Stella (See my list of members) is eloquent about things with little cash value but which are linked to someone close, now dead. Her mother's embroidered table-cloths, for instance.
VR speaks authoritatively: "Those could never be thrown away."
Our problems are different. Twice I've tried to store vegetables, mineral water, beer and soft drinks in the garage in a space-efficient yet accessible manner. I've over-bought the systems: stackable plastic drawers (see pic), knocked-down fabric drawers. VR wants these redundancies gone but parsimony makes me drag my heels. The items are hardly used, they cost money - recently.
The other problem is less tractable, buried in my psyche. Some years ago I bought an exercise bicycle which I kept in the shed. Initially MP3 music stemmed the boredom, then the complete (ie, 22 CDs) audio version of Ulysses - the ideal counterpoint to mindless labour. Ill health interrupted my exercises, the effects departed slowly and I never resumed. (Meanwhile VR tried Ulysses and was charmed.) Now VR wants to see the back of the bike. There's the money of course (£200) but much more is the admission of defeat. I am, as they say, a wart on the arse of progress.
JOE’S NUDGE
Shut, shut the door, good John! fatigued I said:
Tie up the knocker, say I’m sick, I’m dead.
The Dog-star rages! Nay, ‘tis past a doubt,
All Bedlam, or Parnassus, is let out:
A veritable gallimaufry of punctuation, taken as usual from The Poet’s Tongue, an anthology where poems and their authors are listed separately. For the moment I no more know the author than you do. One cannot imagine what follows; one suspects it isn’t serious; yet one is transported by the vigour of expression. Vigour is enough, here; it’s a poem.
Alexander Pope
The agony of separation from our worldly goods! I discovered a service, here called The Furniture Bank. For a flat fee they will bring their big truck and fetch your donations -- in my case a big sofa, table, assorted bits -- and issue a tax receipt for the value. The useful items go to immigrants and others who need a hand up. We want our discards to be valued, and our generation is practical and responsible and abhors waste. i'd have that unit of yours stuffed full of yarn or shoes or embroidered hankies, but please don't drop it off in my driveway.
ReplyDeleteBack on the bike then.
ReplyDeleteStella: I was intending to leave the drawer unit underneath your porte cochère but the double gates to your driveway - looking absolutely splendid in their new coat of gilt paint - were closed. However the couple living in the gate-house, the MacTavishes dressed in what looked like Cameron plaid, said they would take the unit to the back door of "the Big House" in the phaeton later in the day. No doubt you saw it on your return back from lunch with the Governor. The MacTavishes said you'd deliberately driven to Ottawa just to give new Bentley an airing. Instead of using the Learjet, They seemed pleased that in your sere and yellow years you were still capable of having fun.
ReplyDeleteMikeM: Given your homeland's attitude towards wealth and privilege I am unable to pay you the same kind of homage as I do to Stella, the more recent colonial.