Saturday, August 10, 2019


A fresher day today, and the sun shone. But now we are back to apocalyptic rain and thunder and lightning. The iPad won’t connect to the internet. I think I’m all right here, with the laptop. We’ll soon see. How bereft I feel without the internet, alone in the universe!

One more row of Spring Shawl today – better than nothing.

Thank you for your kind remarks about Joe and Becca’s wedding. That was a good day.

Here is a pointless anecdote which serves, at least, to illustrate a point I often make, that there are few things better than creating a problem for yourself and then solving it.

Yesterday afternoon, I couldn’t find my keys. Normally, when that is the case, I have but to assure myself that since I am in the house, so must they be. Not so, yesterday. My nice man came about lunchtime (after my soaking in Drummond Place Gardens) and brought me a new battery for the car. When he had installed it, he came to the door and gave me the invoice and I paid him with my debit card and all four of our hands were occupied with this activity.

So when the keys weren’t with the invoice or the card, nor anywhere else plausible, I wondered if he still had them. I was anxious through the night. I rang him up this morning; he was sure he had given them to me. And as I talked to him, I solved the problem: I had put the keys aside, there by the door. Not a normal key-place, but there they were.

I told you it was pointless, but still, a great relief. I went off to the supermarket and the car went vroom, vroom.

Reading: “The Last September” is good, and I’m sure I will persevere, but it is also depressing. It’s a family-in-country-house story, a genre I adore (Mansfield Park! Il Gattopardo! Brideshead!) but this time with the grim sense of the Irish Troubles just beyond the gates, and the knowledge that the Irish will win and the house is doomed. So today I succumbed to a thriller – a medical thriller, at that: “Control” by Hugh Montgomery. It’s certainly thrilling.

8 comments:

  1. I am so glad you bit the bullet and gave your car that new battery - I had that trouble with mine a couple of months back and it meant a wasted hour and a bit in a very boring car park. I get the RAC sent by my insurance people, and lo and behold, they carry a diagnostic clever thing and a selection of batteries and they can sell and fit a new battery right there at the roadside. For no more than the garage would charge.

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  2. Loved those images of the wedding - how bridesmaids' dresses have changed!
    We had car trouble recently - see my blog for details ( cheviots.blogspot.com) as the spammers say. I sent my seventeen year old Fiesta off to the breakers' yard, and bought one registered in 2014. First time out it broke down, and in a pretty decisive fashion. It could have been worse, we keep telling ourselves.

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  3. I had The Last September out of the library a few months ago, but ran out of time and returned it unread. Still on my list. Happy you have keys and a functioning car

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  4. Anonymous12:00 PM

    I saw a fascinating documentary on falconry using eagles in Mongolia recently and the first thing I thought was I don't suppose they have the Internet. Chloe

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    1. Well, maybe not the falconers (big tourist thing there, get your picture taken with an eagle), but certainly in the cities there's coverage - that's how a friend of mine here in Canada teaches hospital engineering technicians there how to maintain equipment (through an interpreter).

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  5. I too loved those wedding pictures. The glorious and vibrant colors of the dresses and flowers were perfect for a high summer wedding. The bridal shawl was perfect, as was the bride and her very handsome groom. Automotive batteries seem to have a finite life span and I’m told that infrequent use will shorten that life. Our farm truck is used seldom and often we find when we turn the key that the battery has lost interest in itself.

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  6. =Tamar6:53 PM

    Batteries are finicky beasts. I was told to keep them charged by driving at least 30 miles in one go, once a week, but eventually they will fail. Thirty miles is farther than it seems; my most distant bookstore wasn't far enough. With the price of fuel nowadays, I can't help wondering if there is a balance point somewhere, between the cost of fuel expended solely to charge the battery, and a new battery. Trickle Chargers are said to help, but I've never used one.

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  7. Jean, just echoing others' thanks for the beautiful summer wedding pics. So glad you were able to be there.

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