I have lived at my current address for nearly 20 years.\u00a0 When I took possession, on 10th February 1998, I was staying in a hotel with my property in storage.\u00a0 So I arranged for the place to be painted throughout before I moved in, on the 20th.\u00a0 I have never been able to arrange for a painter to work without moving out again, so the house decoration has gradually grown rather tired.\u00a0 It is not bad, but it won’t do for another 20 years.\u00a0 I must repaint now.<\/p>\n
This summer I was finally able to find a painter who was able and willing to do the deed.\u00a0 He arrives on Monday 17th October, 2016, in fact, if all goes well – for these gentry are notoriously unreliable.\u00a0 He will move large chunks of furniture around, in order to paint.<\/p>\n
But there is one important exception.\u00a0 Nobody can move bookcases which are full of books.\u00a0 So\u00a0this requires me to empty my book cases, which are mostly in my study bedroom.\u00a0 This I have been doing, for over a week now.\u00a0 The cartons I have placed in my garage; 24 of them so far.<\/p>\n
It is difficult to find cartons suitable for books.\u00a0 I have been driven to buying 32 litre shallow “underbed” plastic boxes with lids, available at \u00a33 each, from Wilkinsons.\u00a0 This evening I collected a further 30.<\/p>\n
The process of packing is itself a painful one. Without a copious supply of boxes, it is even more stressful.\u00a0 You find yourself agonising over how to fit stuff into the boxes.\u00a0 With enough boxes, you don’t worry.\u00a0 Buy lots of boxes.\u00a0 It reduces the stress.<\/p>\n
Tonight I have at last emptied every visible shelf in my study.\u00a0 However there still remain many shelves in the large cupboard, including a stack of academic books.\u00a0 Even these I have started, and may hope to complete tomorrow night.\u00a0 This is well; for I have little space remaining in my garage.\u00a0 It has been a heavy task for a man no longer young.\u00a0 Will I ever have the strength to do it again?<\/p>\n
In a way, this makes me think.\u00a0 Should I really own so many books that I can’t manage them?\u00a0 I say that I own many; but it is little more than 3,000, I would guess.\u00a0 How many of these books will I never look at again?\u00a0 It is all very well to retain books, especially academic books.\u00a0 But I do wish that I had almost all the academic books in PDF, rather than in paper.\u00a0 Will I have another purge, I wonder?<\/p>\n
Clearing my shelves is like a journey into my own past.\u00a0 I come across offprints, send unsolicited by a kindly academic.\u00a0 Vast amounts of old hard disks litter my cupboard.\u00a0 There are endless dictionaries of ancient Greek, from the days when I hoped to write a Greek translation tool.\u00a0 Should I dispose of these?\u00a0 Probably I should … for I no longer have the energy that I did.\u00a0 In other cases I come across books that I know I will never reread, for I have read them out over the years.\u00a0 Yet they are part of me, and made me who I am.\u00a0 What to do?<\/p>\n
Men of my age commonly deceive themselves that they will have more time when they retire.\u00a0 If any of my generation can ever afford to retire, they may find different.<\/p>\n
I spent two months at home this summer, in indifferent health.\u00a0 Five days ago I went back to work, and found the first two days very awful.\u00a0 I then had some very stressful and tiring days.\u00a0 Yet … I find myself more alert, fitter, and in better health, now that I am working.\u00a0 The “curse of Adam”, that all of us must work,\u00a0turns out to be a blessing.\u00a0 With “retirement” often comes a vegetable state.<\/p>\n
As eBooks become more common, possibly it will be possible for me to buy or otherwise acquire eBooks of some of the academic stuff.\u00a0 I must invest the money, I think; and buy back control of my shelves!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I have lived at my current address for nearly 20 years.\u00a0 When I took possession, on 10th February 1998, I was staying in a hotel with my property in storage.\u00a0 So I arranged for the place to be painted throughout before I moved in, on the 20th.\u00a0 I have never been able to arrange for […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_hide_featured_image":false,"_jetpack_featured_image_duplicate_dismissed":0,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[19],"tags":[728],"class_list":["post-16198","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-from-my-diary-announcements","tag-from-my-diary"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/roger-pearse.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16198","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/roger-pearse.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/roger-pearse.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/roger-pearse.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/roger-pearse.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16198"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/roger-pearse.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16198\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/roger-pearse.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16198"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/roger-pearse.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16198"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/roger-pearse.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16198"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}