Spiky Grass

A cold and miserable day in spite of the sunshine. I had to wear so many layers that moving was not so easy. Nevertheless, I had to attack the next stage of decommissioning the old fridge-freezer. The freezer was crammed with dozens of small plastic packs of a variety of foods, one meal portions, vegetables from my garden or bought in season, heaps of soup ingredients from 7 or 8 month’s worth of vegetable cooking water for stock, to cooked split peas and barley. From my freezer I can make a pot of rich vegetable soup in less than half an hour. So convenient, but what a nightmare. To get them to fit in the space I made in the chest freezer I had to empty the containers, repack the contents in bags and label them. I still had to dig some into the ice crusted garden.

Handling all that ice when I was feeling so cold anyway was no fun. Fortunately, there was hot and cold water in the kitchen, but the bathroom and laundry were dry. Worse still the drains froze. Water flooded out over the concrete path and turned to ice. I had to keep reminding myself that things were much worse for homeless people. And I was glad of the obsessive wood cutting binge I went on in the autumn. There’s still plenty of ready-to-use firewood.