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Wednesday, July 15, 2009

Who needs money?


Forget about holidays, rest and tranquillity: all I ask from life is a single day when I do not end up spending a horrifying large sum of money.

Today was not that day. My purchases today included a Bosch electric cutter (?); a long plastic rod; some artificial grass and a remote controlled fan. My life gets ever more surreal.

Talking of unlikely juxtapositions, I think that my good self and electric DIY is a good equivalent of the fish on the bicycle and the sewing machine on the operating table. Nevertheless the Book Room with its six largely empty bookcases now boasts an extendable light at the top of each of the shelves fixed there with my own fair hands. Not only do they stay where they are supposed to be, but also they work. Not only do they work, but they also spring into luminescence at the touch of a button on a remote. Putting books on such a technological marvel seems something of an anti climax but today has been momentous.

Today the process of taking the books out of storage in Bluespace has begun. Although the books were supposed to have been packed in shelf order the first box offer a grotesquely heterogeneous selection of volumes. If the rest of the books are as confused in their packing as these first tomes then I am going to spend the months up to Christmas sorting them all out into some sort of order. As my books are now on two floors there is going to be a considerable amount of walking or, alternatively a great deal of intellectual compromise as I invent cogent and convincing reasons why some books should inhabit the same shelves rather than being with the immediate and more convincing neighbours on another floor!

The house is becoming more and more a home. It remains to get all the paintings from Bluespace and start making some executive decisions about which pictures make it to the Spiral Gallery and public display.

My preference tends towards the effect that you can see in Zoffany’s painting of the interior of the Uffizi – every available space filled by a painting; while Toni’s taste is towards the more selective and sparse. Compromise seems difficult, but we will find some sort of common ground. Somewhere. Possibly.

Meanwhile preparations have to be made for the Carmen Name Day which is tomorrow. At least the Family is coming to us so we may make it to the beach.

It is a sad fact that we have been living in the House for over two weeks. The beach is at the end of the road. We have not set a single foot on the sand or been anywhere near the sea except to view it from our local restaurant.

Roll on normality!

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