Landfill

I am afraid I fell victim to apathy for some months there.

When the printed word first emerged I believe the knowledge it embodied was hoarded by the elite few who could read it. Uneducated folk like myself would have had about as much chance of getting their hands on a book as I would on the trigger for the vast particle collider. The one thing many of us have in common is this ability to pass on knowledge through writing but we find ourselves in the opposite situation where there is so much written and other junk about the place that one has to have a very course tea strainer in order to avoid having it filled at each moment with detritus.

As I say, for a while I fell into the habit of classifying my own efforts here among the cloggage, but a recent change in the BBC podcast regime meant that I was able to listen to a podcast of Morissey speaking on Desert island disks. The man at fifty seemed to take such relish in having honed the mentality of a teenager for the past 30 odd years that I felt once more empowered to take my place among the shed leaves on the autumn pavement of civilized contemporaneity. Besides, the autumn chill means that the stove is lit morning to night and the early evenings leave me with free time sitting next to it, which I might make so bold as to utilize in sharing my own ha'peth. I do not do this out of any sense of ego, merely because I am about to die as Mr M puts it and I would like to pass the time of day before the last breath wheezes out. Hopefully a long time away, but however long it may seem to you, it will be but an instant for me, so be patient.

I am now in the middle of a project, and much of the preparation has been lost to posterity due to my distracted psyche. Thankfully my projects draw out over time in an expansive manner, so you have not missed the entirety. Currently I am engaged on a great deal of TIG welding. The doors I am making have eight windows within them and there will also be windows within the frame that surrounds the double doors.

The door timbers are almost all jointed and ready, none glued, but the voids for the windows are there for me to fill. To begin though, our immediate concern is with stink bugs. We are plagued with them this year more than any other I can recall. These chaps demand respect as they exude a disgusting odor at the least provocation. The most striking thing about having so many such indomitable insects in the home at all hours of the day is how alike they all are. I have studied them through the close focus binoculars and found them fascinating in structure and coloration, but they must have chromosomes like strands of titanium to remain so homogeneous in their multitude.