Catching Up

 

I'm still waiting for proper outdoor Signs of Spring to tempt my camera. The streets nearby have been cleaned from winter sand and grit, and I think my itchy eyes are probably telling me that there's pollen in the air (alder, hazel) - but that's about it...

So instead I just give you some bananas resting on my old kitchen scales (inherited from my grandmother), symbolising that today was Delivery Day from the supermarket. A service I've been appreciating for over 11 years now; and I still feel grateful every time. Since a few weeks back, I'm also relieved that the 24/7 locked entrance door policy that was introduced here last summer has now been lifted. I no longer need to go down and open the entrance for the delivery guys, but only my own front door! (It has been a bit of a hassle over winter, as because of my bad knee I've not been able to use the stairs, but have had to use the lift/elevator. On the other hand, I am of course grateful to have access to a lift, or else I don't know how I'd have managed at all...) 

To turn time back to Tuesday, I then took a bus part of the way into town (and walked the rest), primarily to collect my digitized old slides from the photography shop: about 80 photos from a trip to Germany back in 1983; plus about a dozen from England in 1972 that I had even forgotten that I had. (I think they were given to me by the family I stayed with then.) I hadn't looked at any of them for over 20 years. 

I've now copied the digitised ones to my computer and had a look. Alas I found that they have not really kept the original colour much better than the printed colour photos in my old albums. While the paper photos have faded towards beige, the slides seem to have turned blueish, though... 

I may be able to improve some of them a bit by editing, but I'm not expecting miracles. (I've never bothered to learn to use any very "advanced" photo editors...) Anyway - so far, it makes me think it's probably not worth the money to also have the rest of my old slides digitised. But I'll see what I can do with the ones I got now; and hope to be able to use some of them in some future "time travelling" blogposts. 

On my way back home from the photography shop, I briefly visited a couple of clothes shops - simply because it's something I hadn't done in about six months! In the first shop, on a whim, I bought a long-sleeved t-shirt without trying it on - which proved a mistake. When I tried it on at home, the neckline turned out to be uncomfortable for me... But I knew I could take than one back and get a refund, so never mind... In the second shop, I found a zipper sweatshirt on 50% sale. That one I did try on before buying - and it fit. It's of the kind that I can use both indoors in winter, and outdoors on a chilly day in the warmer season.

Yesterday was another good day to be out for a while, so I went back into town again and returned the other top. Didn't go into any other shops. Better wait until a bit closer to summer to look at more clothes, I think... ;)

Today I got my grocery delivery around noon, and then in the afternoon (semi-sunny) went for a walk to the main post office down by the railway to post a couple of birthday cards to friends. (One of them will arrive late, the other early!) That's another way I haven't walked since back in the early autumn. Actually writing/posting snail mail at all is another thing I almost got out of the habit of doing this winter, as even the nearest postbox felt "out of the way" for me...