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Collected Verse

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Dry, warm with a sweet smelling southerly wind..

Noël Coward:

I am no good at love
My heart should be wise and free
I kill the unfortunate golden goose
whoever it might be
with over articulate tenderness
And too much intensity

I am no good at love
I batter it out of shape
Suspicion tears at my sleepless mind
And, gibbering like an ape,
I lie alone in the endless dark
Knowing there is no escape

I am no good at love
When my easy heart I yeald
Wild words come tumbling from my mouth
Which should have stayed concealed
And my jealousy turns a bed of bliss
into a battlefield

I am no good at love
I betray it with little sins
For I feel the misery of the end
In the moment that it begins
And the bitterness of the last goodbye
Is the bitterness that wins

….what gorgeous bitter melancholy.

Goodnight.

No blind spots

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18°C, windy morning, very wet afternoon. 35 miles

Eye test: now the blind spots have gone, the optician thought that was strange. I’m not so confident in the test, I suspected a false positive 3 years ago, despite the optician’s insistence. He couldn’t see any vitreous floaters either today, I can though. The prescription remains the same, so no new specs. A good result.

The rain, the rain…

Bose Dock “popping” fault

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16°C, cloudy but dry.

Bose Dock doesn’t work? No life from your iPod, no recharge and certainly no sound. All you have is a repeated soft popping sound?
FIX: the power jack is inverted. Despite having chamfered pins on the power jack behind the dock, it is still easy to put the jack in upside-down.
REMEDY: just turn the jack over so the brand name is facing up then it should be back to normal.

It worked on mine anyway.

the same pattern…

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16-22°C, warm but dull overcast.

It follows the same pattern, being ill I mean. Yesterday was the worst, ending with going to bed in a fever, shivering under thick bedding. It always feels like such a waste, so many things I could be doing now, most notably, I have scrapped the idea of climbing a Welsh mountain.
Note: the fine "Dockleaf Bug", who watched as I  cleaned the car this afternoon.
shieldBug

Where is Rosie?

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20°C, good weather, dry & fresh

Today I lost my dog for some time. Some nice folks helped me find her soon enough. She likes to rummage around the wooded fields & lost track of me. The folks who found her said she was frantically running up and down (obviously upset). She slept very well on getting home.
Solutions:
  • Get a whistle*
  • Buy a bell for me and/or her.
  • Put my Mobile number on Rosie’s collar
  • Satellite tracking is out of the question though. What about a radio tag, I can creep about with headphones and a dipole aerial.

*I’m a teacher, I should have one.

Not again

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16°C, cloudy with some rain.
Dammit No.II: it’s raining again, last year July was the rotten month that spoilt the summer for many, this year- August.
Later: it brightens up, the wind gets stronger but at least some sun appears. Result? 34 miles cycling…
…that’s better. Happy now.
So, my good people, if you are feeling restless, can’t sleep or settle to do something requiring concentration this is what you should do:
Go out to the shed, blow up the tyres on your bike, fill the drink bottle and get out there. Pack a rain jacket, go and tap out some miles.
It works every time.

Swarkstone

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27°C, 40% cloud, humid, still air.

Cycling: 71 miles, but at no real pace, it’s too hot to go fast.
Linseed: Hmm, strange, the colours look a bit de-saturated in this photo. Anyway, the last effort was to reduce the slightly flat tones in the legs.

Woodhouses

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19°C, hmid & light cloud cover. The wind has dropped.

Dogwalk: what a fab place, Woodhouses is an area of land that is hardly maintained, it’s full of wild grasses, scrub and mixed woodland. Walking there you could imagine  that you are on the Kazakh steppe, or the US plains.
Cycle: better today, 36 miles and it didn’t feel hard this time. The biting insects were out in numbers today, I have three bulls-eyes on my legs now.
Linseed: first linseed layer on today, this will take longer to dry enough to do the next layer, so I’ll have to do the other canvas tomorrow.