Good edit, yay.

Song of the day: “Joan of Arc” by Katie Melua; it has been humming through my head for several hours now and I’m starting to get a little melancholy from it by now, darn it.

So I’m supposed to write a blog of the past few days, but, once again I am drawing blanks except for the general outlines of yesterday. Considering that I only had five hours of sleep this night, makes it clear that it was a busy day, though, so I must have done something, hah.
Okay, let me try to go through the day step by step.

I do remember oversleeping by at least half an hour, which was rather nice, all things considered. Getting started went really slowly, admittedly, but it was not as if I was working on a deadline, or anything. Due to the “running behind”, I do know I forgot to do the laundry, ‘cause today I found massive piles of it waiting for me, hah.

But anyway, grandpa is gradually doing better now so that’s a plus. Doggies are doing fine, and so is tenant, who enjoys joining us wherever we’re working at any given time. As long as there is sunshine and she has her book, she is basically happy.

What came next…ah yes, the pool. Considering it is time to start on the anti parasite bath for the dogs, we headed into the pool yesterday to prepare for grout work. There was a bucket full of mimosa blossoms to sweep from the floor, along with branches and whatnot. For several hours we scrubbed out the narrow ridges between the tiny tiles, using the vacuum cleaner to get the dusty stuff away.

It meant sitting on knees, haunches, and whatever else would get us close to the floor, but in the end there were another fourteen tiles to put back in place, darn it. But, if all goes well, we should be able to get the grouting done today…I hope.

Next I headed out into the yard for the daily checkup on bugs on the veggies. Turns out the sugar peas have found the fence and are, as of now, growing into the wiring yeah. Zucchini plants are forming they first flowers, the green beans have miraculously appeared on the tiny bushes, and the three cauliflowers are almost ready for harvesting.

Little brother has been incredibly busy, making tiny little terraces for the tomato plants, which means that finally all the big potted tomatoes are in the wild, hah. He also finished cleaning out the smaller poolroom, so we can start storing stuff there.

Mom had made veggie sandwiches with fries on the side, which served well as a proper supper before both sisters and I headed up the mountain to the paddock so we could continue emptying the old stable. We were just in time too, considering the back shelving almost crashed while we were busy. In the end we managed to empty the entire left side without disasters occurring, leaving us to call it a day around six in the afternoon.

By then I headed down into the yard again, to see how grandpa and big brother were doing with the greenhouse. It is coming along nicely, I’ll admit. They’ve got half of the structure standing now, and it looks splendid.

Afterwards we headed inside, and finally managed a solid edit again. Twelve pages within the next two and a half hours. Yay. Great scene too; first…wait, wait, I need coffee give me a sec…okay…it was the first scene where the female lead practices her vampire prowess, and I had loads of fun with it. Hardly any changes were necessary, which means that inspiration was working well at the time of writing it. It worked out well, if I do say so myself, and since big brother (anal editor incarnate, grrr) said that it came across the way it was intended, I think it is a safe bet. Hah.

There was a short break in the working day, after the edit, where we watched “My life in ruins”. Had fun with it. Very light, cute and entertaining, not bad for a night’s entertainment, I’ll admit.
Afterwards big brother and I headed out into the night for our biweekly scavenge and came back with a full load, yeah. Lots of wood (even though it is going to be a pain to store) and other useful stuff, so neither of us minded too much that we weren’t able to look for our respective beds until well passed two in the morning.

Well, that about sums up the events. I’ve got stuff to do (like checking the tiles before grouting, again) so I better get to it.

Groceries, you know the drill.

Song of the day: “It’s only pain” by Katie Melua. Good song, but a little melodramatic, maybe.

I’m going to keep this short, I promise, and considering yesterday was the good ol’ grocery shopping day and it was a doozy. But we did see Avatar afterwards and that was rather wonderful. I really enjoyed watching it, I must say. Good old fashioned entertainment with beautiful imagery. There really isn’t anything I can say that wouldn’t just be gushing, so I’m just going to leave it at liking it a lot…the world Cameron created, more than the characters (‘cause, like usual he pulls a teeny bit short on that end) but still. The kid did is nicely, even though his voice reminded me of Russel Crowe, hah. And the Na’vi…well, I’ll repeat, I really, really enjoyed the movie.

So, let’s get on with it. After the last blog we had a small scare with grandpa, who, because he mistakenly believed that a heavy painkiller would help against a stomach ache, and accidentally overdosed himself a little. Boy did he scare us with that. But anyway, we’ve put him on a very mild diet, ‘cause from the sound of his symptoms he is working his way towards and ulcer…I know, been there, done that…and thus we’re going to have to pay close attention.

There was some plastering of walls during the day, to make the greenhouse base look prettier, going around doing gardening stuff, while little brother cleared out one of the old pool rooms so we can start using it for storage.

But anyways, on to today, since after the shopping and the movie, I pretty much conked out for the night. Gawd, I was exhausted, and would have preferred sleeping on for a few more hours when the alarm went off and it was time to start on the new day.

Today was mostly about heading out into the yard (after bringing tenant down to the greenhouse terrace) checking the veggies for bugs, watering what needed to be watered, taking out two lettuces for supper, and then taking up a wheelbarrow with melon plants to put in the ground up in the old horse paddock. Managed to get in fifteen of them, I think, and afterwards took down the same wheelbarrow with sand. Figured I might as well finish with the walls.

Mum made dinner, which was good, and while little brother headed out into the yard again to plant more tomatoes (yes, the supply of those little plants appears to be endless) while little sister and I headed up to the old stable, so we could empty out the first part because grandpa requested it from us. Since it needs to be done anyway, we figured we might as well start on it today.

Of course then, tenant needed to go back to her bungalow, and both brothers and I saw to the task until it was finally time to finish up with the day’s work clean up some of the mess we made and head on up into the house for a night of editing…which reminds me, time to get this over with and get to some real work.

Three days. *gasps*

Song of the day: “Closer to fine” by the Indigo Girls. Boy, oh boy, that’s old. I remember being in…well Spain when I first heard it. I guess it was in the early nineties and at that time we were staying at a camping ground in Punta Umbria, over by Huelva. An incredibly wet winter that we spent in the trailer + tent most of it, getting a solid flooding because we had set up the tent, in what turned out to be a huge ditch. Hah. One moment we were sitting in the front tent, and the next we were, like, hey, what’s this air doing underneath the tarp?…woosh, up to our knees in the bright orange water. Hah.
Those were the days; little sister barely a year and a half, little brother barely over a toddler, and the rest…well, let’s just say everyone was a LOT younger.

But enough maudlin, let’s get to the present and thus the ongoing projects.
Edits…well, we missed a full day, simply because we just couldn’t fit in a session (today is starting to look like one of those, by the way) but no matter, we passed 210 pages, so we’re definitely nearing the end of the first edit. Yay.

The greenhouse is looking splendid. Two ribs are up, (back and front) the center posts and anything that involved masonry, except plaster work. Considering it will need only a little of that, my job at the greenhouse is rapidly coming to an end. Good thing too, seeing as we really should scratch out a few hours to grout the swimming pool, darn it. But anyway, yesterday little sister and I finished the masonry, actually enjoying the clouds that suddenly slid in front of the sun.

Which reminds me, the weather is still acting somewhat whacky. It has been pretty warm these past few days, which was really good for the lushly blooming mimosas, and now, according to the weather reports and the sky, we’re getting a few cooler days again. Great! It means that we need to give less water to the plants.

Apparently I did something wrong with my foot recently, ‘cause it is bothering me something fierce these past few days. Seriously I’ve had to resort to icing the thing, and using Arnica gel and support bandages just to get around. Gawd, that hurts like an SOB, I tell ya. But anyways, it appears to be slightly better now, after propping my leg up several times in the evenings.

Okay, status report of the yard: we had our very first meal, made entirely out of veggies from our own soil. A beautiful, delicious and very big cauliflower, a couple of leek, a batch of Swiss Chard, which was absolutely divine baked in cheese and chives. Along with some boiled potatoes, dinner was wonderful.

The day before it we had our own summer carrots, hah, which little sister used through the Asian stir fry, gawd, I’m starting to salivate and I should be wrapping this up so I can start on pizza (from scratch, literally, because all the shelves are practically empty and we NEED to do grocery shopping tomorrow) for tonight. It is going to be an adventure to find out if it is going to be edible, hah.

Lots of mosquitoes these days, I’ve got a cheek filled with tiny little bumps because of it. This is the first time in years that they’re liking my blood again, I guess I’m going to have to adjust to summer again to get rid of the pesky little critters.

But anyways, there were a couple of runs (part of the reason my foot hurts, I think) one of them on the boulevard in town. The run didn’t go bad, but I much prefer doing my running in the woods or on some remote spot. People staring at people make me feel itchy, and that is definitely not a good thing when you’re focusing on your run.

We got rocks again too…it is one of the disadvantages of no longer having the Ford Ranger. We were able to get much bigger loads in the truck bed, no matter, though, we might need to make more trips, but we’ll get there some day. Down by the greenhouse we now have a pile lying about that should make for a 18 feet wall that is at least five or six feet high (depending on thickness), that is a nice piece of wall, if I do say so myself. Hah.

The basin wall is fully done…the structure at least. Sure, we’re going to need pour concrete yet, build a wall of natural rock against is, and water-proof the entire thing on the inside, but then it’s as good as done, hah.

The dogs are doing fine…a few more dry coughs occasionally, but otherwise starting to be a fully functional pack once more. Strong little critters, that’s a fact. I’ve gotta admit that it is a relief, ‘cause the hospital expenses were eating into our savings like mad.

But, time’s a-wasting, time to make pizza!