30+ things from the top of a bookcase

Here is what I found on top of a bookcase that I decided to sort out because I want to move it:

1. 2 heavy duty 60W bayonet fixing lightbulbs. What are heavy duty lightbulbs? Oh... ones that get heavy use I guess.
2. sodium bicarb ear drops
3. Toad's Nikon camera charger. He's been using mine; he claimed mine as his but I disabused him of that idea and painted my initial on mine with some of Toadlet's silver nail varnish so that there could be no mistake ;-)
4. fountain pen ink cartridges in these colours: mediterranean, passion red, umber, monaco red, teal, woodland green, prussian blue, majestic blue, orange, jet black
5. 2 clunky containers for CD-Rs containing, between them very few discs. Shoved them all into one container. The other will be recycled or upcycled into something else useful.
6. squirrel keyring
7. some bubble wrap
8. an empty computer keyboard box
9. a computer keyboard that doesn't fit in the box
10. a rubber keyboard skin, not used, that changes the key layout, and which doesn't fit either of the above.
11. 7 books of Essential Irish Session Tunes (flute)
12. an unused, as yet, Chemistry Lab set for ages ten+ Must play with this soon :-)
13. a megadusty flute cleaning cloth with dangling weight. Moved to laundry basket.
14. a 75ml bottle of purified linseed oil for art purposes. Moved to art stuff shelf on another bookcase in another room.
15. a square basket containing:
16. some lens cleaning tissues so ancient that the packet shows the old 4-digit Oxford area telephone code. To Toad camera bag.
17. 'Krammers' (pinkporcupine.com) 'study' cards, subject line marked "Latin" (7 out of ¿100? used). Purloined for some other useful purpose.
18. a small, useful belt bag for holding small useful things. Purloined. It contained a travel bottle of contact lens cleaner (unless wrongly labelled). To bathroom cabinet.
19. an old candle of sentimental value (first present I gave Toad)
20. Kark-eze (cork-ease) for the flute
21. a flat stone on which Toadlet had painted a boat half her life ago.
22. a bottle of oxblood (ink)
23. a piece of charcoal
24. a kerbigrip
25. a roll of micropore tape
26. various random bits of plastic and/or metal thingummibobs
27. a piece of liquorice root wrapped in black tissue paper, both now several years old. Compost.
28. a small shackle from the boat Toad used to sail
29. Fluffy-coated gun microphone. The fluffy coat cuts down wind noise when you're recording sound with film/video.
30. Circular polariser (for a camera lens).

(last two items not in the small square basket)

By this time it was nearly three o'clock in the afternoon and my stomach was demanding lunch. I had spent most of the morning splitting and stacking logs, chopping thin branches into stove friendly lengths, hauling a new recycling bin up the hill after a phone call from the wheelie-bin man that it was at the bottom. They always say they can't find our house. This could well be true although we are visible from the shore road in winter when the trees are unleafed. However I sometimes think they look at the hill's gradient and think "Bugger that; it'll burn out the clutch!" (it has been known) and just telephone instead to, ahem, 'find out where you are' to which I kindly reply: "Just leave it at the bottom. I'll come and get it." I also thanked them for bringing it. I only ordered it via the council website a couple of days ago. Impressed! This is the first time I have been impressed by Argyll & Bute Council, especially where computers are concerned, because it takes them just as long to put school dinner money on Toadlet's cashless catering card as it does to deliver a wheelie-bin. No, I don't understand why either and I have wondered aloud, so to speak, to them about this.

We needed a new recycling bin because a wheel came off the old one. We did a temporary and very Heath Robinson repair but it wasn't going to survive many journeys down our bumpy lane pulled by hand to be emptied and back up our bumpy lane (empty) towed behind the Rattletrap.

Here is a pic of the candle of sentimental value. I wasn't a temari-maker when I bought it but  I now see that it does have a temari quality to it. It has burnt down so I put a tealight in it. When not lit, it looks almost just black and white. When lit you see the colours.

Unlit

'Temari' candle lit

The light has been grim for the last few days but there has been the occasional sunbeam and there are small signs that spring is on its way.

Early morning sunbeams on sitting-room curtains.
Not much but how I love it when this happens after the dark days.

Snowdrops. The two tallest ones were in flower but got eaten, probably by roe deer.
They like a flower or two in the late winter.

The only primrose yet flowering out of several hundred.
Photo taken from above it as it grows out of the steep front bank.

Winter gold – Spiraea twigs in the rain

Winter copper – old leaves of the moss
Polytrichum commune / Common Haircap Moss
(also in the rain)

A winter bouquet.