I am happy with my world.
I am on the taxi rank, and feeling quietly peaceful.
This is a nice feeling although not necessarily a good thing. Peaceful is not terribly lucrative.
All the same it is rather splendid. It has been a misty October day, still and muffled and silent, mostly because there aren’t many people here. The trees are golden and scarlet, and the world smells of wet earth, except for our house, which smells of apples and wood smoke.
Oliver has barely stirred all day. Six weeks of non-stop playing rugby and growing hard seems to have reduced him to a state of semi-hibernation, and in the end I had to shout him downstairs for his breakfast just before I went to work.
It wasn’t even as if I was being quiet, because I wasn’t. I was listening to a Spotify playlist of hurdy gurdy music, the sort that you hear on old fashioned roundabouts, and which I like very much, and clattering about hanging curtains in the new living room.
I had to hurry up with this, because you will not be surprised to learn that I was late for work. This was my own fault really, for wasting half of the morning on the computer. I had some forms to fill in and letters to send, and as fast as I did one thing, I remembered half a dozen more that I had been ignoring, and in the end it took ages, but in the end it was done, and I could dive off downstairs and ponder over measuring valances.
This was made easier by having borrowed the Peppers’ very useful stepladder. I have taken Health and Safety to heart after some discussion with my mother, and eschewed the wobbly stool.
Also I couldn’t reach from the stool.
In the end I hung all of the orange curtains. Then I cut and re-hemmed the valance bit that hangs over the top of them, and hung that as well.
This was the difficult bit, because it is stuck on with Velcro. The Velcro is supposed to stick to the batten behind it, but doesn’t stick well enough and has to be stapled with Mark’s staple gun.
This is the most infuriating machine imaginable.
My hand is not big enough to reach around the lever and press it down. When I put my hand around it my fingers will only just reach, which doesn’t give me enough leverage to press it hard enough to make the staples come out.
This means that it has to be used with both hands, the consequence of which is that I do not have a third hand for holding the Velcro in place whilst I do it.
Some ridiculous contortions took place on top of the not-quite-tall-enough step ladder as I tried to hold the Velcro in place with my forehead and grip the staple gun between both hands.
There might be a place for this sort of thing in a circus. If I had been watching me I would most certainly have been holding my breath.
None of the staples went in far enough anyway, and had to be bashed in with the hammer afterwards, whilst trying not to leave marks on the ceiling.
I don’t suppose Mark ever appreciates how much easier it is to be him. It must be very useful to be six feet tall in a world which is built especially for people who are six feet tall and who have hands big enough to make staple guns work.
I have not finished yet. I have got to cut some more of the valance and make some ties. I was dying to do this today, but I had got to go to work. It is all very well faffing about with home furnishings, but I am saving up to go shopping next week.
I thought you might be fed up with pictures of curtains by now.
Have a picture of the dog.
