weather outside. A day of rest after the session at the pub last night. It was that Bavarian Irish pub in the country, and it was badly attended. Perhaps all the customers were out Christmas shopping. The music was nearly all from the last quarter of the twentieth century. 

It was very loud, despite the lack of crowd.

Laut Kraut.

The pictures were easily done today, easily finished, and now they are sent away. Online, and all is well.

The principle of reading the colours for a photograph works, it is just a strange way of working. The colours are read by a small colorimeter, and the picture is adjusted accordingly. The colour of the lighting is effectively neutralised in this way. The only problem is the colour surface, it need to be both flat and evenly coloured.

The son made a meal today, and then refused to eat it, for the wife had interfered with the cooking and he took umbrage. This is a shame. The son has now returned to his university, the train will arrive in Bayreuth at nine in the evening.

The head is aching since yesterday afternoon, it feels like a burn under the scalp, which comes suddenly and then goes away. Hope that it will go away to stay that way tonight.

likely tomorrow!

 Why is there a Friday feeling, the knowlledge of a day lost none gained.  The day starts  late with a telephone call, a meeting at one and a meeting at five but that was the second call, it ia all a confusion. Let Confusion live! It will destroy much.

A meeting at five thirty and now it is five.

No, it is four, fill in some details-More!

The meeting was first at the railway station with the collector, it is good to see him again. Being away from work seems to do him good, the work seems to use him up. It is a strange thing for a man of his intelligence to be doing factory work. Leave him at the dance studio, he has eighty minutes of class there. Then to the shops, there are a few things that are needed, whatever over the weekend and the days that will most likely follow. Staples, boring things like bread and butter, a few eggs and a few pretzels.

At home, speak with the son about his studies, he has progressed so much further in all these technical things at nineteen than his father ever will, even if he lives to be ninety. Speak, he is a bit behind with his studies, especially in maths. It will remain to be seen how and if he catches up. He seems to be taking to the student life rather well, that year at home did him good.

Afterwards, leave the house and meet the collector outside his studio and take a walk around town, explain a few details that may have been missed, and talk and chat. There is an episode with a sudden searing headache and a strong whistle and hiss in the head. Now the day of the week is forgotten, tell freinds met on the street that they will be seen tomorrow, but that is wrong, Saturday is today and tomorrow is Sunday,  the confusion grows, age is taking its toll.

Say goodbye to the collector at the bridge, and then walk home to mind the head and get ready to proceed to the guitar player, for a concert in the Irish pub out in the country.

Now it is sixteen twenty three,  perhaps more will be possible later.

Maybe more later, but most likely tomorrow!

y not

 Now in the noisy local, enjoying the company of all the people around making their social noises. Some are very noisy, others are quiet and earnest. It is the local, the only pleasant pub around.

The day was spent at the artists place, making color measurements and explaining proofs. It is pleasant, as always. In pleasant company. 

And the evening was spent in the cinema, watching a film in the cinema about Anselm Kiefer.The end of the evening brings the offer of a job in Washington, USA. It would be an interesting thing, why not.

go for a drink

Spent the morning sorting things again, and thinking about others. The infra red heater does not entirely live up to expectations, but it warms a bit and it is silent. That is a major advantage.

Things drag on and 

then suddenly the to do list is filled with ticks.

Leave the house and go to the hardware store and buy an ironing board. It is large and sturdy, and it can open up to a comfortable height. Now it its no longer necessary to bend over whilst ironing, this makes the chore more relaxing and also faster. The early evening is therefore spent flattening shirts.

The second part of the evening was spent dismantling an old apple laptop. It was a small thin thing, and it was quite bloated with the decay of the lithium batteries. The final screw flew into the air as the lid flexed and sprang back into shape. The screw was later found on the floor. Apple used Pentalobe screw heads, they may be the only people who do.

And now it is time to go out for a drink.

not much

 It was a strange day, and it is sad that it is no longer possible to get out of bed easily. This seems to be one of the facts of life and of getting older. 

Attempt to fix all the files, and then discover that there is one missing. This is sad. It will be possible to recover it from the raw files on the chips, the ones that do not get thrown away. But this will take time, it is a nuiscance.

It is afternoon before venturing out onto the streets, and proceed straight to the car park, the one that is ridiculously jammed full of christmas shoppers and the like at this time of year. Leave the car  park and then stop at a supermarket to buy eggs.  Spend some time finding the eggs, they are hidden behind the vegetables. 

The woman at the till is slow and friendly.

Take the car through the tunnel, and then through the town. At this time there are free local parking places for residents.

And then return to the house. The heating device for the rooms has arrived. Unpack it, read the instructions, and assemble it. It is no trouble. It is just a simple white radiator. It is supposed to work using infra red radiation, but there are some doubls as to whether this will work. Leave it switched on, and watch the temperature sink to fourteen degrees and stay there. At least, the device makes no noise.

In the evening, go out to the pub.

The pub on a Wednesday night is actually less boring than on a Monday night.

But not much.

nowt

 It was morning and now it is night. The day spent working out which pictures go where and why and what for. 

In the evening, a meal at the local restaurant in the country, It was a fine place.

Upon requesti, told the story of this life, a short account to interested ears.

Perhaps the work of the past months is for nowt now.

After a long search for a place to park the car, arrive at home and collapse ont the bed.

Sleep for an hour.

And now it is now.

steam valve

 It is eight in the evening and the day has been deadly slow for some reason. There was some joy that a new heating device would arrive, but apparently there was some disaster with the delivery service and it will probably only arrive tomorrow. That is a shame. Half the day spent waiting for a package.

There was a midday visit to the Thai food place. They produce a nice meal at a low price. It is a place worth visiting again.

But really, nothing much happened. The artists book is making progress. The photographer is mentioned, but not forced into the limelight which is good. 

But otherwise, not much happened. The kitchen was tidied, for the interaction of the wife and the son had turned it into a complete and utter mess, with all kinds of utensils, appliances, half used food packages and kitchen implements left where they had last been used.

Such a mess, but easy enough to bring to a kind of order.

The second hand coffee maker  has an attachement for making steam. It has now become obvious that there is a concealed valve which automatically turns off the jet of steam when this attachment is pushed aside. This is the only way to close this valve. It is very strange. But we live and learn. The next time a cappuccino drinker is in the house the thing may be used.

miserable tenth

 The receeding cold infection is just not receeding fast enough to make its carrier happy. The lack of energy in this cold weather is just unpleasant.

Let the morning flow away, clean up the rooms a bit and answer a few mails. But the stuffy shivery feeling just will not go away like it should, and there is no mild  comfort at all. Set up the camera to try and learn all of the secrets of the digital back. Learn a few of them, and begin to understand the stunning abilities of the new lens, a lens capable of accomodating the wildest movements of the back. From an artistic point of view, the whole thing was a stunning success. From a financial point of view probably a disaster, but then who cares.

Leave the house to go to the café. but this is just crowded and steamy. Go and visit the turk, he makes a kebab, that is nourishing. He is turning ever more friendly, perhaps he is getiing used to serving old men kids food.

The day is turning colder, and there is nobody to talk to. The son is busy dealing with his Landshut friends.

It is a miserable tenth of December.

language is made for making mistakes

 Today is strange after the praise from the crowd at Torretta's yesterday. The quality street of Landshut all loved to see pictures of themselves in black and white. They were effusive in praise and expressed their wish to order copies.

There is no concept there as to what to charge and as to how much the things are worth.

No idea at all as to what the correct price is. Bare material value is not enough and the total of all the real costs is probably too much. Inform them that a concept will be worked out. There is music, there is a good saxophone player, one of the women is celebrating her birthday. The quiet writer turns out to be a good pianist with some musicality.

Awake late, the night's revenge and the price that is to be paid for the consumption of even moderate quantities of alcohol, or hop juice or whatever.

The wife is still silent, she has not commented on having forgotten to visit her parents. Despite her fathers illness, she did not go.

Observe that the supply of cat food is waning, so buy more at the local shop in the Landshut main street. Buy liquid soap too, because that is in shorter supply now as well. The strongly crystallised snow is everywhere, but the roads are just salty wet and no longe slippery. People are everywhere doing Christmas shopping, all with flushed excited faces.

There are prints to be made, and a short resume to be written. It is to be written in German. That causes an instant blockage, the language is made for making mistakes.

And the price reference book needs to be read.

ugly symptoms

 It is no use at all the cold will not go away. Take the day easy then go out to do some shopping. Then rhe cold is back with all of its ugly symptoms. Spend the day sending mail and looking at things. read the book to its dissapointng happy end. The dream man turns out to be the hero of the day, that is boring.

The ugly day turns into an ugly evening, go to the pub, write these notes and resolve to have anorther glass to drown the frustration od the days

cheap thrills and no cure for the common cold

 This was a slow starting day, with a return to dreams of the most remarkable kind. It was a dream of meeting a person and recognising the voice, but this belonged to a different person in the dream. This was strange. The temperature outside is extraordinarily cold, will be  minus seven degrees centigrade this evening. It has not been this cold for a long time.

Stay in bed for a while, try to get rid of the cold by staying warm. In the early afternoon there is an appointment at the garage, perhaps they can say something about the oil consumption in the car.

The friendly mechanics in the official garage were actually not able to say very much, and most of what they suggested would be prohibitively expensive.

Take the car to the other garage, and the mechanic there is friendly, After some thought he removes the O ring from the oil filler cap and replaces it with a heavy duty new O-ring.

Instantly, the motor becomes quiet, it now no longer makes such a noise. The O ring seal on the oil cap had hardened, it no longer sealed the lid properly. This caused the crankcase ventilation system to not work properly. And therefore the car burnt the oil that was forced into the cylinders by the excess pressure. Or something like that.

That repair was free. How nice very nice it is to get something without having to pay extra for it.

Visit a nearby consumer electronics shop and buy a repeater for the home wLan system. And whilst in town again buy a warming drink with zinc and vitamin c . The apothecaries assistant informs that this is probably good at preventing infections. It will, however, not cure the common cold.

pretty bleak

 The point is that this is now an illness. At the dentists a charming young woman carefully filled and repaired the broken tooth. There was no anaesthetic needed, that particular tooth is stone dead on a filled root canal. But upon leaving the dentist's at half past nine the cold is to be felt in the throat and on the left hand sihde of the thorax. If this gets no better, then it will become necessary to go to a doctor, lest there be a heart complaint to worry about.

The wife does not talk to her husband any more, there are no replies to any greetings. She sits in the catastrophically untidy living room and either stares at her computer or into the television set. When she is not at work, that is what she does. And that is all.

It is the end of a relationship, most likely.  The café is desolate today, it is full of idiots, and there is no comfort there at all. 

Shopping after the dentist, eggs and white bread for the next breakfast, and forget to buy lemon drink for the throat. And then go to another café, but their coffee machine has given up the ghost so that is that. Try yet another, and that is in order. There is both coffee and a roll to be had there. 

The misery in the chest has gone away, but there is no need to hang about in the slushy weather, all the snow melting away in preparation for a bleak Christmas.

excess in case of need

 Today, a second road trip, to Munich, in the company of the two artists, the artists working on a catalogue of their work. It is a troubled journey in, with snow and ice on the roads. It was difficult with the cold in the head and the pain in the throat to maintain a cheerful aspect. It was unpleasant to walk over the icy surfaces in Munich, the little café was cold and a bit uncomfortable but very stylish.

There was a two hour conversation with the author who will write the foreword to the artist's catalogue. This was all very nice, said a lot of um and ah and kept quiet. After all, this was just the photographer, and only being there to answer questions about the pictures p recluded conversation in the near total absence of questions.

Then there was the long drive back to Landshut and a pleasant small meal in a Thai place. A place that does fried rice and pork very nicely, and, if you want you can have half a duck.

Then go home and arrange the promised illustrated file. Use the Apple program only to discover that it will not export a file to Microsoft Excel with pictures. This is bad, and sad.

And then lie down after drinking some glasses of water to calm the throat. The cool fizzy water cools the throat and the mind as well. Then spread some gel as per the doctor's instruction onto the nose. It is pleasantly cooling as well, so decide to cover the rest of the face with it, in case of need.

And then carry on working on the files of the jazz concert.

Untill those worth a two star rating have received this qualification.

road trip

 The printer has blocked the internet, so mw the mobile 'phone has to serve instead. This is really slow.

The sun came up to the room and asked to be driven to Bayreuth after all. Start this undertaking by taking the shovel out to the parking place and digging the car out from under the blanket of snow covering it. Then take the icy cold vehicle back to the street and pick up the son's things.

The drive to Bayreuth is long and uneventful, it is no more than a boring stretch of motorway driving. It takes nearly three hours to get there. Rest on his bed in his room for an hour, and then, after he has completed his university business, go back home to Landshut.

In Landshut they appear to have been unable to clear the snow, and the town is in the grip of a huge traffic jam. It takes half an Hour more to get home.

pressure cooker

 It was cold enough to stop the clock, at five in the morning or thereabouts it just stopped. It was evening before it was noticed that it was not ticking any more. The day was spent in disregard of time, waiting for things to happen which did then not occur. Read the book for a while, printed the Christmas cards that had been ordered.

It was just a day of general discontent. The printer refused service at first, but after a while, and a few changed parameters it worked correctly. The snow outside is slowly melting where the sun shines down upon it, but it is not enough to clear this snow from the  roofs of all the buildings.

The day is spent weakly, there is a constant loud hiss in the head today, you can call it tinnitus but it is the sound of a pressure cooker.

Snow day

The light from the window was brighter earlier on account of the layer of snow covering all the roofs outside the windows. See that it must have been snowing for a long time, maybe all of the previous night.

It is later today, there is no need to get up early, there are no errands to be run, not so early, anyway. After breakfast try to fix the pictures taken yesterday. A sculpture lit with a warm spotlight in an otherwise daylit church before a roughly plastered white wall. This ends up as a mass of colouring, all blues and reds that show up on the picture even more than they would have in reality.

Do them one after another, then realise that they are all different.

This is no good. They will need to be finished later.

Empty the dishwasher that had been started whilst making breakfast, and then leave the house. Go shopping, it is all that can be done now. The wife has already triumphantly declared that the son is at her parents place, and that he will not be around later as there is no train service because of the snow.

The town has many pedestrians wandering about now. There has been a warning on the mobile phone that no unnecessary car journeys are to be taken. People are taking this to heart and going Christmas shopping instead of going to work.

Return home, decide to lie down before carrying on with the work of just producing a picture of a colourful sculpture against a white background.

that is how things turn out

 A long day, starting early, wait outside the house for the artists to arrive with their bus. Clear the snow off the path in front of the house so that people do not slip on it. It is a civic duty in the town to do this. The artists arrive, pack the camera case and the tripod into the grey bus, and drive away.

They drive for a long way, to a town in the north east of Bavaria. They have a piece to set up in a church there. They arrive in the town, and the priest is already waiting. After a short discussion over where to place the piece the tall ceramic figure was brought into the church.

Taking the pictures of the piece takes almost as long as setting it up.

Afterwards, there is a meal in a small guest house at the invitation of the priest. After all of this the journey goes on to a renovated building with a café and a museum. There is a statue of a seated person to be errected there.

Help setting it up, but afterwards it is too dark for any serious photography.

That is sad, but that is how things turn out

awful

 A day spent in company, being driven to Regensburg in the morning and helping to set up a small statue in a church, then taking a picture of it, and then being driven back. A pleasant midday meal in a small Thai place ends the morning.

Return home, download the pictures, start to correct them and then feel awful

This is the remains of yesterdays post, the rest of which was lost in a digital disaster