Yesterday had seen the beginning of yet another turn of warmer weather, and while it was a perfect day for milling with the crowds in the market square, as the temperatures rose this morning we were grateful to have the place more or less to ourselves to enjoy simply wandering in the shadows, to see what we could see, without having to bump our way through the queues outside the tourist shops. The town felt different. More comfortable perhaps and all the more attractive for the lack of the market (tourist?) crowd.
By mid-afternoon once again rejuvenated with coffee and apple cake, we were ducking between the sunny patches, finding the dappled shade as we walked off unglamorously in the heat, in search of hardware and provisions.
When we bought the boat, our toilet roll holder was the victim of three decades of abuse and was not quite capable of holding anything. One of us had decided the other should make a temporary repair until we found something that we considered suitable.
Almost two decades of further much gentler use later, the non-repaired end gave up with rather a loud clatter, rendering the whole gadget permanently unfit for any purpose except perhaps for metal recycling. We found a suitable replacement a very pleasant walk away, resolved on the way back to amend our list of “Things to do URGENT” by deleting the item “buy TP holder” to read “INSTALL buy TP holder”.
As we passed the maritime museum and its “collection” of privately owned historical boats, amid centuries old houses, with the windmill’s ever watchful, we couldn’t help but admire enthusiasts everywhere keeping the past alive. The work involved in simply keeping these boats afloat, the houses waterproof and the windmills turning, let alone in proper working condition doesn’t bear contemplation.
One of us actually shuddered at the thought of how long their lists of “things to do URGENT”must be.
No comments
Post a Comment