The scene worked out. Yay.

The night…

The temperatures were low, especially for this time of year, the sky clear and a waning moon shining down on our mountain when it happened: There was a bounce, a nudge and then a noisy snap a split second before a stab of excruciating pain went through me. I literally sat up straight in the bed, shoved like mad at the giant of a cow right there where my knee was still pulsing. Knight II had mounted the bed and opted to slam his full weight down on the joint (yes, the same one he dislocated almost a year ago, aaaargh) without my knowledge until it was too late.

Oh. My. God! I’d almost forgotten what it felt like, and there it was, bringing tears to my eyes and ripping an expletive from my mouth the very moment Knight II guiltily slinked off the bed. I pulled my knee up against my chest for a bit, cried a bit, worried that I wouldn’t be able to do anything with the darn leg today and finally drifted back to sleep.

Song of the day: “Face in the crowd” by Lionel Richi and Treintje Oosterhuis; finally a new song tumbling through my head for several hours on end, which was kind of a relief what with all the repeats these past few weeks. Good song; solid, sweet. Yeah, excellent change to have stuck in a brain that should have better stuff to do, but seems to think that putting a song on repeat is a good idea. Hah.

Let’s see, I got up right on the dot, even though I was somewhat surprised to find the alarm shrilling suddenly while I had been staring at my ceiling in the silence of morning and the next it was screeching setting the dogs into a tizzy.

Suffice it to say the usual hubbub ensued as I threw them out, got dressed and headed down to the house to get an early start on work. After the usual chores such as laundry, kitchen stuff and breakfast, I settle behind the computer and manage to get half a page down of the new scene, when the time to start editing arrives and we set to it.

Today the scene I altered the other day is up, and I’m actually surprised that it flows rather well. Just a few minor corrections need to be added, and then I hardly notice the changes at all. They’ve just become a part of the story now, that certainly raises my spirits a bit as we breeze through a solid six pages of the re-write, and the afternoon has passed.

Time to head out and start on the physical part of the day. Hah. First, I made dinner, though. I was in the mood for bami (noodles with stir fry vegetables) and it took only half an hour or so to prepare, which meant that dinner would be ready to eat once we were done with work. Another batch of laundry gets done and then it’s back to working on the pillar in the courtyard.

I made cement, haul it down to the courtyard and add another foot to the pillar while big brother spends the next few hours doing some maintenance chores all over the place. As it turns out…so he tells me, when he joins me for the last few rocks that are added in today’s section…he also fixed the faucet in my bathroom. For the past couple of years there seemed to be a bit of a problem with the water pressure. So, he took the thing apart, removed a clod of sand from the tube so that now it is running like any average faucet. Yay. Ah, the luxury of filling a glass in just a few seconds, rather than minutes. Hah.

With the remainder of the cement, we head back up to the cabin to continue with the low wall in front of my cabin. This is when I remembered what had happened with the knee during the night. It’s nothing short of a miracle, I’ll admit, but there’s not even a twinge in the joint, and I’m actually astounded by it. I would have sworn that my knee would’ve been swollen all over this morning.

But anyway, for the next few hours I focused on erecting more of the rock wall - I make another batch of cement, because the left over was just barely enough to add three rocks - while big brother and grandpa tackle the side of my porch once more.

Oh jeez, I forgot to mention that yesterday, when we were out for our jog, we found this gorgeous harmonica screen, made out of wood (also a solid armoire) and just had to take it along, even though we had no idea what to use it for yet. It was almost in perfect condition, minus one paw, so we brought it home with us. Now the fun part is that three of the four part screen fits perfectly…as if made for it…in the opening that we’d so difficultly closed up against the dogs the other day.

So now, I have this rather beautiful partition, closing off the side of my porch, keeping the dogs inside while looking downright quaint at the same time. I love finding stuff like that, especially stuff that can be made to fit in the blink of an eye.

It is already close to sundown when we take a quick dip in the pool…the younger sibs are playing soccer up on the mountain at the same time…and ten head inside to have a quick bite to eat. We wanted to take the car out before it got dark, to see if our old spot for rocks was still reachable. After we got down the mountain and rounded the curb, we saw that the road is closed off for all traffic. Not only by a fence, mind you. No, there was actually an entire section of the hill lying on top of the macadam.

Next thing you know we were heading back home, where we spend the remainder of the evening, watching a recorded episode of “Reaper” and then take Camera (Golden Retriever) under the loop. The poor dog has a massive swelling on her shoulder…she looks a little like a hunchback, poor thing…so we spent quite some time removing most of the overflow with a syringe that brings the amount of fluid up to almost 150 milliliter. I gotta admit that I was a little queasy after I was done.

Time to head up to my cabin, for another quick edit and today’s edit and then the day has come to an end. Phew. I’m beat. Hah.