Update on the stair lift and permit: after I decided to go ahead anyway, this morning the township engineer got back to me to say no permit needed. So I've filed that away just in case.
He was very prompt, considering I'd written close to closing time Friday and he got back early this morning. Clearly a man who attends to email first thing on Monday.
I had also given the go ahead to the stair man, at the weekend, and he too got back promptly, and we're on again. By Friday, all being well, the doings will be in place and carrying stuff up and down for me.
Meanwhile the cleaners wondered if they could use a newly opened slot this morning at my house, and that seems great timing to me, stairs newly cleaned before the installation. So they're at my house and I'm at the library.
And just now I heard from my contractor that he's ordered the bathtub kit, for delivery this weekend. So with any luck that will move ahead too. It's all go.
In other news, I'm reading via audio while I weave, stay tuned, a book by Ashton Applewhite about ageist stereotypes.
It's a manifesto about ageist approaches to almost every aspect of living, written by a woman in her sixties coming to grips with her own aging, who used to believe a lot of the stereotypes herself.
She's her own audiobook reader, and it's pretty good. I'm finding it a little disheartening to study all the ways, but it's useful reading.
Then last night I watched Mrs Palfrey at the Claremont, from a wonderful novel by Elizabeth Taylor. I'd read and appreciated the book long ago.
But the premise, an older once affluent now widowed lady, real sense of the word, moves into a cheapish residential hotel and what happens then, was much harder to tackle.
With actors like Celia Johnson at work, and now in my own old age, my understanding is much greater. The poignancy of the people trying to keep up the appearance of having caring family was hard to navigate.
I'm baffled that it was marketed as a comedy, maybe to render the subject of old people having to live out their lives in a hotel more palatable. It would fit with the stereotypes described in Applewhite's book, if so.
More cheerful doings is the new weaving. I'm making a kitchen floor mat. At first I tried making a long warp, using the frame loom with the end piece unscrewed, but I had trouble keeping the tension as I warped.
I've done it successfully before but this time, maybe the nature of the cotton yarn, not so much. So I decided to make it in sections to join together, rather than struggle.
It's the cotton yarn I made that long summer scarf from, nice color transition tan to pink to slate to white. It will be good against a white floor. And I really enjoy working with that curved shuttle.
I did a baking experiment. Oatmeal chocolate pancakes, like a cake type thing.
And on the grounds that I'm worth it, I gave myself a present, from As Ever, a top of the line food source, owned and run by Meghan Sussex. Here's the unboxing
Marmalade, raspberry and strawberry spreads. I've had the apricot spread and it really was excellent. I wonder if a touch of one of them might be good with the chocolate pancakes.
And in case I ran out of things to do, I repotted a couple of plants, creating a mess in the kitchen but finally getting done a couple of jobs I've been meaning to for eons.
And the little bouquets are tapering off for the year, here Russian sage and chrysanthemums smelling wonderful.
