Recalling heat/cold

It must be the coldest day of the year here so far - about -2 in the day; a day of solid greyness, everything utterly silent as if snow might start falling, but nothing is forecast.

I did walk the dog but, unsually, didn't enjoy it, just very keen to get back inside and get a fire going. I did also barrow some wood in, and attempted to clear one of the overgrown garden beds but it was short-lived... back to making put-off phone calls and sorting in-tray filings. 

While trying to find a photo of my passport, I came across a few garden pictures taken last July. The one below sticks in my mind. It was about 34 degrees in the evening and I was trying to capture the essence of the mid summer to add photos to our website. The river beckoned, shirt stuck to my back with sweat, mozzies homing in for a dusk feeding session . . . all impossible to imagine now as I sit in our 'office' on the landing which I have sealed off with an old sheet to trap the heat from the oil heater under the desk. It's a lot better than the yawning void onto the staircase which we naively thought would heat up if we opened the kitchen door - where the wood stove is. 

The kitchen door stays firmly shut, that room the only really warm sanctuary in the house; but it's okay, we just scurry around the rest of the house dressed in many jumpers, (as the previous resident did, and the ones before her,) occasionally stopping to glance out of a window and remember when it was too hot to venture outside...

Remember this?

While trying to find a photograph of the beginning of our renovation project I stopped scrolling and sighed at the sight of a shady part of the garden. Shady . . . sheltering from the sun. Difficult to imagine at the end of January when the sun seems to have been covered by dull blankets of grey for some days now. I'm not complaining. I like winter with all its melancholic landscapes of skeletal trees, the layering of clothes before venturing out - or in fact staying in - our heating is very minimal; wood fires, soup, brisk walks, etc... but I would be quite happy to time-travel back to that point of tea under the apple tree for a few minutes. Still, signs of spring are well established in the garden - daffodils and snowdrops in abundance, birds establishing territory for nesting and the days stealthily lengthening.

 

The meaning of stuff

I, bizarrely, decided to clean the mantlepiece this morning. The one downside of a wood fire is the vast amounts of dust. I don't usually notice it, and certainly no one else does - perhaps the big dog; she was staring fixedly at a huge, grey cobweb yesterday. Maybe household disorder disturbs her? We'll never know.
Anyway . . . I did - dust, and it was amazing how gleaming everything now looks, in a grey February light at least. And it was an interesting nip back into the past for a while as I thought about the objects that have become fixtures in the part of our front room that becomes so important in the winter months.
A recent friend of mine told me over a cup of tea that she has thrown everything away, or at least given away. Everything. Just a box or two remaining. How incredible that is; I am in awe of anyone who could accomplish such a feat. Sometimes I imagine us moving to a smaller place, and honing down the STUFF. How would you choose what should stay or go, to quote The Clash.
Here's a picture of a small section of the mantlepiece (without dust) and a brief history of the stuff that resides there.

from the left:
A dragon soap-stone letter seal: unusual in that it was from Mark's past. Most of the household clutter is of my doing - other than records and instruments that make up about 50% of the habitable space.
It was his dad's and resided on their mantlepiece until Mark 'borrowed' it to carve his own version in wood; I have it here on the desk and it's rather good.

A hippo that I think came from Brick Lane Market, donkey's years ago. The mantlepiece holds many other wooden creatures from that era.

Metal number 6 from a railway line; a find from a vide grenier/car boot sale, and my lucky number.

A piece of tile from the original Limoux tile factory that Ezra spotted on one of our 'let's walk around a part of town we don't know on this drizzly day' walks. Ale being significant in our family as the title of one of Tommy Trinder's drinking songs in Champagne Charlie, probably our most watched film: ever.
'Ale owd (old) Ale, give me a glass of owd Ale, nothing quite like the juice of the hop, nothing quite like when to know when to stop - give me . . . Ale owd ale' . . . etc.

A flattened fork from another walk around a vineyard. It was the only thing left in an old vinegrower's hut, and I think has featured in a previous post - touched by it as I was.

Ah. Something I could never get rid of. I will have to be buried with it.
A photo of a proud 1960's lady with her hair all 'done nice' in her garden arranging her collection of Pekingese dogs on a coffee table. What more could you want in a photo?

I suppose I could get the really VITAL things into one box if I had to choose: a bit like Desert Island Discs for stuff.