Dear reader I explain my absence as a result of tackling the project head on in a
frantic and soggy attempt to get the build sealed before the winter arrives. I
can report that this has not quite happened. The walls are now erected and the
roof taking shape. However, the weather has turned for the worse and I find
myself paddling to and from the garage in a self built canoe. (The blue peter
episode with the old washing basket?)
Amidst the mud ,the waves and the
confusion, I begin to think we should have built on stilts in preparation for
the big flood. We have stayed true to biblical accounts insofar as the animals are
indeed arriving two by two (spiders, moths, pond skaters and fools tottering
atop rickety ladders). We have emerged sniffling and resplendent after plagues
and blights (manflu and sickness bugs) and have become dab hands at the
water/wine phenomenon (it’s raining- pub?).
As beams swell, beer bottles empty
and tempers fray, our initial Christmas deadline seems impossibly
optimistic. However, I comfort myself
with looking through photos of the project so far and realise how far we have
come. Alex’s cries of ‘pass me the
noggin and sand off the snots’ no longer leave me searching vainly for
dismembered and unfortunate mannequins and begin to make sense. I am now an accomplished carpenter….of sorts ,
a ladder gymnast capable of contorting myself into all sorts of precarious
positions without plummeting onto concrete. Alex meanwhile is skilled on the
beam and I am considering signing us up for the next Britain’s Got Talent as the
Kitchen Contortionists.
Rain lashes against the study window as I write this
and a duck bobs past on Lake Lavenham. A festive finale may well turn out to be
an unrealistic (drain)pipe dream. However, we have generated more than enough
sawdust to host a plausible nativity scene. Clever use of tarpaulin may aid in
the parting of the red(sand) sea currently flowing past the back door and with
the aid of my laundry basket boat I can wash my socks by night in the garage.
