Irons in the fire
Happy St Radegund's Day, one and all!
Up to what is your (perhaps less than ideally) faithful correspondent?
Work: Ticking over as usual; pretty busy; maternity leave to start sooner than one might think. I actually have fewer than 40 working days (of which a third are half-days) before 31 October, which will be my last day at work (though the leave officially doesn't start until the following Monday; hooray for part-time hours). I'm finishing up six weeks before my due date, so if all goes well the Oyster and I will have a decent chunk of intensive time together before the arrival of his sibling.
My Stunning Debut: Draft 4 was triumphantly begun on 1 August and ... well, all right ... hasn't been touched since. I'm aiming to remedy that this evening, though, even if it's only 15 minutes to break through the psychological obstacle of sitting down to it. I really NEED to finish this draft before the forthcoming extrusion, or else it'll be another blasted two years before I get the novel into readable-by-strangers form. I'm pretty excited by how it's shaping up, actually. It's quite a different book from the one I thought I was writing when I started (in 19effing99, I might add), and I think on the whole that's a good thing.
House, part 1: We're talking to an architect. We're talking to builders. We're talking to a mortgage lender. If all of these dialogues converge on our desired goal, we could end up with a truly spiffy revolutionisation of our downstairs. We might, in fact, end up with a big, decently functional, skylit kitchen with adjacent eating area, a southern-light-flooded sitting area with sliding doors to the garden, metres and metres of lovely new bookshelf space, a utility room, a downstairs bathroom (complete with bath, which we badly need because the Oyster is getting positively too big for his baby bath and is too nervous of the shower motor to contemplate its direct employment in the cause of his cleanliness), and a glazed passageway in which we can (among other things) hang laundry in winter. Additionally, the proposed plan completely solves the living-in-a-railway-carriage feel with which our downstairs is currently burdened, and which our original extension ideas would only have exacerbated. Unfortunately, however, it necessitates digging up the beautiful new garden we had installed in February. This is painful from an emotional as well as a financial point of view, particularly since the Oyster is totally in love with the garden as is, and keeps reiterating that he doesn't want it to change. The proposed new garden shape, on the plus side, would most likely be sunnier, and possibly slightly quieter, and we could rejig the present design to minimise the trauma (hopefully even reusing some or all of the materials).
House, part 2: There's a slimmish possibility that the Big Works may happen before Christmas/baby (as opposed to next spring). If they don't, there's a list of things we'd like to get done while we're waiting. It's a long list. In the circumstances, most of it will involve hiring outside talent. Some of it will need to happen regardless of Big Works status. Here's a taste: Re-insulate attic (with sheep-wool); install flooring; buy a Stira (with which we confidently expect to be delira). Sort out leaky guttering. Sort out reluctant drain. Replace lots of windows with double-glazed versions; paint window frames. Replace internal doors with versions that (in contrast with the incumbents) actually open and close satisfactorily and are of a thickness that ought to preclude premature warping. Replace hall-stairs-and-landing carpet and hall vinyl (possibly with something more durable). Address decorative and functional shortcomings of toilet and shower room. Mend firebacks with fire cement. Have chimneys cleaned. Finish making the living-room curtains (biascut, this one goes out to you), because they will look so great when they're done and will have been worth all the effort - which is in any case fun: it's just the procrastination that's unpleasant. Adjust whatever needs to be adjusted to allow sliding doors to slide smoothly. Make the Oyster's room more his; improve storage there. Hang pictures (including Oyster art). Build beautiful custom-designed storage/display units to accommodate books, toys, audio-visual equipment, coats, objets, etc. Finish picture rails in living room and study. Declutter, declutter, declutter. Declutter some more. (Regrettably, ending war, poverty and hunger, dismantling capitalism and abolishing the patriarchy have been postponed until the week after; we apologise for the delay.)
[Note: I may set up a filter for witterings related to this home improvement stuff, since I know it's a subject of active uninterest to at least some of you.]
Bookses: I've been reading like a mad thing in the past few months (having been shockingly out of the habit for quite some time before then). I comfort-munched my way through most of my Diana Wynne Jones holdings in May/June. I haven't reread so many books in years. I've also recently read Anne Enright's latest, The Gathering, which utterly absorbed me (I think she's a really substantial and audacious writer); Audrey Niffenegger's The Time Traveller's Wife, which I found gripping but ultimately just a little too facile; and (inevitably, perhaps), J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. The poor writing and thin characterisations of the latter irritated me more than somewhat, but J.K. certainly has a knack for keeping the pages turning. I must say I wasn't in the least emotionally engaged (no, not even when [CENSORED] and [CENSORED] and [CENSORED] kick the bucket, or when we find out that [CENSORED] was really [CENSORED] after all), but at least I know how the story ends. Currently, I'm rereading John Holt's How Children Learn, which I am enjoying as much as any fervent chorister being preached at, and reading (for the first time) Wilkie Collins's The Woman in White, which, like, totally rocks (and appears, looking at the foregoing paragraphs, to be having a convoluting influence on my syntax).
That'll do for the nonce. Onwards and upwards. Vincero, etc.
Up to what is your (perhaps less than ideally) faithful correspondent?
Work: Ticking over as usual; pretty busy; maternity leave to start sooner than one might think. I actually have fewer than 40 working days (of which a third are half-days) before 31 October, which will be my last day at work (though the leave officially doesn't start until the following Monday; hooray for part-time hours). I'm finishing up six weeks before my due date, so if all goes well the Oyster and I will have a decent chunk of intensive time together before the arrival of his sibling.
My Stunning Debut: Draft 4 was triumphantly begun on 1 August and ... well, all right ... hasn't been touched since. I'm aiming to remedy that this evening, though, even if it's only 15 minutes to break through the psychological obstacle of sitting down to it. I really NEED to finish this draft before the forthcoming extrusion, or else it'll be another blasted two years before I get the novel into readable-by-strangers form. I'm pretty excited by how it's shaping up, actually. It's quite a different book from the one I thought I was writing when I started (in 19effing99, I might add), and I think on the whole that's a good thing.
House, part 1: We're talking to an architect. We're talking to builders. We're talking to a mortgage lender. If all of these dialogues converge on our desired goal, we could end up with a truly spiffy revolutionisation of our downstairs. We might, in fact, end up with a big, decently functional, skylit kitchen with adjacent eating area, a southern-light-flooded sitting area with sliding doors to the garden, metres and metres of lovely new bookshelf space, a utility room, a downstairs bathroom (complete with bath, which we badly need because the Oyster is getting positively too big for his baby bath and is too nervous of the shower motor to contemplate its direct employment in the cause of his cleanliness), and a glazed passageway in which we can (among other things) hang laundry in winter. Additionally, the proposed plan completely solves the living-in-a-railway-carriage feel with which our downstairs is currently burdened, and which our original extension ideas would only have exacerbated. Unfortunately, however, it necessitates digging up the beautiful new garden we had installed in February. This is painful from an emotional as well as a financial point of view, particularly since the Oyster is totally in love with the garden as is, and keeps reiterating that he doesn't want it to change. The proposed new garden shape, on the plus side, would most likely be sunnier, and possibly slightly quieter, and we could rejig the present design to minimise the trauma (hopefully even reusing some or all of the materials).
House, part 2: There's a slimmish possibility that the Big Works may happen before Christmas/baby (as opposed to next spring). If they don't, there's a list of things we'd like to get done while we're waiting. It's a long list. In the circumstances, most of it will involve hiring outside talent. Some of it will need to happen regardless of Big Works status. Here's a taste: Re-insulate attic (with sheep-wool); install flooring; buy a Stira (with which we confidently expect to be delira). Sort out leaky guttering. Sort out reluctant drain. Replace lots of windows with double-glazed versions; paint window frames. Replace internal doors with versions that (in contrast with the incumbents) actually open and close satisfactorily and are of a thickness that ought to preclude premature warping. Replace hall-stairs-and-landing carpet and hall vinyl (possibly with something more durable). Address decorative and functional shortcomings of toilet and shower room. Mend firebacks with fire cement. Have chimneys cleaned. Finish making the living-room curtains (biascut, this one goes out to you), because they will look so great when they're done and will have been worth all the effort - which is in any case fun: it's just the procrastination that's unpleasant. Adjust whatever needs to be adjusted to allow sliding doors to slide smoothly. Make the Oyster's room more his; improve storage there. Hang pictures (including Oyster art). Build beautiful custom-designed storage/display units to accommodate books, toys, audio-visual equipment, coats, objets, etc. Finish picture rails in living room and study. Declutter, declutter, declutter. Declutter some more. (Regrettably, ending war, poverty and hunger, dismantling capitalism and abolishing the patriarchy have been postponed until the week after; we apologise for the delay.)
[Note: I may set up a filter for witterings related to this home improvement stuff, since I know it's a subject of active uninterest to at least some of you.]
Bookses: I've been reading like a mad thing in the past few months (having been shockingly out of the habit for quite some time before then). I comfort-munched my way through most of my Diana Wynne Jones holdings in May/June. I haven't reread so many books in years. I've also recently read Anne Enright's latest, The Gathering, which utterly absorbed me (I think she's a really substantial and audacious writer); Audrey Niffenegger's The Time Traveller's Wife, which I found gripping but ultimately just a little too facile; and (inevitably, perhaps), J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. The poor writing and thin characterisations of the latter irritated me more than somewhat, but J.K. certainly has a knack for keeping the pages turning. I must say I wasn't in the least emotionally engaged (no, not even when [CENSORED] and [CENSORED] and [CENSORED] kick the bucket, or when we find out that [CENSORED] was really [CENSORED] after all), but at least I know how the story ends. Currently, I'm rereading John Holt's How Children Learn, which I am enjoying as much as any fervent chorister being preached at, and reading (for the first time) Wilkie Collins's The Woman in White, which, like, totally rocks (and appears, looking at the foregoing paragraphs, to be having a convoluting influence on my syntax).
That'll do for the nonce. Onwards and upwards. Vincero, etc.