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Fish net tights and
open windows,
A cooling breeze and
bug free nights await,
Polluting pollen pest still sucks but
antihistamine helps; mostly
There’s summer in the air and
I might just survive it, again
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Saddleworth Moor
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In our modern world,
with artificial intelligence,
robots and automation,
it is baffling to see
that we still fight fires,
especially land fires,
with men on the ground,
in the smoke and heat.
This should be the
Rise of the Drones,
the autonomous army
of mechanically built
soldiers, to fight 24/7
supervised from afar,
by humans
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Adventures of a racing mind series
Being on the up, on a high, is from a bipolar perspective quite an interesting place to be. There are constantly new ideas popping up without resistance. Everything seems possible. Like yesterday when I decided that I should repair the fence in the communal area in my neighbourhood. It is a wodden fence which suffered the combined might of a car reversing into it followed by a visit from the local yoofs (slacker gang of young people with nothing better to do than ruin neighbourhoods). The repair was basically replacing four 6ft planks. In my head anyway…
While I was taking the measurements of the existing planks I started to think about how bad the fence would look with new and old planks mixed. I therefore decided that I should paint the fence after the repairs. Makes sense, right? It must look good as well as being functionally in order.
Next to the broken fence is another fence, and in that fence is a door. The door leads to my back garden. It is my door and it has never been painted since the property was built. So obviously it needs to be painted now, cause I am in the process of painting a fence anyway. Makes sense, right?
In my garden there are three bins, a blue for recycling, a green for grass and organic compostables, and a black for household rubbish. Keeping the bins in the back garden is not mandatory, I could have kept them in front of the house, garage or front garden but for aesthetical reason I tucked them away in the back garden.
The back garden is fully turfed, except for a small patio and a gravel area hosting a water but. Having made that statement I hope you deduced that the bins must have been placed on the grass? Correct. And after having kept the bins on the grass for a few years there is literary no grass left in the bin area. It is a sore sight indeed. But where there are problems there are obviously solutions, especially when your on a high… so I decided that I should put down a few paving slabs to make the bin area look a bit nicer. Makes sense, right?
So later yesterday evening I went online and researched how to put down patio slabs. Which tools I would need and the ingredients for this recipe for disaster. And I needed paint for the fence. And planks for the fence. During checkout at the DIY store I realised that they would be able to deliver for another 7 days. 7 days! But I need the stuff now. I’m need to repair the fence tomorrow. Paint tomorrow. Pave the day after at the latest. It need the stuff tomorrow!!!!! So I decided to change to click+collect instead of delivery as I needed the stuff now!!
The order confirmation email kindly informed me that I would get another email when the order was ready for pick-up. About 1 hour later. 1h. 1h. 1h. Relax, 1h is fine. You managed to order everything, relax. Breath. Breath… unfortunately the shop had already closed by the time I received the email so the pickup would have to wait till the morning.
Later that night when I couldn’t sleep due to the heat I started pondering on how I should transport the items I had ordered from the shop to my home. The planks were quite long, 12 ft. The slabs might also be quite bulky. Then there’s the sand, the base layer, cement, paint… Seemed to add up to quite a haul. Well the planks needs to be cut in half. 6ft long they can be kept in the car, possibly the hardtop needs to be removed (Which isn’t a problem as the summer is here!!!!). The sand and base layer I can place on the passenger seat. Slabs and paint in the boot. Sorted! Now let’s get some sleep.
4h later, still no sleep. Thinking about hauling this shit in my car. Yes to get sense of how ridiculous my plan was I need to describe the vehicle I intended to use. A two seater sports car with a minimal boot. If the hard-top is removed (my backup plan) the boot becomes unusable… but I had managed to transport lots of stuff from Ikea so it would probably work…
I managed to get a few hours sleep before the alarm went off. Excitement!
During breakfast I had the clever idea that I ought to take some measurements of the car interior and boot just to make sure my calculation were correct…
Planks, 6ft. No they won’t fit with roof on…
Slabs, fits in boot but nothing else will fit beside them…
Can everything fit on passenger seat with roof off? Nope. That is a No Never Ever scenario…
Sigh. What to do now?
Ok, I rent a van! I have done that before, successfully. Let’s order one online now!!!
…
I managed to find a van at enterprise-rent-a-car that I could pick up 1h later. Success. The gods are truly with me today. I picked up the van, the largest one possible unfortunately as they had none of my preferred sizes. Renault transporter thingy, extra long, extra wide, extra high. Shit.
But the drive went well and 45m later I turned up at the DIY store entrance.
Uhm. Two trollies… Those bags are quite large… fuck they are heavy, I mean heavy heavy. Thank god I have a van! Everything was much larger than I had expected. There was no way in hell that I would have been able to fit all this into the car. Phew.
Load shit. Huff n puff. Water. Water.
Drive home went well.
Unloading of shit went well.
Return of van went well.
Once back home the Amazon delivery had already arrived with more of last night’s online orders. I think I forgot to mention the power washer…
Yes the power washer. Obviously there was a need to order a power washer to clean the existing paving slabs around the house, now that I was going to add new, fresh ones. Makes sense, right? Anyway, it had also arrived…
After unpacking the zillion Amazon parcels I decided to do some painting, starting with the garden gate.
Put down paving protection.
Open bucket. Wow. That is quite red…
Stir.
Paint.
Sweat.
Paint.
Coat one Done!
Close bucket.
Clean brush.
Gawd I’m tired. And hungry. I need to eat.
End of part 1
Part 2 will be posted tomorrow and contain more adventures of a raging mind…
– Making the spaghetti Bolognese
– Tumblr, disappointing prompts, stay or go, things that brings me down
– how to survive a summer heat wave
– fence repairs (probably)
– paving (maybe)
Wildfire.. part II
This is part 2 of my Wildfire story which is part of the 2018 #groupsextravaganza and should be read after part 1 which can be found here:
The bang from the four automatic sidearms still rings loud in my head as I slowly recover my senses.
“Hello. The luck of the Irish seems to be with you today my dear. We manage to spot you just in time to shield you from the blasts.”, a voice says without any hints of Irish ancestry.
I slowly open my eyes. There is a sole woman standing in front of me. Her smile is inviting, as is her legs; neatly tucked away in a pair of black leather boots. Between the smile and the boots: a short red patterned skirt with an unbuttoned jacket covering the rest of her.
“Where am I?”, I ask while turning my head to get a better view of the interior of this room, or maybe it is a vehicle of sorts. It somehow managed to save me from imminent death, somehow…
“All in good time, my dear. I will leave it to him to do the induction.”, she says with her smile widening.
The ceiling height is definitely not standard measurements for a house, it is more like a warehouse sized room, ceiling-wise. There are stairs leading up and down to other parts.
“I think I need to lie down to recover for a bit. Do you have anywhere suitable?”, I ask, feeling my head spinning slightly.
“Sure, follow me and I will take you to our sleeping quarter”, she says and I stand; head spinning faster; and follow her down one of the stairs.
“Here to the left is the shower room where you can freshen up, and just across the hallway is our bedroom. We only have one bedroom but there is plenty of space for everyone…”, she concludes the statement with an even broader smile than before. This might get interesting I think to myself.
“Thank you so much. I will take a quick shower and then rest for a bit.” I say then close the shower room door behind me.
After a very refreshing shower, (those bubbles coming out of the shower head was amazing, I make a mental note to ask how they are made later) I cross the hallway into the bedroom.
The woman has laid out a night dress on the bed. I put it on and the white silken dress seems to automatically adjust to my body shape. Not too tight, not too loose, nice…
The rest of the room look quite standard, one bed (massive!), a few built-in wardrobes and a mirror reaching from floor to ceiling.
My reflection is not what I expected. Instead of the wet, messy hair I was expecting, my hair looks like I have just come out of a hairdressers, how odd...
Feeling a sudden weariness coming over me I decide to proceed with the second part of my plan, the nap. I jump head first into the bed and am greeted with a feeling of floating on a cloud. No really, a cloud. I can not feel the bed but I can see that I am resting on something firm. Before I manage to look around futher I feel myself drifting off into a very relaxing sleep.
I am woken by a slight touch on my shoulder. The woman is sitting next to me on the bed. She is wearing a dress similar to mine.
“He has arrived back but will be busy for an hour or so before he can give you the induction and he asked me to begin to show you the ropes…”
“Fine with me, I feel soooo relaxed after the nap. The Bed. Wow. Cloud? The shower. The bubbles!!!! How?” I blurt out too eagerly but I want answers.
“All in good time, my dear. Let’s get to know each other a little better first”, she say as she pull her dress over her shoulders. Leaning forward until her lips almost touch mine, she whispers “My name is Clara. Clara Oswald. What’s yours?”
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screaming through a Halestorm /
chastising my soul / awakening my
mind / tormenting my bones /
recalling what was once lost / I
thank you
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sanity restored / the back door
closed / sanity restored / through the
pounding of drums / sanity restored /
reciting poetry out loud / sanity
restored / by keeping the void at bay
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