It’s surprising how hard it can be in modern life to really and truly do nothing. Even more tricky, perhaps, is ‘switching off’.
Teresa, my adorable wife, has insisted that I do nothing. I’m not allowed out of the house, even! The reason being a recurrent chest infection I’ve had three years on the trot, over winter.
X-Rays and antibiotics haven’t got to the bottom of it, and what with me having a constellation of ailments in the background, it can be hard – impossible so far, it seems – to know what’s going on. What is or are the root causes?
My mum and uncle both mentioned humidity in the home. And it’s true that our heating has been an issue. We had a new boiler installed last year. So that’s not such an issue any more. But humidity may be.
I cracked out a digital Afro meter … er (predictive spelling, don’t you love it!?)), agrometer, we have. It said the humidity in our lounge was around 55% earlier today. It’s now crept up to 66-67%!? Apparently 70% and over is unhealthy, and really, over 60% should entail the deployment of a dehumidifier.
Dumbkopf that I am I sold a rather flash humidifier and air-purifier we once had. How I wish we still had that! I think we may still have a small one laying around somewhere. Finding it is another thing altogether.
Anyway, I’m practically living on our sofa-bed, downstairs in the living room. And I’ve been watching mucho YouTube, inc. lots of Stavros Gakos (handplane making, and such like), Colin Furze (loud and loony: I particularly dig – see what I did there? – his bunker and underground tunnels; childhood dreams of my own!), and plenty o’ snooker!
Alcohol is out, by command of she who must be obeyed, and I’m not even reading, never mind making, repairing or doing something musical or arty. Under such sorghum-stenches it’s hard not go for the screens and social media. Indeed, impossible, I find!
Still, all in all, I think it’s the right thing. Keep the home warm and dry, totally relax and look after myself. Can’t be bad, right?
The last few things I was doing, friday, before ‘shutdown’, were: building shelves in the workshop, creating a neck/fretboard blank (in rosewood) for the Hofner Congress, and applying a wrap to an old tom, as part of converting it into a marching drum style snare.
The hardest thing is not continuing with these projects, as I feel compelled to keep such things bubbling over. Truth be told I snuck in a little bit of work on the snare, opening some holes for mounting the head tensioning hardware. That’s something I felt was such light work I could do it supine!
And a little writing of Xmas cards and the wrappage of some giftabubbles was also smuggled in. Oh! A quick glance at the agrometer reveals it is – or so it tells me – now down to 59% humidity. And up from 16°C to 18.9°C. I do hope this device is accurate. The room feels no different!
And back on the TV, on YouTube, Sonnie O’Rollivan just made a pig’s ear of a shot… ‘Oh dear!’ quoth Neal Foulds (or was it the other guy?). But, amazingly, and in a reversal of the previous frame – in which Ronnie bizarrely allowed Trump to win a frame by escaping a safety shot snooker with a pot – The Rocket repaid the compliment, albeit in an entirely different looking scenario. I do love snooker!
Well, time to get offa the devices. And settle in for some snooker induced ‘somnia’…