Continuing with my file de-cluttering and pruning activities yesterday, I discovered another little gem. On the occasion of our 50th wedding anniversary nearly eight years ago now, I had looked at our collection of wedding photographs, taken in black and white in those days, and scanned them all into the computer. Leafing through the pages, a single lined sheet of paper fell out and this was the organists original note of what he was to play at our wedding. At the time I scanned this precious document but could not recall where I had filed the original. I found the document in a '50th wedding anniversary' file and very pleased to have rediscovered it - I have now made a note of it on the front of the file (which I have pruned but am retaining) so this precious little document is not lost again. In the same file, I also discovered that whereas at the time we invited contributions on place of gifts to go a water project in the Sudan, some monies flowed in late and these went to fund a water project in Uganda. My only slight feeling of disappointment about all of this is that, in the last few years, the Sudan has been wracked with internal conflict and we can only hope that our donation of a water project as had some lasting benefit and has not been destroyed or mis-appropriated by the armed militia who have roamed around that unhappy country in the last few years. Of the 50 files that I needed to process, only 8 now remain and these are mainly old travel files. I seem to spend as much time scraping old labels off the front of the file with a thumbnail excellent for the purpose as I do emptying the file in the first place. I think I have discovered a sort of container in which I can store my old file cases for reuse and this is the container part of a previous shredder machine. In the corner that had contained the files and in the past a little Windows laptop, long since junked, I am wondering what might go in this space in which there is a high stool which itself houses some files which I am retaining. I have in mind to relocate some big dictionaries and associated thesaurus and style-related type of books to make a specialised little mini-collection apart from, but abutting, the bookcase and this would also release space for some other books which need to be housed properly, as it were. I have made a start of reading my Swedish 'decluttering' book but have not yet found any particular pieces of advice I can deploy myself but there is time yet. Yesterday was the second of my 7.00am starts to the day which actually starts at about 4.30 as I want to get up at 5.00am and do not wish to oversleep. I shared this thought with one of my Wetherspoons friends and she told me that if she woke at 3.30 am, she sat in an armchair and did not go back to bed because she, too, did not want to oversleep and have the subsequent day messed up. Incidentally, I asked the smart speaker 'Alexa' what was special about the day, being Easter Sunday and was informed that the machine could not help me with the question - so much for 'smart' artificial intelligence.
This morning, I carried on with my file pruning until the Eucharistic minister arrived to give us a benefit of a short service for Easter Sunday. I was pleased to see her and we commiserated with each other that we had both lost a significant number of both family and friends throughout the past year. After she departed, I went on a trek for a Sunday newspaper but, of course, many of the usual outlets are closed. The places that were open had all sold out of their copies of the 'Sunday Times' so despite the fact that I had a prepaid voucher, I needed to splash and get a copy of 'The Observer' for a change. When the care workers arrived in the late morning, one of them was suffering from a poorly foot from an unknown cause but I managed to locate a bandage so that she could self-treat herself to a bit of compression which seemed to help. This is now two carers who I have looked after by supplying bandages of their poorly feet and this act of first aid evidently supplements what I was doing during the winter when I was dishing out Flu and Cold Remedy remedies to whoever needed them. I cooked a beef dinner for lunch time but Meg was fast asleep in the middle of the day so I will try and get her portion of food inside her later in the day. I completed my file pruning and then filed away bits and pieces that I knew I wished to keep. Then I needed to somehow clear some books of the bookcase to make way for the files. As I thought I might do, I have created a 'dictionary corner' on top of a tall stool and on this I have relocated my two big Chamber's dictionaries and various other style aids and English reference materials. You would think that tidying up a bookcase would be easy but it is made more difficult by ensuring that books on the same subject matter are adjacent to each so any particular book can be found again. Some of the manuals may be somewhat out of date so I am not quite sure that charity shops would accept them but I will persist in the efforts to re-home them. One little housekeeping trick I thought I would perform is a series of linked HTML pages with the files in each pile and the file colour listed and if I take pains to keep the files in the same order that finding material again should be so much easier. So I spent a certain amount of time today getting my a series of linked HTML pages together and these will not go on the web but will serve as an internal indexing system so I can locate (and file away) what I need quickly. Of course, it is one thing to set up a system but I must maintain it and use it regularly to keep things in a more accessible form in the future.
© Mike Hart [2025]