Sunday 22 April 2012

If I were the treasurer...well. we'd better keep Wayne Swan

It is probably just as well I am not the Treasurer, responsible for creating and maintaining a budget surplus, as I have suddenly lashed out and bought a thing upon which to put the TV. It is quite beautiful, made of red gum. The nice men who delivered it put all the equipment in and on it, all the power cords through the holes in the back, and now all the DVDs are in the rather lovely and capacious drawers. I sit and purr as I admire it, and my exquisite taste.

I have such plans! Necessarily rather long range, so that I can pay all the bills. I have just posted some money to the lawyers. This should probably be the last payment, but I expect another one might arrive. It feels rather like tossing luxurious and plentiful hunks of fillet of beast to the ravenous and insatiable hordes, but hey, they did the work, we got a result I am happy with, it is all finished and done with, or it will be once the Other Side stops finding stray bills which should have been sent my way sooner, and notifies all the various bodies not to send stuff care of me any more, and I am doing my best to damp down my Inner Grump, and to learn to count my blessings. Once I pay the tax instalment and the rates and all the usual stuff, and then go back to the crematorium to organise and pay for the niche and the plaque, the Next Steps in life can be pursued.

Other than these trifling every day problems, from which few of us are immune, a novel idea is seeping into my consciousness. To whit, I can do what I like. I can make decisions and carry them out and no one can stop me, and if they want to criticise me, well, my hide has been thickening for some time now, and I can probably cope. Actually I'd like to get everything I think of done immediately, but I retain sufficient common sense to understand that this would not be a good idea. Nor is it feasible.

Intensive clearing out is underway. Books, in particular! This takes forever, but there are now four boxes of books which can get back onto the merry-go-round of life and learning. There is a lot of re-arranging of the books which I am keeping, which are many and varied. Next week I must telephone the people who come and take away your books and then sell them as a fund raising activity. How the wheel of life keeps turning.

My barrister asked me how many books I had, and he looked rather astounded when I told him I had about 100 linear metres of them. There probably remain 99 linear metres still.  I'd like to have all my books on music together, ditto the biographies, the language usage and learning, the children's books, the reference books, the historical material and the art and travelling. It is a slow process, moving and reorganising books, armful by armful. And it is very dependent and the size of the bookcases and the height of the shelves, and this means that the ideal arrangements simply cannot be achieved. And of course, when one (invariably) succumbs to temptation at the second hand book stalls at the market, further problems creep on apace.

It is actually rather fascinating rediscovering many of these books. Alas, over the years my mind has become rather hoppity, and I lurch from one book or topic to another, and do not spend long enough on any one of them.

Goodness me, I have complicated ways of tidying up myself and my things. Though laborious and time-consuming, they are quite good fun.


2 comments:

VioletSky said...

I am a bit astounded at the space you have filled with books, too!!

Elephant's Child said...

I am quite sure that books reproduce overnight when things are quiet. It is the only way I can understand the sheer number of books we have.
I am really happy that you have achieved the freedom to be yourself and to do as you wish. Magic.