Memories.

After a clear and very windy night the day has been sunny with not a drop of wind. I had been hoping to do a towel wash but as they take forever to dry in the utility room I'll wait for the next windy (and dry) day. All day long heavy swell has been rolling in, a sign of the next storm which is due tomorrow.

As usual after stormy weather the windows were covered in salt and needed washing. Washing the windows with the squeegee is a quick job taking only 10-15 minutes but then ..... I spotted that the aluminium door handles had rust marks so they needed cleaning. And then ...... I saw that the inside of the windows also needed washing which takes a bit longer as I can't just splash water everywhere. 

After that began the main job of the day - making a start on cleaning the big bookcase. This was another job that took a lot longer than I expected. Once I'd taken down the books, hopefully keeping them in some sort of order I thought all I'd need to do to the shelves was give them a quick wipe over. But unfortunately not, there were all sorts of marks on the shelves probably due to the books being slightly damp. I'm hoping that happened when they were in boxes for quite a few years and not because the hall is inherently damp. Also the white caulk I used along the joins in the wood had turned orange in places. That I think is bacterial/fungal growth of some kind. After scrubbing the shelves clean I put thick bleach on the affected caulk and left it for a few hours. Then came the book cleaning. Again I had thought that would just be a light dusting but many needed wiping with paper towels to remove the dirt. The job also took longer because of course I was tempted to look through some of the photo albums. Because Peter had worked in the photographic industry I had many photos of the boys growing up, (Lithuanian) Scout Camp, our homes and the holidays we went on pre-children. Lots of lovely memories.

Something that brought a real smile to my face was a holiday diary written by Vytas, aged 10 in 1996. (This would have been a task given him by me.) Apologies for the handwriting. At that time they didn't concentrate on teaching handwriting in primary schools. Later when I had my own class for a year I taught handwriting in those books with the red and blue lines, on a Friday afternoon long before our school jumped on the latest fad and insisted that every day started with formal handwriting based on a structured system that somebody must have made a lot of money from.. 

Reading this diary I see that we did do a lot of things with the boys that they enjoyed. Sometimes I think I had left the boys to themselves too much but this showed me I hadn't. I love the description below of tidying his brother's room. Linas and Romas were aged 8 and 6 at the time.