I find that I am, indeed, weeding the books again, though I'm not yet sure exactly what I'll do with this batch of cast-aways. Of all my possessions, it's the books that Marie Kondo's approach works best on, though it's not a spark of joy I'm looking for but a pique of renewed interest. Since the pandemic, I have lost any inclination to read military history, especially the conventional accounts of policy, campaigns and battles. I'm even ready to part with my copy of Clausewitz.

On the music front, the Stratford Concert Choir is in the process of self-destruction. Three weeks ago, the Board voted to dismiss our conductor, an excellent musician and choir trainer, because the choir is losing money. There were two dissenting votes on the motion: mine, and one other that I assume came from the Alto section leader, a serious musician. The conductor has seen this coming for months because the board executive have fought him on every suggestion he has made to improve the financial picture. Now the other shoe -- the announcement to the membership -- has dropped and the fall-out is beginning.

This whole business is a major component of my decision to move back to Ottawa. The choir was the main anchor keeping me here, and now it's failing. I'm just tired of the resistance to change and the refusal to work toward improvement. So I resigned from the Board at its last meeting. I wasn't the first rat overboard; our lead bass, a Lutheran pastor with decades or experience in non-profit organizations, beat me to it by 24 hours.

On the home front, Marco the painter can't start this week and proposed next week. Okay, especially as the scope of work is changing -- now I want him to paint the bathroom, not the box room, because the bathroom is butt-ugly and must look as attractive as possible when the house goes public, and the box room is just kinda tired. And I won't take the curtain rods down. Changing the curtains would cost a bomb, and I'm not doing it since I won't be here to enjoy the result.

I still feel very stressed, but I'm managing it better. One task at a time, baby steps. The basement work table is again covered with kitchen stuff to go to Goodwill -- muffins are permanently off the home menu, so why do I have two muffin pans? Likewise loaf pans, of which I have six. If I ever make bread again, I have some round earthenware cocottes that do the job just fine.

It snowed yet again overnight, and the wind is blowing it all over the place. At noon I will pick up my friend Ruth to take her to Woodstock (40 km to the south on narrow county roads) to see the opthalmologist who did her cataract surgery, so I'm watching the weather radar map with intense interest. One of its screens shows wind direction -- very important in these parts.

Time to take a shower. My hair looks like a barley-stack bewitched.