5.30am saw me in the back yard spraying wood treatment oil onto a new garden bench. Who would believe what an acreage of untreated wood there is on a 5' bench. I have paint-sprayers' thumb and my hands (twice washed) still feel as if I had recently cleaned a saddle. My fingers are slipping on the keys. The bench looks brash and new now and not at all like the solid old lichen encrusted bench that was here before I moved in, which sadly went away with the previous owner. Never mind, by this time next year it will be greyish and blend in. The hardwood table I bought from Tesco before they stopped selling hardword by popular outcry, blends well enough to reassure the birds who sit on it. The bench isn't entirely off-topic as it will be the place I sit to wait for customers on fine days now that summer is coming on. They may have to come out there to find me if I don't hear the door bell. I leave a note to tell them to yell for me. My 'till' will be unprotected. It is a small drawer in a desk I bought for one of the children years ago. All very low tech. Needs no upkeep. The till at the newsagent has to be serviced once a month and that costs £35 each time. Even then it goes wrong. I have no way to process a credit card, which is not so good in the summer when visitors come by who want to use them, but I have resisted this extra piece of equiptment so far. Some think that's quaint. Some huff and puff.
This time of year we start to lose night. I woke at 5am because it was already bright, the birds singing away cheerfully. It is light now till 9pm . I think. the downside of being an early morning person is that I am asleep on the couch almost as soon as I have eaten my supper. I want to close the shop at 4pm because I'm completely past caring and longing to have a nap.
I think it's strange that there is no ceremony to bring back the darkness. The ancients feared to lose the sun yet the dark is important too.
I must start buying books again.
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