Cold.

I woke very early this morning. As I lay watching the sky lighten I realised that the noises I could hear were from our house rather than the neighbours'. (We do hear things like front doors being closed but not too much.) Wondering if it might be a burglar, unlikely or a strange cat come in through the cat flap it turned out to have been the sound of 6 eggs hitting the marble floor after a determined effort on the cats' part to move the waste food caddy to the edge of the counter and thence onto the floor. Needless to say I was not amused.

At least being up so early gave me the chance to do my exercises and make porridge before a friend of Peter's came round to have a look at the garage door. Larry has been an engineer and knows about such things. He brought round some new pulley wires and explained how to fit them as well as how to close the door while it is still in its dilapidated state. 

I was not best pleased when I saw how the removal men had crammed stuff in the garage. No wonder they had reached a point where no more could fit. I think if they had taken a bit more time it would have been more sensibly stacked. Never mind, today I moved a lot of the stuff outside (I work better on my own when I'm trying to think of a plan as I go along) so that I could make some order out of the chaos. We had hoped that the big round garden table would go in the back garden on one of the decks but unfortunately it is a bit too big to manoeuver through the house. Once I had cleared out some stuff that should have gone to the dump in the first place and filled up a tall wooden cupboard with tools it was possible to stack the rest of the boxes and rearrange the odd shaped items so that things are accessible. There are still 3 pieces of furniture that need to come into the house when the walls are painted which will make even more room. We decided not to keep the antique overmantle mirror and the local hospice shop is coming to collect it next week which will give us a bit more space. Getting the garage sorted was a major job but as I had a car full of stuff I drove over to the dump to get rid of it all. 

It has been very cold today, mainly bright with the occasional shower. The sheets that I hung outside dried nicely in time for me to iron them. Peter feels the cold much more than me and while I still keep my study window open for the breeze he sits in his study wrapped up like a parcel. I haven't had the heart to point out that due to the staggered layout of the houses his room has 2 outside walls while the other rooms only have 1.