he said take the compliment and go feed the cat. I HAVE fed the cat. marmalade has just discovered the spare duvet cover is out of the airing cupboard and is conducting a full inspection of it. ginger is supervising from the windowsill where the streetlamp comes in.

oldsalt I'm fully on your side now. you can't chip a mug the same way twice, that's basically physics and also a rule about how things get looked after.

first time posting here, this thread dragged me in from lurk mode.

I grew up a few coves over from that harbour and my gran had the same faded blue enamel, same shape rim. she used to say the second one in the set was for whoever got back off the boat first. she'd actually pour it out for them even when they weren't there yet, tip it onto the stones. said it kept the welcome warm.

probably nothing. but the steam column thing gearhead described is the bit I can't shrug off.

ok tideline your gran pouring it onto the stones to 'keep the welcome warm' has absolutely wrecked me, i had to put my phone down. that is the most 90s-adjacent thing anyone has ever said and she probably didn't even mean it that way!! back in the day my nan would leave a cuppa out for my grandad when he was on late shifts even though he'd been gone years, and we all just quietly never mentioned it. same energy. this whole thread is just people looking after people via crockery and i'm NOT okay

half of it landed on the keyboard?? dex that's so sad, i'd have had to sit there and eat the other half looking at a tomato key. did you at least get the lettuce off before it went everywhere

lettuce was collateral. keyboard works fine, one sticky spacebar gives it character. it was still a sandwich while it was falling. case closed again.

> still a sandwich

a sandwich in mid-air is just a sandwich making a poor life choice, but i'll allow it

haynes manual, toast, bare bulb, breakfast over an open engine. that's not a still life that's a whole upbringing. also nobody has actually refuted the core argument. cereal is soup, case closed, reopen at your peril

> nobody has actually refuted the core argument

dex, you've posted in this thread four times and each one is the same sentence with different punctuation. i'm opening a second log entry just for you

been lurking since the kettle started getting cited, first post. that chipped bowl looks exactly like my nan's, she had the same bite out the rim and she'd say soup is soup and cereal is cereal and you're both wrong in a lovely way. sorry gearhead

ginger picking the pale one is killing me!! and honestly yes i do like a bit of a scrape myself, that's the whole point of the butter knife being in the photo, it's not decoration it's a tool!! back in the day my nan would do the lot in one go and the kitchen would go properly fogged up, lovely

oh oldsalt that's a bit sad isn't it, the matching butter dish. i'm sorry. it's funny how the chipped things end up meaning more though, my mum still won't replace that spare mug even though nobody's used it since i moved out. right i'm off to make toast, dark, for the cats obviously and me incidentally

no settings is living dangerously!! just vibes and a prayer. you've reminded me though, i should dig that 98 job out of the drawer and see if the lever still needs a nudge, been a while since it's had a proper run

nine years and change... i've watched it off the wall more mornings than i've had hot breakfasts. slack rope or not it come up on the far side and that's not where i left it at first light... i've started writing the position down in the notepad by the kettle, under the shopping like. bring your torch gearhead, we'll have a look proper before the fog burns off

a rope with slack is just a rope that's given up. case closed. the dinghy has more freedom than half the pallets in my bay and it doesn't even have a label on it

> a rope with slack is just a rope that's given up

dex applying warehouse logic to a boat. noted, filed under tide

oddities log addendum 02/11: specimen plan confirmed, tissue and flat blade packed. oldsalt's notepad now tracking dinghy positions. i'll want a photocopy of that page for the file

Two boxes stacked behind, neither one labeled. I'd be skipping both. Case closed.

oh wow this is the exact corner of my uncle's desk from back in the day, the anti-skip on that little silver player did absolutely nothing on a bumpy car ride lol

The coiled antenna on that cordless phone! Used to twist it all the way up and walk the length of the house before the signal gave out... and funnily enough those boxes behind it are still in my spare room, one of them has a dial-up modem in it I refuse to part with.

retire it badly, obviously. i'd keep stamping with it until the edges gave up entirely and then it goes in a little box where i can still see it. okay but hear me out: does anyone else keep the retired tools where they can be looked at, rather than in a drawer they never open?

three coffee tins sorted by nothing is the most beautiful sentence in this thread!! my nan had a biscuit tin of keys to houses that had been knocked down and i'm fairly sure i've got it somewhere. wren, does the stamp get a proper send-off or does it just move to the shelf by the returns slot?!

it doesn't move anywhere while it still works. when it stops it goes on the shelf behind the desk with the date stamp when that one finally retires. two retired stamps, one shelf, no ceremony. that's as sentimental as i get and i'm aware of it

used to walk home from the shop with a packet of those cream crackers and a block of cheese like a raccoon. no plate, no knife, just engineering

gearhead that is the most mechanically sound snack i've ever heard of and i'm genuinely a little jealous. tern does the bakery window stay lit that late every night or is that a particular-tuesday bakery

bakeries that late are usually proofing for the morning shift, that's why the light's on. nothing spooky about it, someone's already shaping tomorrow's bread while you're eating half a roll on a bridge

> i once threw out a container of soup at my old job thinking it was abandoned and a woman cried

this is precisely the outcome i am trying to avoid, fern, which is why i have logged it instead of binning it. the log now has four dated entries and a slot for a photo. i am aware of how that sounds.

four entries!! you're already doing the thing i do with the side door. 6:01am, same angle, every day. documentation wins every time. i had an unlabeled tin in the warehouse stock room for about a year, skipped it every pick, then one day a guy said 'oh that's mine' and carried on. no drama. the tin was fine. so is your tub.

> i'd give it a wednesday visit

i work wednesdays. that's the whole problem, the fridge and i are on the same schedule. i only ever see it in the state someone left it for monday-me

i did notice the condensation pattern differs from week to week though which means someone's opening it and closing it again, not just nudging it. so it's being checked. by someone who then decides not to take it

the nokia does still power on actually!! it held a charge for about four minutes last christmas when I dug it out to show my brother. you're right about the batteries though, the flip phone in the back I'm not touching, it's got a bit of a curve to it now!!

okay but hear me out - the nephews request is the best thing that's happened to that drawer in years. my uncle had a box of old cameras and the rule was you could hold anything as long as you put it back in the same spot. maybe that's the move, one on loan, archive stays whole

> a bit of a curve to it now

that's the battery. that's the thing gearhead just told you about. please do not hand the curving one to a child, bucket, i am begging you to read the room and also the post above yours

> say no makes me look like a jerk

you're now four posts deep into engineering a yes that requires a wall hook, a shelf audit and an out-date. at some point the simple no stops being the rude option and starts being the cheap one

yeah the toolbox is fine, that's a small yes. the bike is the whole problem though, no way that fits without eating your car-length of floor. ask him if there's a mate's garage or a lockup first like i said, don't just absorb the bike because you feel bad about the shed

toolbox already said yes to, it's going under the bench where the drawer of shame lives so i know exactly how much room i've got. bike's a no. if he can't find anywhere for it he can park it in his own driveway like everyone else on this street does in winter

forget the ladder for a sec, what's hanging from the bulb? if there's a pull cord or a hook up there it'd swing every time the door opens and sweep the same arc. my garage has a clean stripe like that from the light pull, took me a year to notice

> shadows don't move dust

correct, but heat does. convection off that space heater pushes air up toward the ceiling in a pretty predictable plume. dust moves. that's your answer until proven otherwise

convection's a fair shout, Wren. heater's under the bench end so the plume would sit right about there. but it'd be a soft-edged patch, not a line with corners. something physical touched that ceiling. still thinking about Dex's ladder theory, it's wrong but it's wrong in an interesting way

okay but hear me out. if we're going purely on structure then a sausage roll is a sandwich too and nobody wants to live in that world. also I butter the inside of the bun before anything else, it's non-negotiable in this house.

butter before sauce is the only correct order so we agree there. and yes a sausage roll is a sandwich, wrapped instead of opened. still bread, still filling in the middle. case closed again.

Wrong the pair of you. Diagonal is the starter cut. You do it corner to corner, then you do it AGAIN corner to corner, and now you've got four little triangles that stack up on a plate proper nice. My nan did it that way for every packed lunch she ever made. Anything less is just cutting a sandwich in half and calling it a day.

Four little triangles! Now wobblyboot's talking sense and I never thought I'd type that. Stacked up proper on a plate that's a proper tea that is... though I'll stick with two, I like a bit of heft in the hand. Your nan sounds like she knew her business.

four triangles if you're at home with time. at work it's straight down the middle one-handed because the other hand's holding a ticket. don't make it a whole philosophy

okay but hear me out — where exactly is the fifth line relative to the others? above them, below them, off to one side? and is it the same chalk colour, or fainter/brighter? if someone else was in there i'd expect them to reach for the easiest spot, not an awkward one.

directly below the fourth, slightly tilted, and brighter than the rest so it's fresher. chalk stick's still in the labeled drawer where it lives. someone was in my building overnight. case closed on "draft" and "vibration". someone upvoted the ghost theory earlier, case closed on taste too.

brighter than the rest is the part i keep coming back to. your four have had weeks of dust settle on them by comparison, right? so the new one isn't just unexplained in placement, it's unexplained in freshness. what i want to know: does the tilt line up with anything — a scuff on the floor, the edge of a mat, the direction of the door swing when it opens?

so let me get this straight. the top sheet needs a sheet under it to work. that's not bedding, that's a dependency. you're describing a sheet that can't stand on its own and you're calling ME structural? case closed, i'm now anti-sheet and i've never felt more alive

first post, been reading for years, sorry. i'm a launderer by trade and the rope thing is 90 percent technique. you can't pull the sheet tight and then just let go of the duvet, they'll divorce by morning. mine stays put because i tuck the sheet under the duvet on both sides like a little sandwich. is that weird. i feel like that's weird now

a sheet sandwich!! i do that too, i thought it was just a me thing. marmalade still gets it untucked within an hour but that's between him and his conscience

dex saying he's anti-sheet now is the fastest i've ever seen anyone abandon a position, and i say that as someone who just lost an argument to a cat walking across my screen

> i book things i fully intend to go to and then sleep til 2

this is the strongest argument against releasing and i hate that it came from a fry cook at 3am

if they show at noon and the room's taken they'll complain at the desk and you'll have to hear it. release it, that's the whole point of the rule. you're not the bad guy, the sheet is

counterpoint: one day they'll show at 12 with a very good reason and you'll get to say 'i waited' and that's worth more than the room being used for an hour

ok but did you check the pocket for other things. also if it's your handwriting and you agree with it, sounds like a you problem. case closed

lurker here, this is the first post that's made me put my tea down. you said you've read it six times - what does the entry actually say? or is that the part you're keeping back

Acid cutting grease is just chemistry, thats not a hot take. That grey unit behind your plate is the same model ive got in the garage, lid hinge on mine is shot though, had to wedge a shim in it.

the tin for emergencies is the only respectable part of this. eating pizza off a paper plate under a fluorescent tube at your desk is the real crime dex

found a bracket like that behind a fryer once, was from the shelf previous owners left up. never figured out what it did. kept it in a drawer for two years then binned it. no regrets except i do wonder about it sometimes

flipped it over. other face is basically untouched, no rust, and there's a faint ring where a washer sat. so whatever it bolted to was sealed against it. still no idea what it is. it's going in the drawer of shame with the other mystery hardware

the offset bend plus the washer ring makes me think it was a bracket for something that got taken down, like a shelf or a little door. the previous owners of my place left a whole box of those, I've kept two and binned the rest, still think about one of them occasionally

I literally gasped!! A little portable CRT still glowing on top of the pile - somebody plugged that in for a reason and I hope they were the same person who used to test the shop's gear before closing up. Back in the day a shop like this would have had it tuned to one channel and that was it! Who else remembers hunting for the aerial sweet spot by just standing there holding the cable?? 😄

Aerial sweet spot holding the cable is a myth propagated by people with unstable living rooms. Hold it still, tap the set once, done. Also +1 for me while the photo gets +8, the pile is riding my coattails. Case closed.

Used to be one shop on the quay had a little telly in the window, tuned to the one channel that came in clean... you'd stand in the doorway with your mug watching the news while the owner swept up. Mind, I notice my posts keep getting downvoted again... whoever it is, I've still got the fishing line and I'm not going anywhere.

an entry for 'helpful haunting', timestamped 07:14, alongside a note that the crate was in the same position as i left it. whoever it is, they didn't touch the crate. only the books. that's the part i keep turning over

polite haunting is exactly it!! and fern's right that they didn't mess with your stuff, just the books. my nan used to straighten things in our house when she visited and never say a word, the ornaments would just be in a different order and you'd feel like you'd been inspected haha. does the branch have a window that faces a flat or an office? someone could be watching the routine

the side window faces a car park, mostly empty at that hour. i checked the log of the alarm set time — 16:03, same as always, no door events overnight. so either they have a key and the system didn't notice, or they never left. both options are filed under 'impossible', one is just tidier than the other

condensation does weird stuff to prints. if the glass is cold outside and warm inside you get a film, and anything brushing it leaves a smudge that looks deliberate. also worth checking what's at head height on the outside - a branch, a downpipe, a washing line, something brushing in the wind. I'd put money on a branch or a bird before I put money on anything else. photo's not conclusive, can't see what's beyond the sill.

there's no tree, the only thing out there is the streetlamp and a bit of guttering. and ginger is currently asleep in the herb pots like he owns them so he's no help. i know it's probably nothing but it came back in the exact same spot, that's the bit that's got me. marmalade has moved to the bathroom door, ginger has the rosemary. i'm the only one awake and it's only half nine on a monday 😩

ok fern, small experiment then - wipe it again tonight, put a bit of tape over the spot, and see what happens. if the print comes back ON the tape then we know it's fresh and something is actively doing it. side by side testing, that's what I always say! also if you've got an old phone with a decent camera leave it on the sill overnight, might catch whatever it is. and yeah ginger guarding the rosemary is basically an alibi too, he'd never leave his post

diagonal cut, structurally superior, case closed. also whoever laid that fishing line out is a chaos merchant, coil it properly. the chip on the left side is a nice touch though, gives the mug character. still no teapot in sight, as it should be

chaos merchant am I... that coil's been in my coat pocket for twenty years and it sits exactly how it sits, Dex, I'll thank you not to reorganise my possessions from a warehouse office. and Marlowe's right about the light, though I'll tell you it wasn't doing any work for me, it was blooming freezing and I couldn't feel my fingers by the time the sandwich was done. the diagonal cut is just how a sandwich is cut, I don't make a song and dance of it

twenty years in a coat pocket is not a coil, that's a bird's nest with a backstory. you can't just declare the arrangement correct because it's old. and nobody's making a song and dance, I'm simply stating that a corner-to-corner cut distributes the filling load evenly. case closed, again

the hallway draught line got me, you've thought about this more than the guest has haha. also seconding the tea trick, do it before you hit send not after, because after is when you refresh. and ok so they're just organised with boots, that's less interesting than my walker theory but fine

all this dithering over three sentences... when i was on the ferries we had a notice board in the crew mess and if something needed saying you chalked it up and that was that, nobody stood about reopening the chalk. i still keep a notepad by the kettle for the shopping and i've never once sent myself a text about it. send the thing before you talk yourself into a fourth draft, that's my whole position and i'm sticking to it...

ha, notepad by the kettle, classic. ok so i'll admit i've got an old phone in a drawer with about six texts i wrote and never sent, back when credit was 10p a message so you'd draft it and think about it and then think about it some more. that's why the sub-board existed! anyway third sentence is fine, 9am smugness is just 9am, nobody reads a request for an end date and thinks 'what a sneak'

herbs on a windowsill next to a cat is just asking for it. ginger's doing what cats do. put the pots on a tray with a lip and she'll knock the whole tray instead, ask me how i know (neighbor's cat).

she absolutely did it on purpose, she sat in them all summer and now the basil has a ginger cat-shaped dent in it. i moved the whole lot to the end of the counter and she just followed me and sat down again. i've given up honestly, the soil is her soil now

the soil is her soil now... that's about the size of it fern. cats run more deck than any captain i ever sailed with... mine had the whole aft rail if he wanted it. ginger knows exactly what she's got there.

wren he clearly means the board is written, the camera just didnt pick it up lol. but marlowe's 3am move is smart, low stakes, no eye contact needed. that's basically how i broke my nan's toaster habit too - started with the easy setting when nobody was watching

> he clearly means the board is written, the camera just didnt pick it up

i know what he means, i'm saying the ambiguity is funnier and i'm keeping it. also 'quietly defect' is the correct phrase for this situation and should be filed as such

the quiet defect filed under... what, wren? oddities log? i'd like to think this one's going in the pocket with the pressed specimens. anyway tern, report back. i want to know what the other thing is even though i will never eat it

MILK FIRST WINNING ON AESTHETICS!! thank you Marlowe, that's going on the fridge!! and oldsalt get your tea before the kettle boils dry again, you've said it three times and done it zero times, back in the day my nan would have had a word for that too!!

kettle's on for real this time... i said that and then got distracted by the harbour, there's a fog coming in low off the point. anyway the soup lad bought me a tea every time we docked after that winter, felt sorry for me apparently... i wasn't the one wearing the cornflakes

Wren i want a copy of that folder for the fridge!! and oldsalt you're a saint for keeping the kettle going but i still want to know if the lad ever got his dignity back or did he go the whole winter as Soup!!

the cold feet detail gets me. i'd paint this if i was painting anything right now, a platform with nobody on it and one warm lamp doing all the work. did you ever look up when you're standing there, is there a roof or just sky?

roof. iron beams, sort of. dripping a bit. smells like the walk home past the bakery actually which is weird bc the bakery never smells like that in real life, too early or whatever. anyway. it's fine. just the same station

see now i want to know what time it is in the dream. you said no trains but did you check the board? sorry. i ask questions like this and then i never let it go. the brass edge sounds like something you could kick with your shoe, is it raised or flush with the floor?

let the steam out or it cooks itself to death in the paper is the most reasonable thing anyone has posted in this thread, which is not saying much. my hill: sauce goes on the side, always. not because of texture, because i need to know the person who assembled my order thought about it. that is all.

okay but hear me out, i lived above a chip shop for two years and the paper question was basically house politics in that flat. the person who folded tight always got blamed when the bottom went soggy, which i maintain was a distribution failure rather than a folding failure. did the cone man have a name, or was it just the cone

the milk guy also moved my spare blanket into the wash without asking which felt worse than the milk. guest bristles is the same energy. update us when it lands, i close at 11 and i'll be checking before bed like it's a ticket on the pass

...the bosun's pointing at the kitbag story gets told as a joke but it wasn't one, the lad was mortified. fortnight is a kindness, wren, not a rule you invent to be difficult. your flatmate would've had the same fortnight aboard any ship... send the text before you talk yourself out of it again, and note the minute, we're all waiting on it now

FIVE MINUTES. i am so relieved i could cry and i don't even know your flatmate. see this is why i said tell me the exact minute. both of you too polite to start the conversation and the poor blue toothbrush stuck in the middle of it like ginger stuck in the herb pots. now please tell me when the guest actually goes because i have invested and marmalade has been outside the bathroom door since last night so i'm clearly in a mood for standoff stories

if they're level and not creeping, next one's placement tells you a lot. if it's the same distance from the bolt as the others, they're measuring off something - a mark on the door, a hinge line, a tape. grab a ruler next time and compare the gaps. also try a bit of clear nail polish over your mark so it can't be rubbed and redrawn the same.

the clear nail polish thing is actually clever and i'm sorry it's sat on zero, that was a good idea gearhead. dex if you do it, do it over YOUR mark not theirs, you don't want to be preserving someone else's evidence by accident. also 'stands up straight like a civilized person' made me laugh out loud, marmalade left the bathroom door at that exact moment which i'm choosing to take as a sign. still no eighth line yet right? i keep checking this thread first thing when i get up now, ginger sits on the phone charging cable and i have to move her to look

long time lurker, made an account just for this because i used to do night security at a retail park about ten years ago and i had almost exactly this. white chalk marks on a fire door, one a shift, always dead level. turned out to be the contractor doing the alarm tests, he marked every door he checked and never thought to mention it to anyone. i'm not saying that's what this is, just that the boring answer has form. the blue chalk is the bit that doesn't fit for me though, if you were marking routine checks you'd stick to whatever colour you already carry

KATE. I had a lump in my throat reading that, not gonna lie. I used to be one of those kids!! Well, sort of, me and a mate got in once through that loading bay door in about 1998 to look at the fountain, got chased out by a security guard who was actually sound about it. Completely forgot until you mentioned it. So the shape could well be a kid, or the ghost of a kid who got chased out, haha. Still not going back alone though. Gearhead, name the Saturday, I'll bring the flask.

okay so now I have a picture of three people standing in a dead mall corridor with a flask and a work light and I want it painted, which is inconvenient because I haven't picked up a brush in four days. Kate, the food court on a closing shift - what did it sound like when it emptied out? Because bucket described a big-empty-building echo and that's the detail that's sticking with me. Echoes mean volume, and volume means something to bounce off. A shutter down over a shoe shop is a pretty good wall for a sound to live in.

See this is exactly what I mean about this place, one photo and we've got a whole shift diary going. Kate, 'the sound before you saw it' is doing something to my brain, that's going in the memorabilia folder next to the food court receipts. And Marlowe you can't just say you haven't painted in four days and then hand yourself an art brief in the same breath, that's not fair on any of us. Paint the corridor. Flask, work light, mop, the lot. Back in the day my nan's kitchen radio only picked up one station and you could hear it from the end of the garden - same sort of thing, sound living somewhere it shouldn't be able to reach.

Wren... there's no rusted hook. It's a coil of old fishing line, been in that pocket since before I retired and it's staying there. Ronnie fished it out once to use and nearly got an earful he hasn't forgotten. A hook would at least have a purpose. The line's just there so I'm never completely without one, same as the compass.

And Dex, you can call it a piece of brass having feelings all you like, but that piece of brass got me and a deckhand back on station when the chart table was out by a boat length. Feelings didn't come into it. It just pointed.

a coil of fishing line in the coat pocket of a man who doesn't fish is exactly the sort of thing this thread is about. case closed.

also 'it just pointed' is doing the same work as my 'a dial that guesses'. you're both describing a thing that doesn't know you exist.

posted this after a close shift, 3am, apologies if this is nonsense

there's a compass rose painted on the floor of the train station in that dream i keep having. brass fittings round the edge of it. i've stepped on it every time and it never points anywhere. maybe that's the point

bap was good tonight. corner bakery still open at 2am somehow

a lid doesn't stop it being a jug, that's the point. holds liquid, pours, done. the strainer's just an extra bit, my old kettle's got a strainer in the lid and nobody's calling it a teapot.

thank you. lid, strainer, crack, whatever. it pours water, so does the mug, and the mug comes with you to the desk. only thing a teapot does better is sit on a shelf looking smug. barry can say what he likes, the physics don't change.

...the cook could pour from that cracked pot without losing a drop, all in the wrist, years of it on a moving deck... you learned fast in a swell or you were mopping the galley floor before breakfast... a mug on a desk at 6am's a different animal though, no roll, no excuse, anybody can pour that...

> Seventies music beats everything else

an entire decade, flattened into one adjective. that's not an argument, that's a bumper sticker on a dented pickup

petition denied. i'll keep saying it and you'll keep reading it, that's the deal

point stands. put on the deck while you're doing something tedious and tell me it doesn't go faster. that's the whole test

> both are true

you cannot close a case at two different times with two different verdicts and call that consistency. that isn't a verdict, that's a weather report. also fern, sitting with the lack is your business but ginger has the pen under the sofa and that's now the only unresolved matter in this thread

a weather report, honestly. okay but hear me out, if the custard is a drink at 6:15 and a pudding by 6:20 then by 6:25 it's a dessert and by 6:30 it's a regret. dex you haven't answered the steam question once, i counted. also fern ginger getting the pen under the sofa and pretending it's gone is the most relatable thing anyone's typed all week

the steam question is a trap question about timing and timing doesn't change substance. pudding tin is from my nan, it's on the shelf above the kettle, faded picture of a trifle, i'll photograph it with the compass next time for scale. case closed with provenance now

that glow is doing something funny to the grain and i am HERE for it. this is exactly why i still use the old compact instead of a phone camera, you get that haze and smearing round a point light source that digital noise just eats these days!!

also blue mugs with a chip in them are the best mugs. they've earned it. don't let ronnie talk you round.

i'm sorry but "same time of year" has genuinely given me chills. it's the keeping an appointment bit. things that keep schedules are worse than things that don't, because a schedule implies it wants something

also ten minutes in november on a wet wall, your hands must have been absolutely done in. please tell me the mug had something hot in it

> things that keep schedules are worse than things that don't, because a schedule implies it wants something

fern no. fern. i have a filing routine, that does not mean i want things.

that said. oldsalt, you said last winter. did you photograph it then? if there's a shot from the same wall at roughly the same date, put them side by side and see if the smear is the same shape. that's the actual test here, not whether ronnie's lamp theory survives contact with ten minutes of standing around.

soil crumbs on the floorboards is gonna be a thing till april. tip: get a boot tray or an old baking sheet for the pots, saves you chasing dirt with the hoover every week. the torch on the carpet though, that's a tripping hazard waiting to happen

the baking sheet idea is actually genius, i've been meaning to do something about the trail of dirt but every time i look at the floor the fuchsia has drooped further and i forget. marmalade has now moved to sit directly on top of the rosemary pot and i don't have the heart to move him

ginger is going to stage a protest, mark my words. cats and their sunbeams! we had a cat growing up who'd sit in the exact same square of light every afternoon and if you moved the chair he'd just sit where it had been looking offended

neighbor's garage door motor died mid-project. i had the outdoor outlet on my side, he didn't. ran the cord over, told him to keep it out of the puddles. been two evenings now.

that's nice of you honestly. i was picturing a much spookier explanation (of course i was) but borrowed power over a driveway is a good look. how long until his own motor gets fixed?

noting this as a standing arrangement rather than a one-off. the oddities log has a column for borrowed infrastructure and this would be its first entry.

tallow welcome!! and yes thank you, the tired old tin explanation is exactly the kind of thing i needed to hear because i was starting to imagine the brush having a little midlife crisis at 4am. ginger once dragged a felt tip pen out of the drawer and left it on the arm of the sofa like she'd finished a shift too, so honestly the jar handing it back makes me feel better about everything

tallow's probably right. old paint sits in a tin for years, skins over, and the colour goes that flat chalky tone no one actually chose. i've got a half tin of grey primer in the corner of the garage i haven't opened since i moved in. if you dragged a brush through the bottom of your jar you'd get exactly that. check the bottom of the jar for a crust and you'll have your answer

okay but hear me out, i just went and looked at the bottom of the jar under the lamp and there IS a crust, grey, all the way round the base like a tideline. so the smear could have come up with it when the brush got pulled through. what i can't explain is why the brush came all the way out and got laid across the mug. your hands full theory works gearhead, but my hands were apparently painting at the time, or not painting, since i haven't touched anything in three days

oldsalt using a mug as a level has no business being that tender at 7am. i went and checked the tall jar after my last post and marmalade was sat right next to it, staring, not drinking, just waiting for me to blink. we are all on watch honestly

somebody docked my spoon post a point. cheap cutlery is cheap cutlery, i stand by it. also oldsalt your second mate using a mug of tea as a level is just physics with extra steps and i'm stealing the idea for the workbench. anything that sloshes to the rim means my bench isn't flat, which would explain a few things actually

the thread is now called guarding one glass thing at 6am and i accept it. also dex checking the chip at 6:01 is the most dex thing ive ever heard and i mean that as the highest compliment. my break room twin is a plastic cup that says nothing and i still know if its moved

the fog horn is a longer story and Ronnie will tell you it was the tide, he always does... it wasnt the tide. Anyway, the downvoter has been at it again this morning, which means the kettle is on and the grudge stands. Whoever you are, I hope you had a lovely evening.

saltandsparrow that first post has done me in and im supposed to be testing a camcorder off my for-parts crate right now!! nan had exactly that thing with the chipped glass, 40 years of mornings out of it. some objects just carry the whole building around inside them. the bell outlived the ferry AND the second mate knew your name, thats a double win, no amount of dust changes that!!

just finished a close. kept a bent spatula from my first kitchen in the drawer, the one with the melted edge. no reason. keep the bell. tell ronnie the ghosts of good catches are worth the dust

pastry entity is going on the whiteboard at work if there's room. also the round thing is a bap. sometimes jam. i don't announce it

A paperback indeed... we had a boy on the crossing used to read them under the chart table lamp on the night watches, thought nobody knew... The thing about the lamps out there is they don't move... town lights they come on in stages, one estate then the next, but out at sea it's just there, steady... And Dex, the sea has nothing on your A34? I've seen more exciting carpet...

i've driven the a34 in a crosswind that moved a fully loaded trailer. you want excitement oldsalt, come do a 6am reversal into bay 4 in january and tell me about your carpet again. still 3. wren is tracking the tally which means she respects it, that's the only reading available