A betwixt day

What an odd sort of day it is. All this time on our hands ‘cos we are on holiday but not able to do any of the normal maintaining and fixing about the house that I normally associate with being on holiday at home. There's a feeling of waiting on something, probably because we can now almost see the start of the building work happening. Feels like it's been going on for ages and now, just a few weeks away from something physically happening to the house rather than just thoughts and imaginings. It's all probably because I’m not fully occupied, when I’m busy I don’t ponder the house and the vagaries of the building process, I usually just shrug and remind myself that it will get started eventually. But being at home, and idling around, I just want to take a hammer to the place and start taking out the walls, digging up the concrete paving and generally reaping havoc on the place.

I’ve just spent ten minutes securing a decomposing bit of wood covering one of the old air-conditioning units external bits. The bit of wood had probably been installed by the previous owner 10 or 15 years ago to protect the air-con heat exchanger from the elements and last night one of the screws that held the bit of wood secure from rattling in the wind, finally gave in. The bit of wood, free at last, spent its night keeping Dino awake. It wasn't a satisfying task, basically bodging the thing back together, it really needs new wood and a decent job doing on installing it, but what’s the point when the lot will be in a skip in a few weeks time? You can probably tell I hate doing half a job.

[joe]