… something about all of the things that I was going to do today. Well, none of that happened at all. I was sidetracked quite severely today.

A short while ago, while moving some stuff around downstairs, I came across a box marked “LPs”. And having you told you all a while ago about the little program that I have discovered that enables me to download tracks off the internet, I brought the box up here to go though it, see what LPs are in it, see what I already replaced with a CD and then see what is available on the internet for the LPs that I already own and which I dn’t have on CD.

Anyway, to cut a long story short … "hooray" – ed … I lifted out the first dozen or so LPs, and that was all that there were. Underneath was a huge pile of paperwork. probably about half a tonne, I reckon.

It’s all stuff that I brought back from Brussels when I sold the apartment, and another pile of stuff that I had accumulated while I was living downstairs in the lean-to between 2007 and 2009. All of which I had completely forgotten.

So this morning, with a nice stiff mug of coffee I sat down and attacked version 2 of the European Paper Mountain.

By the time that I had finished, I reckon that about three quarters of it will be on its way to the great paper mill in the sky, and probably a lot more will follow it once I’ve closely examined it all. But I have found tons of stuff that is important, including all of the registration details for the Brian James car transporter that I bought a couple of years ago. As well as that, I’ve found a letter that I’ve been looking for for 3 years, a couple of instruction books that I need, and all of the Canada papers for my visit of 2012 and for my land at Mars Hill Road.

So, bingo!

Now, one thing leads to another as you all know, and once you start off, you’ll be surprised at just how many other things there are. Piling the waste paper into an IKEA bag, I decided to add another pile of waste paper – and then another etc etc.

And moving the box away from the wall left a space which was just the right size for the small set of shelves that Hans gave me last month when I was in Eching.

All of the food and cooking gear has now gone onto those shelves and at one swell foop this place looks a lot better than it did before (although there are still a hundred miles to go).

Now, I have a space next to the desk, so I moved my comfortable chair over there. I can now reach the external drives and the external DVD player simply by reaching out my hand. This led to a session of copying to my laptop the CDs that I bought in Canada and subsequently that have been sitting in a nice orderly pile on the desk. I’ve recorded 15 of them, which leaves just a mere 23 to go, but it’s a start.

This was hard work and so I closed my eyes for a little doze. and just as I was dropping gently into the arms of Morpheus, Rosemary rang for a chat. So there I was, for a good half hour.

I’d checked the clock at one moment and it was 17:57. Next time I looked, it was 20:18. Where did that 2 hours go? I must really have been engrossed in what I was doing.

But honestly, it doesn’t look any better in here. But then, I can’t do this tidying-up lark at all. All of this stuff heaved out or tidied up on shelves and the place just looks worse.

But you can see now why I didn’t do what I had intended to do today, and it wasn’t for lack of effort either.

Remember that yesterday I mentioned the rainstorm?

We had 40.5mm that fell in a three-hour period. And today, despite the good start, we ended up with another downpour in the evening and that gave us another 15mm.

That’s good news for me because my water tanks are full to overflowing. And as there are two tanks together – the rainwater falls into the top of the back tank, sinks to the bottom, passes through the connecting piece (which is at the bottom of the tanks) and into the front tank, with the overflow at the top of the front tank, then there’s a continual circulation of water in there and this is good for aeration. This means that it’s not just a stagnant pool of water.

And as I pull water from the bottom of the front tank, this is where the freshest water will be anyway. So a really heavy downpour like this is really good news for me.