Palindromes

Today is the 2nd February 2020. I noticed when I was writing a letter this morning that the date is 02/02/2020. That makes it a palindrome ie word, phrase or sentence or series of numbers which reads the same backwards or forwards. But then you know that. Sorry. I've just realised that I might seem patronising. Apologies if I did.  In fact it's even palindromic to our friends in North America. What made you do that I wonder? Perversity? A desire to be different? Who cares. It is what it is. It occurred to me that palindromic dates don't happen very often. The next one would have to be 12/12/2121 I think. Unless anyone can tell me differently. After that I'd have to use my noddle and it's a Sunday. I don't work on Sunday. Well not apart from gardening, housework, washing and ironing. As my Dad used to say "The better the day the better the deed."

By the way the spider's web is not palindromic even if it were perfectly symmetrical: which it is not.

On Getting Wet

Pluviophile (should that be pluvia (L.) meaning rain?): A lover of rain; someone who finds joy and peace of mind during rainy days. Antonym: Ombrophobe.

So long as I am prepared for it I don't mind walking in the rain. When I was a youngster we spent our holidays in North Wales or in The Lake District. Our annual holiday were always in August (school holidays and Dad's holidays) which was the busiest month for those areas. However, August was also the wettest summer month in North Wales and The Lake District.

The family's big love was walking up hills and mountains. Bearing in mind that we had waterproofs which were well behind the modern day standards of breathable, overnight drying materials, we often started out with waterproofs not much drier than we had arrived home the previous evening. 

We decided that it was such an inevitability that there was no use moaning about it so we simply got on with it and decided whether we were going to be Lesser Wetted Hikers or Greater Wetted Hikers that day.

Even today I am very happy to go out for my walk however wet it is. But then I have superb waterproof gear and by the time I arrive at The Woodlands for my morning coffee after my morning walk and have hung up my waterproofs I'm as happy as Larry. A far cry from my Lake District days.

I'm not, however a pluviophile. Today started out dry. The afternoon was dry. I went to a funeral at midday. On Lewis the coffin is carried by the mourners in turn for as long as it takes for every mourner to have a 'lift'. (A good Lewis tradition worthy of a post perhaps). I was wearing a Crombie (heavy wool overcoat). I was wearing black leather town shoes. During the half hour that it took to carry the coffin the heavens opened. We got wet. There is nothing heavier nor more uncomfortable than a soaking Crombie and wet town shoes.

One Hundred Things? You're Kidding.

I think I was in hospital when I came across an article in a paper (in hospital and on ferry journeys are just about the only times I tend to read newspapers these days) which said that decluttering guru Mary Lambert says we only need 100 items and once we cull we will be happier, calmer and more successful. The journalist writing the article said that she had spent a strange weekend counting her possessions and had over 100,000 in her one-bedroom flat. Apparently the 'average' US home has over 300,000 possessions. 

There are, of course, 'rules' to this. Clothes count as possessions (well that my 100 used up easily) but all similar essential clothes like socks, handkerchiefs, underwear etc just count as one item for each type. Crockery doesn’t count, nor does food and drink (so my collection of wines and spirits is allowed, phew) or cleaning materials, tools or bed linen. 

Lambert cheerily quips that the lighter life is addictive and you might find yourself wanting to downsize in these areas too. Lambert acknowledges that whittling everything down to 100 items is no mean feat and suggests tackling it over a period of seven months. Seven months! Seven years perhaps. After all it's taken me 7 decades to acquire this much.

I have no intention of counting my possessions but having done a quick tally of things viewable just in my living room I can say that having 1200 CDs and coming up to 1000 books doesn't augur well for my total being under 100,000 in the whole house. I have several hundred thousand photographs. Do they count?

I'm sure that decluttering is a worthy objective and I suspect most of us have been or are aiming somewhere along those lines. 

In reality I wonder how many things we can live with. At my age one could try moving into one-bedroom sheltered accommodation to find out. 

Without that sort of incentive, though the real question is how many things we are willing to get rid of.

Mittens

Cro recently posted about mittens. 

It reminded me that I have a pair of woollen mittens of a curious design that my maternal grandmother knitted for me when I was a very young man.

Believe it or not they have had some serious wear in their early days when, for example, mending my bike in the winter and when I've needed my fingers in snowy situations. They still live in my glove drawer but, I confess, haven't been worn in 'anger' for a good few years.