{I bought my soul back from the devil and now I'm keeping it all for myself}

[kaberett]

On Friday night I got back from Cornwall, for the second time in a fortnight. Treasures found include a leaflet from the opening of Goonhilly Downs, a brief diary kept by Papa in the latter half of 1940, typewritten letters both grumpy and endaring, and lots of photographs of varying vintages of relatives various including my great-grandmother and -- of particular interest to me -- Mama icing the Nikolaus biscuits she made us every year, and a family holiday with people standing on the bit of mountain that is the reason I'm a geologist. Horrors included the new mouse nest in the piano, the headline "Don't invite vermin into your home" adjacent another different nest, the receipt from 1964 (WHY, Papa), and guidance on completing your tax return from the early seventies to the mid-nineties inclusive.

I brought back patient letters about European voltage harmonisation for A to read, along with Kerrier District Council guidance pursuant to the introduction of the Health and Safety at Work Act (1974) and an ancient newspaper clipping about a brood of 27 ducklings.

Last night I ran a pile of coppers through vinegar before feeding them to my whale; this morning I spent some time placidly experimenting with picking rusted keyless padlocks while A put waffles in front of me. This afternoon I have been scrubbing down the top of the picnic bench, having acquired the necessary materials to generally spruce it up slightly earlier on, and I've repotted my ridiculous little jade plant into a better soil mix (and confirmed the presence of rootlets in the process). The wild garlic and sage I brought up from Cornwall last weekend are doing well in their tub; the rosemary is incredibly cheerful about the run of dry weather; the parsley is starting to think about flowering.

I'm doing okay.

Comments

[alexseanchai]

♥

[chiasmata]

❤️

[worlds_of_smoke]

♥

[sebenikela]

I ran a pile of coppers through vinegar before feeding them to my whale

I'm sure this makes sense somehow but I am very confused...

[redbird]

That makes two of us.

[kaberett]

Explanation! :-)

[kaberett]

... whoops I thought I'd explained the whale here within living memory, but CLEARLY NOT.

"Coppers" are "copper coins" -- one penny & two penny pieces. If they've been schlatzing around a lot, they get gross and sticky and somewhat corroded, and in order to make them nice and shiny and vaguely hygenic again you give them a bath in vinegar (or some other acid, but distilled white vinegar is cheap and lives in the cleaning cupboard). The whale is a round blue smiley moneybox: fairly shortly after moving into the last flat, A & I were poking around TK Maxx and Found It. "It is a FRIEND," I said, emphatically. "It is roun an blue an smiley an shape like a FREN." Okay, says Adam, do you want to get it? NO I CANNOT POSSIBLY, I repli, IT IS SIX QUID AND FRIVOLOUS AND I CANNOT POSSIBLY.

Right, said A, and bought it.

It has since lived on a flat surface conveniently near the dining table, Smiling At Me, and it eats copper coins. When it is full I will open it up and separate it by denomination and take the resultant bags in to a bank and pay them in, probably. It is much more cheerful than using a jam jar for same, and I derive childish glee from feeding the coppers to the whale.

[kaberett]

Er, "schlatzig" = Austrian dialect for gross/dirty/sticky/urgh, ergo family idiom "schlatzing" = "hanging around while schlatzig, transmitting schlatzig-ness and probably also acquiring more".

[redbird]

Thanks. Coppers I know about (though North Americans* don't have two-penny pieces), and the vinegar made sense: the whale was the confusing bit, for me.

I say "North Americans," but Canada has gotten rid of coppers as well.

[ironed_orchid]

This sounds relaxing, particularly the gardening.

[sfred]

<3