Car stuff, again.

Song of the day: “Faraway voice” by Katie Melua. I’ve got her a lot, don’t I? Guess she’s got a voice that sticks in my head for some reason.

Okay, today’s hooray is for little sister, who is having her birthday. I asked her last night if she wanted me to make a cake, or if she rather have pastries. Considering she preferred the latter, we’re having pastries today. Hah.

Oh my Gawd. Twenty one years since that tiny little squirt came into the world. I remember the excitement when mom’s water broke, the hours and hours (I was ten years old and it seemed to last and eternity) that passed until the midwife came to assist with the birth.

Waiting and waiting, dozing a little in the living room but not wanting to go to bed due to the excitement. Stepdad walking around with little brother (three year old toddler) auntie talking in hushed tones, the dime lighting. And then, before I realized it, stepdad woke me and softly told me I had a little sister.
I didn’t know how I felt, but I think it was a mix of trepidation and excitement.

She was beautifully shaped, albeit a bit squashed and…well it seemed like she was greasy too, hah. And so tiny. It scared me a little to touch her, but she was a sweet baby for as far as my ten year old self was concerned.

Gawd, how fast the time goes. One day someone’s a tiny little baby and the next a young woman rearing to take on the world. Strange how that goes. And a difficult adjustment to make. I’ve always felt protective towards her, and I sometimes really have to restrain myself from not wanting to do it still. She’s an adult now, and there comes a time when one has to let go of that, I guess.

Well, enough maudlin, let’s get to the daily stuff and move on.

There was garden work, and it really settled me down after a hectic three days, seeing as we had to pick up our friend in Marbella yesterday. In fact we had to drive the distance twice, seeing she’d forgotten to go to her lawyer, and the bank. So the trip took about an hour longer than usual. *sigh*
We did take the chance to buy breakfast (French bread with cream cheese) and went to the hardware store to get pool paint for the basin. Expensive stuff that. Jeez.

But the gardening was nice. Got a good batch of new tomatoes, along with peppers, leek and of course zucchinis. We need to water a lot less, now that the weather is aiming towards winter. Even now the sky is overcast with clouds, rain heavy in the air, as the weather site predicted. I hope it holds long enough for me to finish the blog.

Oh, oh, got a good stack of glass again, meaning that we’re probably going to get quite a bit of the greenhouse covered sometime in the next two weeks. Which is a good thing since it is getting to be later and later. This really isn’t the time to dawdle if we want to do most of our veggies this winter.


Yesterday evening we spent a couple of hours working on the greenhouse, attaching hooks to the 4X4 beams that will soon support the glass all the way through. Though it was all already attacked we like to do a thing called overkill on the most part. Those metal hooks will help a lot, I’m thinking.

Tenant almost made a fist and is getting more mobile every day. Yay. What with her caregiver away to her other job so often, I am certainly seeing a lot of tenant, which allows me to keep better track of her progress. We considered the pastries today also part as a celebration for making a fist.

Mom is considering to take legal actions against the sewing machine company where she bought a new one just months ago. The stupid machine has been giving her nothing but trouble, and though I doubt it will do any good, she wants to try.

Got some good editing done these past two days. About twelve pages, I think. Even though we have been pretty distracted by Google Earth, since we’ve been trying to find a proper setting for the story. Like a town that fits the description I gave it, the types of people. So fascinating to just roam the earth like that, see on the screen what it would be like to actually be there. Hah.

Also managed to do a spot of writing. Albeit on paper, which doesn’t matter, considering that transferring it to the computer will be a matter of half an hour or something. Got started on the trauma scene. You know, the “thing” that bothers the male hero. His personal angst. Always nice to suck the drama, make it poignant and extremely intense.

This morning we spent hovering over and under the Land Rover. We found out that the garage put in the wrong oil, which is apparently not a good thing for this particular brand. Had to drain the engine and then put in 50 bucks worth of new oil. Was quite an experience, I’ll admit, and added to that we found out that the garage must have screwed with the cooling supply as well, seeing as it was almost completely empty and is still leaking. So not (ever) going to go back to those people. Let’s see if the new guy will be any good. Considering we need to take the Daewoo there on the eighteenth he will change a valve on the Land Rover as well, and maybe even check out the leak.

Yesterday afternoon we also fixed the back window of the car. Its fasteners were broken so we put in new clips. I wonder if there will be less noise inside now. We’ll see, big brother and grandpa a doing a test drive right now, so when they get back I’ll ask.

Sitabah (weimaraner) acted a little too rash again. She was limping and for a while I feared that she might have broken her back paw. But today the walking is going a lot better again, so that was a false alarm to say the least. Gawd, almost got a heart attack when I saw the big swelling on her paw. Now it is already lessening.

Well, I’ve got to go get a sarong for tenant. We’re sitting in the old horse paddock and the flies are driving her bonkers. I’ve got to figure out if I can make her some sort of tent so the flies can’t get to her. Hah.