Tuesday, May 31, 2016

Sophie's Choice





Soaked through.


One of my worst nightmares occurred the other day and I’m still going through it. The situation: Manet’s garden in Giverny, family day out. Shit weather but beautiful surroundings. I’m just starting to assume my Monty Don persona, along with a side order of requisite silliness for the children present when I receive a call. It’s Antonin, my stepson, who is back in the UK. I take it and immediately enter a world of pain.  He happened to be passing by the house and went in, presumably to steal food, and was greeted by water spurting everywhere. He’s panicking so I get it together enough to tell him where the stopcock is and then start panicking myself.

At this point I’m relaying info to Emmanuelle, who tells me to call the emergency plumber through the insurance, which I do. Further communication with Ant reveals the situation to have been resolved, but not before quite a lot of flooding had occurred, SOAKING SHITLOADS OF MY RECORDS! By this point I’m starting to visualise the scene that will greet us on our return., so I urge Ant to get as many of them as possible out of the water and onto anything dry.

We return home more than a day early to be greeted by tons of wax all over the place. It’s an ongoing process. I’m trying to save as many as I can, but a lot are lost. I estimate around a thousand. They say your whole life flashes in front of you when you die, but it’s already happened to me, well the last twenty years or so anyway. Everything in plain sleeves, particularly black or white, will live to fight another day. What’s frustrating is that those with the artwork, the most original packaging, are the ones which depreciate the quickest. As can be seen from previous posts, I’d just started cataloguing on Discogs, but the last hundred or so will have to be struck off, as they’ve succumbed to the mess. I’ll also have to resume the filing at a much later date. Half of the ground floor has to be ripped out and replaced first.


Still in shock, but life goes on. Still looking for my brand new clear vinyl copy of the new Der Zyklus album.

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