I had been looking for a portable typewriter for some time, so when I saw one on sale for £25 in one of the local charity shops, I jumped at the chance. It was a Silver Reed SR100, and it looked in pretty good nick. I asked the assistant if it was in good working order and she slightly sarcastically said that you had to press the keys to find out. I took a deep breath and said as politely as possible that I found it very interesting, but did she know if the keys were stuck at all? We had a look at all, it seemed to be in good working order so I bought it. She accurately suggested that the ribbon was likely worn out, so I ordered a replacement from Amazon. The replacement arrived the next day.

Despite a few false starts, I successfully threaded the new ribbon through after watching a useless video on YouTube that looked like it was shot in the dark.

Quite why I wanted a typewriter was a bit of a mystery even to me, I cannot type for starters, though I used to be reasonable I seem to recall. Was it to annoy the neighbours with the click-clacking of the keys?

I am yet to type anything beyond my name and a few lines of gibberish, but there is something romantic, something that seems to make writing more interesting and certainly more challenging.

Perhaps I will use it to write letters rather than submit the readers to my awful handwriting. We shall see.

After a weekend of rain and windy weather, we are enjoying a little spell of sunshine, so it was a good time to take advantage and get some of the washing drying on the line. As part of my attempt to cut down on my use of electricity, I have shunned the dryer and rely on Mother Nature to dry my laundry. So checking up on the weather forecast is an important ritual to go through before I put a load of washing on. Living in the Peak District, I have learned through experience that weather apps are not always dependable. The joke here is that we get 6 months of poor weather and then 6 months of winter. Certainly, good drying days are in short supply.

Something that I have been meaning to do for a while, actually since I moved in ten years ago, is to organise my bookshelves. To start with, I need more bookcases. Most of the shelves are double stacked and until yesterday, the downstairs shelves were a jumble of history, nature writing, philosophy, novels, poetry plays, etc.

Though not completed yet, there is light at the end of the tunnel, at least downstairs. Now I just need to find some more bookcases. The easiest solution would be Ikea, but that is an experience that I don’t think I can face, the trip to the store, and the assembly of the wretched things. I think a trip to one of the many charity shops is in order.