A long thaw

F%#$@& bleak, and wet

It doesn't get worse. January in the garden during a thaw. I thought it was over when the temperature dropped to 6°C yesterday morning, but it didn't last. Today, the rain falls on a super-saturated natural world that can't absorb much more. It's ugly. Endlessly, dismally, depressingly ugly. So ugly that I wonder if the spring can really make it better again.

And, Jericho, you were right about that thaw business.



So let's see, where was I? Plastering the larger of the two guest rooms, what? A week ago? So, not much has changed from when we left off -- when was that? My last progress (snort) photos are from the 12th, the last progress (collapsing laughing) post the 14th, but the last time I actually touched a trowel? Hm. Well, there was the installation of the sisal (sliced, not diced) the 13th, the arrival and installation of the wood-burning stove the 18th, the very Monday of the week that snowballed me away from work on the house with the arrival of my friend the 19th, a dinner party the same night, the reinstallation of the satellite dish the wood stove installers took down with the rabbit ears, and entertaining for a week solid. I made a valorous effort, even if I wasn't very entertaining, having come down with an auto-immune infection, which is making its return right now.

Then, there was the let-down and recovery. The kicking and screaming. The sudden quiet when you realize that it's not getting you any closer to being done with it.

I have to finish. Monsieur would really like to get on with delivering the piano.

So, yesterday, possibly the day before (who knows?), I took up my trowel, resumed my mantle of self-created pressure and fought the despair of never, ever finishing like the devil himself.

Pouting never got anyone anywhere, or that's what my mother told me. I'm not so sure. Look at all those models.

Next week, the attorney writes a wake-up letter to the workers for the long-stopped renovations. Time for me to take over and prime the big guns, and then stick to them.

Stay tuned for lots more fun.

My plaster stuff is set, got to run.
....