Wednesday 15 April 2015

Polishing silver

This one will be drafted on two or more bits.  Let's see how it goes...

2:00pm Another "where'd the morning go?" day so far.

I spent part of the morning channeling my inner Martha Stewart.  Yes, somewhat at odds with my Y-chromosome.  I don't care what you think ...


Anyway, what prompted this impulse of domesticity was looking in my sock drawer this morning for a pair with fewer holes than the norm. While I was doing this I found a saints medal that was a gift from my former mother-in-law, in connection with my becoming a Catholic just before I married the ex.  I was and remain very fond of my former in-laws and I'm happy to say they seem to view me fondly as well. This was the birthday card they sent me this year:

 
Some of you may know that my devotion to religion has been pretty lacklustre, really since things went so badly kaput in 2013, and since then I've oscillated through misotheism, pantheism, materialism and (briefly) Atenism.  Anyway, I was kind of struck by how tarnished that little saint's medal had become. Thinking about it now, perhaps I should have taken that as an analogy -


It seemed a shame to leave it looking nearly black with wear, so I googled up how to clean silver, which in turn brought me to Martha Stewart's instructions about putting it in an aluminium bowl under water and baking soda.


That didn't do much for the bits of the medal with the Saint on them or the lettering, so I used the wet soda as a paste and using cotton balls, scrubbed it hard for a bit.  That brought it up to a gorgeous shine; I'm proud to call it a success!


It struck me about the time I was polishing that I'd strayed rather badly from being the sort of man my sometime parents-in-law could regard well, or my daughters could look up to.  So, I'm going to try and do better in the religious front.  Like actually praying for starters, and going to Mass when I'm able.  I can't say that there seems much merit in having a sharp mind and a strong body if your soul is allowed to decay.

In other news today, I'm afraid I didn't get the job at Strathmerton, so that's a dead end:


It looks like I'll be able to pick up a few hours labouring tomorrow at least.  Something will come up for sure but: damn.

12:20am: Back again.  The day has been an interesting set of things since the last half of the entry.  After I finished that bit, I got a text message from a contact at SES asking if I'd be interested in a few hours garden labouring tomorrow.  I surely would, so that's a plus.  Spent the balance of the afternoon out with the dog cutting burr and then came back and wrote a short letter to a newspaper regarding done changes to the law affects bicycle riders - we'll see how that goes.

SES training in the evening - a night on land search skills. As you know I love lobbing up at SES and this was a good night to gain some new skills.  Late finish - wasn't home till nearly 11:30pm.  Glad to do it though.

No more for now. Hope all is well with you.

More later.

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