Ann Firbank

            On Wednesday morning during song practice my guitar didn't go out of tune as much as usual. The humidity was even higher than it has been and so I wonder if there’s a connection. Maybe the guitar was taken to its upper limits and just held on there.

            Around midday I started looking for the missing front part of the upper right drawer of my vintage dresser. I pulled the dresser out from the wall to stand on it and knew right away that I’d made a mistake. The larger front part of the lower drawer began to fall. I tried to move my left foot out of the way but the edge of the board hit the top of my foot and left a painful two centimetre long scratch. I climbed on the dresser to look in one of my storage containers on the upper shelf and found what I was looking for.

            I polished the dresser with Orange Glo and still had time to wash two pairs of shorts and also the scarf that I plan on using for a face mask when I go to the supermarket. I put everything out on the railing of the deck to dry and then went over to the liquor store to buy a case of Creemore. I had totally forgotten that I was also required to wear a face mask at the liquor store and so I went back home to get the wet scarf. That was acceptable but I found myself inhaling the cloth in my nostrils.

            I had a few crackers with salami and a granola bar with skyr for lunch.

            I took a siesta and woke up to find there was a rain storm going on. I went outside and everything that I’d washed that should have been almost dry by then was soaked. I took it all inside and hung it in the bathroom. Some of my artwork that had been piled up had blown into the living room and so had a set of negatives.

            I did my exercises while listening to Amos and Andy. In this story Sapphire and her mother are trying to win a $2000 prize by buying Euriah pancake mix and sending in the box tops with letters about why they love the product. Because of this Kingfish has to eat pancakes every morning and he’s getting tired of it, especially because the pancakes are hard. Sapphire tells him to soften them up with maple syrup but he says that’s like putting Jergens Lotion on a manhole cover. Kingfish’s complaining becomes too much and so Sapphire and Ramona decide to move out for good. Later Kingfish gets a call that Sapphire has won the $2000 prize but he has no idea where he is. He puts a fake report in the paper that he has been run over by a steamroller and so Sapphire comes home. They appear on the TV show to pick up the prize but it turns out to be $2000 worth of Euriah pancake mix.

            I put my shorts back outside but after they dried the rain had made them smell bad. I’ll have to wash them all over again.

            I finally had room on my hard drive to upload the July 4 video recording of my morning song practice. I don’t think I’ll do any more recording until I’ve uploaded the best songs from these seventeen sessions.

I watched six videos of rehearsals of the song “Personne” and another six of my translation, “Person”. Some of each turned out fine. When I look at the other songs I can decide better which of them to upload. If some are equally good then the sets with a lot of good performances would be better to synchronize with the microphone recording because then the session could just be cut up and the songs would be ready to be rendered.

I worked a bit on my poem collection “My Blood in a Bug”.

It was still too hot to use the stove and so I just had crackers and salami with a beer. I tried to watch an episode of Tombstone Territory but it was only a partial download. From what I could see of the story it was just a western TV show cliché. Bad guys take over a town and then the hero has to stop them. It wasn’t worth looking for a full version on YouTube. Instead I returned to “The Adventures of Robin Hood” and watched two episodes from the third season from where I left off.

In the first story Timothy Cox is an orchard master who knows about the craft of growing apples and he is in love with Mary Quartermaine. She says that her father’s will states that the man she marries must win an archery tournament on her birthday. But Timothy cannot shoot an arrow and has no interest in archery. Pierre of Bordeaux is Timothy’s rival for Mary’s hand and he is a great archer. Timothy goes off into Sherwood Forest to try to teach himself to shoot. Robin and Little John observe his efforts and decide to help him. But Timothy can’t seem to get the hang of archery until Robin learns that Timothy is a craftsman. He takes him to the band’s bowyer and fletcher and has him apprentice for two weeks to learn to make bows and arrows. It’s enough for Timothy to gain respect for the tools and after that he takes to Robin’s archery instruction more easily. In the contest with Pierre Timothy breaks a tie and wins by shooting an apple thrown into the air and thereby wins the hand of Mary.

Mary was played by Ann Firbank, who was in “The Scarlet Pimpernel", "Passage to India" and "The Rise of Skywalker”. She played Anne Elliot in the TV series “Persuasion”, based on Jane Austen’s novel.

In the second story there is a drought in Sherwood Forest and so Robin and Little John go behind their usual territory while tracking a deer. When the deer eludes them they stop to rest before heading back. Meanwhile some starving villagers are hiding their grain in a cave so their lord does not find it and take it away from them. But suddenly the lord's soldiers appear at the mouth of the cave and step in. They roll away the rock behind which the grain is hidden and take it away. The villagers conclude that there must be a traitor among them who tipped the soldiers off . A boy named Davey who had been on lookout in a true says that he saw two men sitting not far from the cave. Later in the local tavern Davey points Robin and Little John out as the strangers that he'd seen. The villagers capture Robin and Little John. When Robin tells them who he is they don’t believe him. Robin and Little John escape but it gives Jason an idea that he will go and ask the help of the real Robin Hood. He goes to Sherwood where he is brought blindfolded to Robin and is surprised that the person he meets is the same man they'd captured. Robin agrees to help them. He explores the cave and hears voices behind the rocks. he shouts and bangs on the rock wall and then hides. Shortly a secret passage opens up leading from the lord’s castle to the cave. The soldiers knew the whereabouts of the hiding place because they had been there all along. Meanwhile the villagers begin to be suspicious of Jason, thinking that he is the traitor. Robin shows up before they hang Jason and shoots and arrow to cut his bonds. The villagers are impressed with the display of archery and conclude that this must really be Robin Hood. Robin tells them about the secret passage and lectures them about not jumping to conclusions out of fear when they should be trusting one another.