Frozen

I know, I do almost nothing on this blog, except apologise for doing nothing…

But now I’m really frozen. Not as frozen as this fox, which we found one morning 18 months ago, in the green patch behind the Cave. To begin with, I thought it was dozing, as they sometimes do there. We love watching them, when they think no one can see them, completely relaxed and behaving just like pets, yawning, stretching, scratching, wondering what to play with next… and effortlessly beautiful. But after a bit, La G & I realised it wasn’t kippin’ due to it being tired and shagged out following a long squawk. In the end, we had to shovel the poor stiff into a black bin liner and leave it to be collected with the rest of the week’s ‘rubbish’, on the Cave’s designated Friday morning.

The ‘tidying’ was advancing at a glacial pace anyway – but now it really has ground to a halt, as I have a frozen shoulder (or adhesive capsulitis). Possibly two – my right shoulder is beginning to hurt imperceptibly more, just as as my left one did a few months ago. Innocuous-sounding, this condition is really quite nasty: apart from almost constant discomfort, if I suddenly move the affected arm outside its very restricted zone, I suffer short but intense agony; and halfway through the night I wake up with pain which feels much worse at that deathly hour. It gets better during the day, strangely.

Mustn’t complain – I could have something far more serious. This I can live with, though my already pitiful productivity will plummet asymptotically. Still, odd that nature has found exactly the disease to mirror my general state! The transfers too have ground to a halt. I’m not happy with my initial dubs or my treatments (mainly the EQ); I really must get my (tone-)arm recalibrated – and at least one of those blasted 78rpm turntables up and running. Luckily, my buying has calmed down, so there’s not so much coming into the Cave.

But my selling has also slowed down. Doesn’t help that I found my lovely, mostly mint LPs have been attacked by mildew. Not the Cave’s fault – they’ve been fine here for years, until this last, hideously wet winter. The discs are still pristine but some sleeves now have unsightly brown splodges. Won’t look good to buyers. Not that I’ve tried selling anything yet – I have this idiotic phobia about it, imagining I’m going to be messed about by some analogue nutter or scammed by someone from a country with no respect for the rule of law.

But I’ll continue writing here – I hope. I’ve bought some wonderful CDs recently and really must tell someone about them. I’ve read some very interesting books (PhD theses, mostly), too. And of course I have various grumps I really must get off my chest – the shocking quality of commercial and institutional (and private) sound-file metadata, for starters. And you never know – one day I might get my act together and start dubbing some of these fabulous 78s I’ve bought. So please bear with me. And – sorry. Again!