Twins

A morning of undercoating and steeling myself to dispose of a rat corpse, which I suspect had been poisoned by trying to gnaw the evil-smelling wood filler now in the place where it used to gnaw at rotten wood to try to get in. I should feel environmentally sorry but I don't.

Then an afternoon of single-handedly (actually two-handedly, as well as all the muscles, ligaments and tendons in two arms, two legs and one torso) carrying at least a ton of stuff from the shed to the front of the house: old doors, a huge linen chest in pieces, bags of sand, a mantelpiece, a kitchen table, heaps of wood. I advertised the old doors on Freegle and got an instant response from a handyman who arrived 25 minutes later and, with his wife, loaded them onto the roof of his van, as well as quite a few more bits from the shed. They then kindly helped me move the one box that was too heavy for me to do alone. With a bit of luck he'll come and do some of the paid work we need doing in the house too.

So by the time I went to band practice this evening, my fingers were aching far too much for quavers.

I was pleased, cycling there, to see this new sign. Wrocław became a new Oxford twin about a year ago and shortly afterwards the name appeared on the 'Welcome to Oxford' signs. In March this year, Ramallah joined the siblings, followed in April by Padua. About that time I heard consternation at the fact that there was no more room left on the signposts for this rapidly expanding family. A close look shows that the solution has been a strip stuck to the bottom of the sign then not quite enough space left between the final two names.