Samuel Pepys – another Monday morning – weeds and more weeds

by | Apr 24, 2017 | Latest Post | 0 comments

Reading Time: 4 minutes

I have subscribed to a website which on a daily basis sends one day of the diary of Samuel Pepys and it is interesting to notice that some of his days are quite ordinary.

“down by water to Sir W. Warren’s, who hath been ill, and there talked long with him good discourse, especially about Sir W. Batten’s knavery and his son Castle’s ill language of me behind my back, saying that I favour my fellow traytours, but I shall be even with him”.
Saturday 23rd April 1664

I’m impressed to see that Samuel Pepys took the time to speak with someone who is ill but also that political intrigue is alive and well.

I have finished my preparations for the Wednesday meeting at Southmead Hospital. Because it is a confidential meeting I will not be able to give any detail but I can discuss general trends. Yesterday I wrote to the editor of the Mendip Times, offering my support as voluntary freelance journalist and photographer. Since I do this anyway, and seek out interesting events anyway, it is no burden, not ‘work’ and just an extension of what I’m doing in my Samuel Pepys mode.

Today is a day of fiddles, none of which will bring out any obvious satisfaction. I had to pay some bills, I may have to ring up BT about a faulty phone and will once again have the pleasure of speaking to someone in India, I want to read a relevant chapter in the book “The Body Keeps The Score” which is a wonderful volume written by Bessel Van Der Kolk, one of the world’s leading experts on trauma, I must do some work in the garden, and were doing a little job for a Mrs Stone who needs weeding done. Gardening could be seen as a lowly job, but I regard it as good physical therapy and the means of earning our daily bills. Thank goodness we don’t have a mortgage but I suppose the regular bills and standing orders amount to about £500 per month so that’s got to come from somewhere so gardening it is.

The problem with my phone was that if I plugged in an extension, neither phone would ring and the caller would be told to leave a message. If you call out BT without a good reason you have to pay about £130 so I fiddled around a bit and found that if I took the caller ID gadget off, both phones rang so the something a little bit wrong with the gadget. I’ve just saved myself £130

We went to our customer about 3:30 today and worked for 2 1/2 hours. we last saw her in November and it was a little bit of a shock to see that she was a little bit more unkempt and unsteady on her feet. She had a device in her arm which was used to take regular blood tests. She complained that it was very itchy but there was nothing she could do about it even scratching. She has three nurses come to see her during the day for various things. She can barely walk and I think she’s finding life a bit tough at the moment. She does retain a certain spirit and sense of humour which makes her a pleasant person to do business with.

in its wild state

after scraping off all the weeds

it’s starting to look quite nice actually

The garden had not been attended to since November and the whole place was full of weeds. Weeding is one of my most unfavourite occupations but there’s just some occasions when you just have to get on with it, get into the rhythm, and work through. The soil is so dry that if you try to dig the weeds up the roots break up and before you know where you are they are back again.

I have decided just to scrape the greenery off with a hoe and deal with the growth when it occurs. With boring jobs I tend to work extra hard to get through the job quicker. We must go along again tomorrow and I reckon there’s another six hours worth of work. Still, it pays the council tax which is due in a few days so we mustn’t grumble.

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