wet weather jobs

It rained, yet again.  I was relieved when at lunchtime the Systems Administrator appeared back from Cheltenham, since it was not the weather to be on the roads.  The SA came back mostly cross country, two miles on the M25 being more than enough, with the spray.  I was not expecting the SA in time for lunch, and so had not got anything that the SA would eat, having enjoyed a smoked mackerel fillet myself, but luckily the SA had had a snack on the way, as well as breakfast at the hotel.  The SA went to Cheltenham for a race meeting, of course.  That goes without saying, just as when I refer to Chelsea I mean the flower show, and not the football team, or the area of London around Sloane Square.

I made progress with the ironing room project.  Several boxes of once-read and not likely to be re-read blockbuster thrillers are ready to be taken to the PDSA bookstall, and some detective novels are destined for the railway bookshelf, via my mother's house in case there are any she has not read.  There are some detective novels I wouldn't part with, not just Dorothy Sayers and Margery Allingham but also Nicholas Freeling, but I'm not going to reread Reginald Hill, and I found Snow Falling On Cedars quite unreadably unpleasant first time round.  Which makes it an odd choice to give to my mother, but it was a massive international best seller at the time, so lots of people must have liked it.

Some of the mess from the ironing room has migrated to the spare room, which is cheating slightly, but I did warn the Chairman at the beekeepers' AGM that I'd be seeking the committee's permission to ditch some of the older accounts, and the boxes of magazines.

I finally finished shredding my old bank statements and payslips as well, sustaining only minor flesh wounds while unjamming the shredder.  I think I've got the hang of it now.  The instruction to process a maximum of five sheets at a time is misleading, unless they were airmail letters.  Essentially it can't cope with more than one sheet.  The wire bin that catches the shredded remains needs emptying frequently, so that material falls away cleanly from the cutting blades and doesn't back up, and it's a good idea to give it a quick burst on Rev every now and then, which makes it simultaneously chop and regurgitate any strands caught in the cutters.  If you have allowed a tightly jammed mass of shredded paper to accumulate between the blades it stops working.  You can pull and prise the jammed paper out, but the blades are extremely sharp (hence the flesh wound) and using the point of a sharp knife is a better bet.  I switch if off while I'm doing it, because I'm cautious that way, but as an added safety feature it won't run unless seated properly on its bin.

Apart from tidying the spare rooms, I'm making some bread, which fits in quite well with other indoor tasks as it sat rising while I got on with shuffling books around.  It is currently undergoing its second proving, creeping in a languid fashion towards the top of the tin.