Thursday 10 January 2013

Girth

The festive season is not good for one's shape. Nor is Christmas cake. There seems to have been some increase in weight and dimensions. This is not good news, as tight clothes are uncomfortable, particularly if they are somewhat high-waisted.

As the cool change is lingering hereabouts for another day or so, it seemed a good idea to go for a walk, and accordingly I did so, and made the intention to make this a regular practice. Perhaps returning to regular swimming would be a good idea - something I have not done since Dr P's decline, when such frivolous activities outside the house became  impossible.

The walk was very pleasant. The council workers were out and about with the leaf blowers, cleaning the streets. The blowers are nasty, noisy smelly beasts, but there was a large amount of leaf matter on the streets, and it seems meet and fitting that it should be collected and taken away to be composted somewhere. Although I did wonder about whether leaf blowers are more effective and efficient than the simple, humble and relatively quiet rake?

As I walked along, I admired the gardens. In this area, gardens are somewhat microscopic, and there does seems to be relatively little variety in the plants grown. The frangipannis are flowering and they are delightful. Lots of geraniums are around. I passed one particularly floriferous garden, full of brilliant red geraniums and commented to the man at work there how pretty it was. I had to speak loudly because of the noise of all the leaf blowers. He was delighted to have his garden admired and promptly cut me off a lovely red rose.

My next stop was the hardware shop, to buy some painter's tape. I know I have a roll somewhere, but do you think I could find it?  It will undoubtedly turn up shortly, now that I have bought some more. The tape might enable me to put up some block out fabric to help keep the house cooler. I have taken some measurements already. Be prepared.

Justin, the nice air conditioner man came along and inspected the air conditioner. He checked the fuse box - something that had not occurred to me when I rang to get him to come and fix it all. Sure enough, the fuse had flipped.  Justin went onto the roof, where the machine lives, and found it had rusted, and probably won't have a very long future. He said the temperature on the roof - corrugated iron, would have been heading for 50 degrees and no wonder the machine had a fainting fit.  He gave me an estimate of getting a new unit, but said not to do it yet - wait and see how it goes.

Well, I must dash off now, for lunch with friends. I may have to go out for another walk this evening.

Obviously my New Year's resolution must focus on moderation and sobriety.

2 comments:

Elephant's Child said...

Lunch with friends, a walk, perhaps two AND the gift of a red rose sounds like a pretty good day.

Friko said...

Glad to hear it was cool enough for a walk outdoors and also cool enough for the man to work in his garden.

It all seems so strange to me. Blogging contact with people on the other side of the world really brings it home to me how many facets there to life on earth.