It’s been snowing on and off since about noon on New Year’s Day, so I assume that the European-style winter we’ve had so far is over, and we’re now back to Canadian standard. Sunday in lockdown is utterly silent; nobody going anywhere, nothing doing.

Yesterday, I finally cracked Edmund’s external hard drive and found his Innocence Canada files, which I copied to a data key. Then I finished packing the box of Innocence Canada-related papers and notebooks (Edmund did much of his thinking in longhand in hard-bound notebooks), wrote a letter to the Case Review Committee and put it in the box, taped it up and put it in the car. On Monday, it goes to Toronto by registered mail.

Downstairs in the laundry room, I then tackled the mess of cleaning products and other noxious materials that I had been studiously ignoring for weeks. There were at least five spray bottles of Fantastik cleanser, of which three were down to the last inch, and an untouched bottle of toilet cleaner hiding blushfully behind a bin of clean rags. Many travel-size containers of laundry detergent and stain-remover cluttered the shelves. An entire box of compact fluorescent lightbulbs took up space I would rather use for anything else.

And then there was Edmund’s stash of boot- and shoe-cleaning tackle, including what must be at least ten years’ accumulation of tins of Kiwi wax polish, all partly used and some nearly petrified with age, many little daubing brushes caked with greasy gunk, and wads of blackened polishing cloths. It all reeks fiercely of solvent, and must therefore go to the town dump when they hold their next collection of household hazardous waste. The three gallon cans of paint left over from the 2018 redecoration campaign should go, too, and the rusty tin of camping fuel stashed in the tool shed.

That was the last anarchic mess in the house, so I’m enjoying a feeling of accomplishment. But I have to admit that I finally got around to it because I was embarrassed when Kathleen, my cleaner, had to dig around in it.

For my next trick, I’ll turn out the refrigerator. But not today.