Yesterday, to continue with my spring cleaning and decluttering zeal, I decided that the next priority along should be the desktop in my study. To describe this as a cluttered eyesore would not be an inaccurate description so after lunch, I set to work on this as I put any of the desktop items into one of those vegetable boxes with low sides beloved of supermarkets because the fruit that they contain (apples, pears and the like) can both be transported and displayed. I like to have one or two of these available to me if I have a clearing up job to do because I keep the original approximate location of an item so that can be restored to its proper place. Ad so armed with my vegetable box, I set to work in our Music Lounge where I could sit next to Meg whilst I worked and the whole job took me the rest of the afternoon and most of the evening after Meg had been put to bed. Part of the origin of the problem is that I have a table rather than an actual desk to house my computer and associated peripherals. If I had an actual desk, it would have had some drawers in which stationery items could be stored- instead I have a series of little functional containers to hold each stationery type. When I have a completely free desk top I treat it to a clean it with a dose of furniture polish and it might be a year or so until it gets its next one. Bu the overall result was pleasing to me. The large computer table is 'de facto' organised into quadrants. One is filled with the Apple Mac and its keyboard whilst behind it lies the scanner, backup storage drives and cables in variety. The third quadrant is now filled with well organised stationery whilst the fourth is my functional work area protected by a series of mats that may have started off life as one of those huge blotters you occasionally see. In an utterly nerdish way, I counted the number of different stationery items (think of everything from paper clips to Tippex to scissors) and it cane to 4 dozen. But, of course, now that it is in pristine condition, it is quite an easy to remove any one of the containers and reassess its contents. For example, one of them contains felt tip pens in a variety of colours and point sizes so one little job for this afternoon will be to go through the lot and ascertain which are functional and to be retained and which are dried up and need to be thrown away. Actually, below the desk I store some actual tools which I deploy on quite frequent occasions including some long nosed pliers (excellent for removing paper jammed into a printer for example), a fine long bladed screwdriver (for multiple purposes), some pliers (for flattening staples) and a supply of that stretchy elasticated fabric you sometimes see in hardware stores. Needless to say, I am filled with good intentions to keep my desk as neat and tidy as I can and perhaps only engage in one of these more radical cleanups about once a year. I did resurrect a rechargeable Apple mouse which tends to be a bit particular about the type of mouse mat on which it is used whereas the Logitech alternative mouse which I now use is so much more precise and reliable and cost about a quarter of the Apple version (incidentally, a quick perusal of the web shows that other Apple users had the same experience as myself)
In the morning, Meg seemed a little more alert and a little less sleepy than in past days so I was happy to get her well strapped into her wheelchair ready for the journey down to Wetherspoons. I always approach these journeys with a certain degree of trepidation because as the journey progresses, Meg having no body strength remaining does have the tendency to gradually slump in her wheelchair assuming a sort of 'hypotenuse on the triangle' orientation instead of an 'h' type of orientation and over the course of a two and a mile round trip (down and up the hill) there is always the slight danger that she might end up on the floor again as she did about a month ago. I have made several improvised adjustments to the wheelchair by inserting thin triangular type wedges designed to throw the seat backward somewhat. In addition, Meg's ankles have the approved wheelchair velcro ankle straps and there is a lap belt as well. To these, I have added a luggage strap which goes around Meg's torso and then to the back of the wheelchair, so this is a third anchorage point. I really need an extension or an adaptation so that Meg does not allow her head and neck to go backwards over the back of the chair but I improvise with a 'V' shaped cushion, put upside down which half does the intended job, at least at first. In two week's time, we have an appointment when a wheelchair specialist is to call around to see what adaptations can be made. I suspect that at the end of the day, we need a more specialist chair because the wheelchair that we have is officially designated as a 'transit' chair and the assumption is that you are going to use for this short journeys, either within or outside the house and certainly not 2.5 mile round trips over what can be appallingly bumpy pavements. Whatever. the wheelchair experts recommend, it will probably be some time before we can see any improvements and in the meantime I feel that I have to take a calculated risk each Tuesday and Saturday and it is true to say that Meg is in a fairly slumped state by the end of the journey.
This afternoon we are both enjoying a concert of the Beethoven Violin Concerto played by Sophie Anne Mutter, one the world's finest violinists. The quality of the concerts - generally European artists and performances- available to us on YouTube makes for a very pleasant and restful afternoon while I am generally engaged in other tasks with the music playing in the background. It certainly makes a change from some of the depressing economic and political news but we have the local elections to which to look forward on 1st May when I expect to see the Labour Party get punished for their stance on the Winter Fuel Payment as well as their current 'bash the poor' agenda. As the Greens are rightfully saying in their local election campaigns launched today that the Labour party has proved to be a 'crushing disappointment', a view shared by many of us at present.
© Mike Hart [2025]