Dreams of reality?

Song of the day: “Sunlight” by…I have no idea, actually. Hmmm. It’s an annoying song anyway.

“So. Where are we going?”
The man, walking ahead of me, doesn’t pause, nor does he glance back. I double up, stumble a little as I try to shift the bulk of my backpack into a more comfortable position. It is a cold day, somewhere near dusk I think, and we’re walking through a forest cast in a variety of grays that range from white all the way to black. It is like I’m walking through one of those old B&W movies where you can only guess which color is what. But this isn’t the movies, this is real…or is it?
Ahead of me, the man points straight ahead, and seeing as I’m not paying attention to where I’m walking, I stumble over a big root sticking out of the floor. My boots, heavy with mud and even some specks of snow, are in good shape, and for a change I can’t feel my heel. I think part of the reason why is because of the cold. It is pressing against me from all sides, penetrating through several layers. A padded coat covering a ragged woollen sweater, two flannel shirts and a tight T at the bottom. My legs are encased by heavy Jeans and a thick sweatpants which just barely keeps me from freezing my bum off.
“What’s over there,” I wheeze at my companion, doing a clumsy skip, and then again as I try to keep up with his quick pace. From what I can see, his face partially concealed by a deep red scarf that is wrapped around his jaw up to his mouth, and a snow cap pulled down to his brow, he, for some reason, reminds me of a bearded Vin Diesel. Which is weird, since he doesn’t share any resemblances to the actor at all. He just reminds me of him. Must be some long forgotten movie, or something.
On his back, over a bulky backpack that is twice the size of my own (damn, the man doesn’t even have the decency to appear out of breath from the brutal pace he is setting) he carries a heavy duty riffle that gleamed from a recent polishing, I’m sure.
It might be my imagination, but it looks like he shrugs. I can hardly believe it, and hurry up to grab hold of his arm.
“Did you just shrug at me?” I demand, holding on for dear life while he continues on as if I am not even trying to stop him. “I want to know what’s over there in the direction we’re going?”
The way I figure, I have a right to know, what with me following his lead because he appears to know what he’s about. I’ve gotta be on time, after all…for what, I’m not entirely sure.
Strange.
He stops at last and turns to look at me. He’s got dark eyes, high cheekbones and more than just a five-o’clock shadow, and perspiration coats his wind-blown face. Thankfully he doesn’t appear to be as impervious about our stark surrounding as I first thought.
“I don’t know.” His voice is heavy, gravely, as if he hasn’t used it much.
“I beg your pardon?” I blink at him, for a moment not having a clue as to what he’s talking about. Then it hits me. “You mean you don’t know where we’re going?” I demand, outraged all of a sudden. How can he walk with such purpose and not know where we’re going, darn it. It just isn’t fair.
“Sure I do. We’re going that way.” He jabs a thumb in the direction we’d been heading. “But you don’t know what is there?!” I practically shout at him,
“Doesn’t make a difference,” he points out calmly, as if he is making all the sense in the world. “We’re going where we need to go, and it’s over there.”
“I swear, if you point your thumb in that direction one more time, I’m going to break it,” I threaten, getting a mite huffy when he only laughs at my threat.
In hindsight, I can understand why, seeing as he is at least a foot taller than I which is…well, weird, considering I’m six foot tall, but what the heck.
“Ron, we can’t just walk around aimlessly. It’s freezing out here and we…”
“Trust me,” he cuts in, and I can only stare at him as he shakes off my hand and continues his way through the muddy trail that we’ve been following for ages, or so it seems.
“This is not a matter of trust,” I call after him, scrambling to catch up, and almost landing flat on my face when another root appears to wrapped itself around my foot. Drat.
When I do finally catch up with him, I just barely manage to catch a branch he lets go after his passing, and grimace at the sudden increase of light now that we have reached the end of the forest.
“What are you trying to do, have me…” He stops and I literally slam into his backpack and the cold metal of his riffle. I swear under my breath and scramble back a step or two before going to the side so I can give him a piece of my mind. But before I can open my mouth to do so, the view beyond him takes my breath away.
There, in the distance, following a mountainous slope that leads straight into a long stretching valley a city lays. At first it is a city like any other, high-rises and suburbs surrounding it, but then I see it, the biggest difference of all. All through the mega city plumes of smoke rise high into the evening air, light glimmering, but it isn’t street lights. Fires rage within the streets, and the skyscrapers that should have glimmered with light on any normal day are dulled with age and lack of glass. Even from this distance I can see the damage to several stories, but it is not that which holds my attention. Instead my gaze is drawn to where something dark, something dangerous lurks. I know, and yet I cannot see it, but then, my hand automatically latching onto Ron for support, I…wake up with Knight II slapping his paws onto my chest with enough force to slam the air from my lungs. Jeez!

What did you think? That’s not my reality, of course. though admittedly at the moment it is chilly enough for me to feel as if I’m face a snowy day of sorts. Hah.
It was a dream, naturally, but it was so vivid that I just had to share.

Okay, enough dawdling, let’s get down to business and get this over with. I’ve got another edit to face (getting nearer to the end of this one, yay) so I better rush through this a little.

I woke up, sore all over. I’m thinking that Knight II thought it a good idea to press himself against me throughout the night, meaning that I spend the majority of the night trying not to fall off the bed. *sigh* I love Knight II to pieces, really, I do. But sometimes I also want to strangle him. Aaaargh.

No workout, again. There just isn’t time. What with winter rapidly settling in, we are putting more of a rush on the stove in the house, meaning that we went down there early once more to get to it. Change of plan though, seeing as I discovered a load of water in the hallway when I finished my morning shower and fully intended to start tiling.

Turns out the main pipe of the house’s sewage was plugged, filling the hallway with all sorts of nasty. This meant that the next two hours were spent unplugging the pipes with a garden hose. Big brother shoved it up there and a few minutes later the whole mess came sloshing out. Eeewww! Then came the cleaning bit, mopping up the mess and everything, trying to breathe through my mouth rather than anything else, and failing miserably since the smell stuck to my nostrils the rest of the day, darn it.

So by the time we finally had it all done, the only thing we could do for the stove was clean the tiling of the day before, check if it hadn’t sagged, take off the small moulds and then cover it all up again when the younger sibs got up and let their dogs out. Rather than risk some serious “discussions” between the pack, I totally don’t feel up to that early in the morning, we took out tools and postponed the efforts to today.

What followed throughout the day was painting the storage barrel, which was starting to get seriously rusty. That done, there was the metal works waiting for me. To fully install the stove, we need to make a hole in the second floor, through which the pipe needs to be led, and a protective coating for around the beam of wood under which it passes. This took some time, the cutting, bending and then polishing, but I’ve got it ready and waiting.

While big brother made dinner (red beets with mashed potatoes) I made a tomato soup for later in the evening when that little snack would go down really well.
Next I hauled wood down to the terrace where we burnt a nice barrel fire to chase away the cold of the evening while we worked on the edit. I love an open fire. Hah.

Which brings us to today, doesn’t it? Well, the morning started early once again, and the chill was pretty intense. Grandpa estimates that we’re only a few degrees away from the freezing point these days. (Bonkers! Especially for Southern Spain, for crying out loud.)

Did work on the stove spot today, though I started after big brother who is working with those glass bricks to create a protective corner for the pedestal. While he was doing that, I headed down into the yard to water the small seedbed and open her up for the sunny day (too windy to be warm, but sunny at least). Same goes for the greenhouse, which needs to dry whenever possible, lest we’ll have plants dying of molds. Lost another top of a tomato plant to leaf miners who think it funny to dig into the young top stems of the plants and kill them.

That done, I headed down to check on the cabbages and such. I watered the young ones, checked them for caterpillars, and then did the same with the big ones. Found only a few of the pests, but then went up to see if I could start tiling the last bit of the pedestal yet.

Yep. The pedestal is basically done for the stove now. All we need to do is build the glass brick corner around it (big brother only did one edge today. We need to add three more layers) and then we can start putting the thing in. It is going to be interesting to see if we’ll manage to get it in place without disaster occurring. The stupid thing does way a ton, and we will need to life it a solid foot + several inches. Ah well, we’ll cross that bridge when we get there.

The day’s efforts successful with the last tiles added to the construction, it was time for breakfast and other tasks. Which consisted of some repairs for mom today. Big brother worked on her sewing machine, while I fixed the large construction we designed for her bag designs at the market. Apparently they lost four pegs during transport at some point, so I had to see if I could make new ones. Ended up fixing suitable replacements, so all’s well in that regard.

Next the barrel had to be painted again, followed by a session of working on the gate, which needs a new lick of paint as well. Rust was breaking out everywhere, and since we found the right paint once again (don’t understand why they stopped making it) and managed almost half before it was time to head out in the car and drop Sally off at her job.

That done it was time for more soup (I had one cup during the paint job) some crackers, and then making tea on the barrel stove before I started on the blog and the ever-lasting edit…for which the time has arrived now.