I started a book last night and it could be a problem. Reading one I mean. It was late when I started and there was a bit on my mind and despite that it was starting to grab me even though I knew I had to go to sleep. It's just lucky that somebody woke me this morning to give them a lift somewhere and I didn't get time to lay my hand on it then or that would have been me till bedtime tonight.
After I'd given that lift I came home to discover the rim of the toilet bowl had broken off again. I glued it together with superglue about three months ago, because at the time the landlord didn't sound that keen on replacing a broken loo, so it's done pretty well really. (As an aside I can say from this that toilet duck doesn't clean under the rim). Anyway it's not that much fun ringing up to hear the landlord wince at the thought of maintenance, so I decided there and then that I needed some araldite. We also needed bit of school uniform from town and some cricket gear and apparently some shelf brackets for shelves I'm going to put up, from Mega. So those of us that were left bundled into the car to go foraging. The book, for now forgotten lay by my bedside waiting.
It was a short trip, only about two hundred dollars long, and when we got back I put together some toasted sandwiches for lunch. While I ate them I thought with distaste about gluing the loo back together. I decided (buying some time) that I might be able to do some of the assessment for that QS course I'm doing by correspondence if only I could find the bit of paper with the questions on it. I had, for the moment, forgotten the book, which is by Clive Barker. Clive Barker is one of those authors I don't read often, but can't put down once I start reading.
Sadly the piece of paper was exactly where I thought it was. I had no choice. I laid a dirty towel on the puddle in front of the loo to kneel on and began drying out the broken pieces of rim with an heat gun. Then I mixed up all the araldite (my dad used to be so measly with it) and smeared it over everything I could think of and pushed the pieces back into places. My hands were all over it when somebody came in and asked me if I would make some more toasted sandwiches when I had finished. Do you really want that? I thought, looking at where my hands were. The book lay waiting. Do you know somebody once gave me a trilogy for Christmas and I didn't speak to anybody until the day after boxing day? No books for me at Christmas please, save them for the winter holidays when there's more of an excuse.
Well, it all seemed to be sticking and the araldite had filled them holes from missing shards quite nicely, so I got up and made those toasted sandwiches.... no wait... I got up and washed my hands and then made those toasted sandwiches. Then I sat down with the question paper, the plans, the course book, the take-off paper, the calculator and my copy of NZS4202 to look at the assessment. It consists of taking-off-quantities-for-sheet-vinyl-flooring-in-an-amenities-building-making-allowances-for-extra-value-over-coved-upstand-skirtings-and-enumerating-all-internal,-external-and-irregular-mitres-and-for-cutting-and-fitting-to-openings, all laid out neatly according to the conventions described in the standard and not missing anything out. I got up to find a pencil.
You know obsessive reading runs in the family... I remember when I was eight or nine my brother would come home from university exhausted. After sleeping for thirty hours or so he would rise and make his way to the bookshelves in the hall. When he'd selected ten or twelve books he would return to the lounge, pausing only to grab the fruit bowl from the servery, and lie face down on the three seater couch, his feet dangling over one end and his head over the other. To one side he would stack the pile of books and to the other he set the fruit bowl. I remember watching for hours on end in fascination as he rhythmically turned page after page. The pile of unread books gradually got lower and lower, and the stack of read ones grew. By dinner time he'd read them all and emptied the fruit bowl too.
Anyway I've now got half of that assessment done, and a list of questions for when I ring the tutor in the morning. Everyone's in bed and the lights are all out and I've just remembered that book. I won't be able to find it in the dark... but when I get home from work tomorrow it will be waiting...
All the best,
The Gedle
Monday, February 14, 2011
Friday, February 11, 2011
Terrifying Tim
For anyone who's interested the hedgehog problem seems to have been contained. The cat-biscuits are now on the shelf in the pantry, and, at least while summer lasts (Ha! Summer...) both cats are being fed outside.
I just went out there to get something. The tortoiseshell (Coco) was sitting looking quizzically at me through the glass of the door as if I ought to do something. Then, when I stepped out, there was a clunk by my foot of her dish returning to position and a desperate scurrying noise as the small hog tried to force itself in the dark into another too small bolt-hole.
It's nice to know I'm that awe-inspiring.
I just went out there to get something. The tortoiseshell (Coco) was sitting looking quizzically at me through the glass of the door as if I ought to do something. Then, when I stepped out, there was a clunk by my foot of her dish returning to position and a desperate scurrying noise as the small hog tried to force itself in the dark into another too small bolt-hole.
It's nice to know I'm that awe-inspiring.
Friday, February 4, 2011
Under siege
I have to remember to shut the kitchen door as soon as it gets dark now. There's not just one anymore. I swear I'll wake up one morning and find a whole crew of them lined up on the end of the bed looking at me.
What?
Hedgehogs. That's what.
As well as the enormous one I was telling you all about the other night, there's also a smaller one. The smaller one is not very bright. It turned up in the middle of the day the other day - snuffling along - it ambled out of nowhere into the conservatory as I was sitting with my afternoon coffee. Completely ignoring me it went straight into the kitchen and tried to force its way into a gap under the kitchen cupboards about the size of a matchbox.
Maybe it thinks it's an octopus? Did you know an octopus, regardless of its size can squeeze through any hole large enough to fit its beak (the only solid part of an octopus) through? <shivers> This is not true for hedgehogs.
Anyway hedgehogs in the kitchen are disgusting. (They're riddled with disease you know) And there was this one with its nose wedged under the pot cupboard door. I wasn't sure how I would move it, and whether it had got any of its spines through and if they would act like the barb on an arrow or a fish-hook and the thing would be stuck there forever. I didn't want to touch it, so I got a couple of paper towels and laid them over it.
"I'll just put these over you, stupid thing," I said. "I hear you're riddled with disease."
It tried to force it's way further into the matchbox sized hole. The spines came straight through the napkins of course, but it wasn't stuck and I gently picked it up and took it out and put it down with its nose in the cat dish full of biscuits.
"There," I said. "If you're going to steal food you should at least start in the right place."
It sat there immobile until I went away and then immediately scurried away behind the nearest plant pot it could find.
The big one is smarter. It can get in the cat door and knows exacty where the pantry is.
So last night I was sitting at the computer in my wee alcove in the dining room and heard a snuffling. I looked round. There was the same small hedgehog, coming my way...
It's just not on you know? Hedgehogs are outside thingies. What business have they snuffling their way around the food scarce regions of a people house?
I didn't bother with paper towels this time. I put my open palm down beside it . When it started to curl up with my other hand I rolled it onto the first. This handful was all prickles except for the soft fur of its cheek against the tip of my index finger. Once I had it I took it down the hall, through the kitchen - dodging the small trail of slimy hedgehog turds - and back outside. That done I shut the doors and checked the open pantry to see if it had been in there. Nothing. Just the open bag of cat biscuits and the flour bin on the floor.
I went back to the computer.
After about five minutes I heard crunching sounds through the wall. I thought I shut that door I thought to myself and went back out to the kitchen.
I looked in the pantry again.
There, in the shadows between the flour bin and the biscuit bag, was an enormous round shape. I opened the door wider. In the light I saw my original nemesis, the one from last week, one shifty brown eye regarding me. He had to go too. It's a bit harder picking up a larger hedghog because they're a bit more bolshey, and while the spines don't actually pierce your skin, the extra weight pushes them that bit further into your palms. Unlike the small beastie, the big one stank. Holding him at arm's length I put him where I had put the other one, and shut the pantry door.
And then, dry retching, I cleaned up the turds which I had been planning to ignore.
Oh they're darling little things.
and I was going to add "at this very moment there's one..." but there isn't. It's just the cat hunting a leftover bit of steak.
What?
Hedgehogs. That's what.
As well as the enormous one I was telling you all about the other night, there's also a smaller one. The smaller one is not very bright. It turned up in the middle of the day the other day - snuffling along - it ambled out of nowhere into the conservatory as I was sitting with my afternoon coffee. Completely ignoring me it went straight into the kitchen and tried to force its way into a gap under the kitchen cupboards about the size of a matchbox.
Maybe it thinks it's an octopus? Did you know an octopus, regardless of its size can squeeze through any hole large enough to fit its beak (the only solid part of an octopus) through? <shivers> This is not true for hedgehogs.
Anyway hedgehogs in the kitchen are disgusting. (They're riddled with disease you know) And there was this one with its nose wedged under the pot cupboard door. I wasn't sure how I would move it, and whether it had got any of its spines through and if they would act like the barb on an arrow or a fish-hook and the thing would be stuck there forever. I didn't want to touch it, so I got a couple of paper towels and laid them over it.
"I'll just put these over you, stupid thing," I said. "I hear you're riddled with disease."
It tried to force it's way further into the matchbox sized hole. The spines came straight through the napkins of course, but it wasn't stuck and I gently picked it up and took it out and put it down with its nose in the cat dish full of biscuits.
"There," I said. "If you're going to steal food you should at least start in the right place."
It sat there immobile until I went away and then immediately scurried away behind the nearest plant pot it could find.
The big one is smarter. It can get in the cat door and knows exacty where the pantry is.
So last night I was sitting at the computer in my wee alcove in the dining room and heard a snuffling. I looked round. There was the same small hedgehog, coming my way...
It's just not on you know? Hedgehogs are outside thingies. What business have they snuffling their way around the food scarce regions of a people house?
I didn't bother with paper towels this time. I put my open palm down beside it . When it started to curl up with my other hand I rolled it onto the first. This handful was all prickles except for the soft fur of its cheek against the tip of my index finger. Once I had it I took it down the hall, through the kitchen - dodging the small trail of slimy hedgehog turds - and back outside. That done I shut the doors and checked the open pantry to see if it had been in there. Nothing. Just the open bag of cat biscuits and the flour bin on the floor.
I went back to the computer.
After about five minutes I heard crunching sounds through the wall. I thought I shut that door I thought to myself and went back out to the kitchen.
I looked in the pantry again.
There, in the shadows between the flour bin and the biscuit bag, was an enormous round shape. I opened the door wider. In the light I saw my original nemesis, the one from last week, one shifty brown eye regarding me. He had to go too. It's a bit harder picking up a larger hedghog because they're a bit more bolshey, and while the spines don't actually pierce your skin, the extra weight pushes them that bit further into your palms. Unlike the small beastie, the big one stank. Holding him at arm's length I put him where I had put the other one, and shut the pantry door.
And then, dry retching, I cleaned up the turds which I had been planning to ignore.
Oh they're darling little things.
and I was going to add "at this very moment there's one..." but there isn't. It's just the cat hunting a leftover bit of steak.
Thursday, January 27, 2011
Bloody Vermin!!
They have ridiculously long legs if you ever get to see them, they're "absolutely adorable" if you listen to the Queen of Night, and "riddled with disease" if you listen to anybody's Mother. This one... has left a collection of turds all over my pantry floor around the big bag of cat biscuits.
Don't get me wrong.. I thought it was absolutely adorable too a couple of years ago when it started. Little did I know that that was the thin end of the wedge.
"In summer when the nights are long..." I like to recline on the tattered old couch in what passes for our conservatory, in partial darkness, reading by the light of the bathroom window. One night, though I had heard scratchings and crunchings previously, I heard a noise and looked over the edge of my book to see a tiny hedgehog pushing its way in through one of the diamond shaped holes in the trellis. Entranced by the nearness of one nature's little miracles I sat there quietly and watched as, once through, the little darling circumnavigated the conservatory. Never straying far from the wall, it ambled the longest possible route to the cat's dish. It then pulled itself by the rim of the dish on to tippy toes and poked it's nose down towards the alluring smell of the biscuits.
crunch crunch crack crunch crackle crunch.
Every night in summer the dear little thing would visit. I got into the habit of leaving small handfuls of cat biscuits on the floor nearer the trellis for it so that it wouldn't have to walk too far. And often as I got up in the night to go to the toilet I would smile to myself as I heard it through the wall at its dinner
crunch crunch crack crunch crackle crunch.
I remember the last night it came through the trellis too. I was out reading on the couch again and heard the familiar scrape of spines. I looked over to see my hedgehog had grown some, and was struggling to force itself through its customary hole like Pooh after eating too much of Rabbit's honey. Its head and its forelegs were through, and the more it pulled the more balloon shaped the leftover hedgehog mass on the other side became. Eventually it had to give up, but it soon found another way in now that its legs were long enough for it to climb up the edge of the garden.
Crunch crunch crack crunch crackle crunch.
When a hedgehog eats cat-biscuits it does it much louder than a cat does. It sounds like little shards of pottery breaking in its jaws. That sound ceased at the end of summer, but returned the next along with my now respectable sized, full-grown hedgehog. My wife began to complain about the little black turds around the floor of the conservatory especially around the cat dish, and sometimes in it. I had long stopped leaving extra biscuits around for it.
Crunch crunch crack crunch crackle crunch.
Well, summer came again and once again we are enjoying our conservatory. These days I don't so often sit out there late however. I'm often inside at the computer of an evening. With the weather warm however it's easy to leave that door open until the final lockup when I go to bed.
We have two cats. One for inside and one for outside.
The inside one is a dainty tortoiseshell female who we have had fixed because we don't like the idea of having kittens. She gets fed in the kitchen in a nice clean pair of bowls and sleeps on the end of our bed keeping our feet warm as her way of saying thanks. The outside one is a longhaired ginger tom who we never got fixed, I guess because we don't mind the idea of other people having kittens if they want them. He is wild and free and often quite inexplicably soaking wet. He gets fed in the conservatory, shares with the hedgehog and leaves hair on the old couch there as his way of saying thanks.
Anyway as I was saying I haven't been sitting out late, but I've been inside and leaving the door open till I go to bed. I've been hearing noises from the kitchen through the wall. It's not uncommon for the outside cat to come in and investigate the contents of the rubbish bin, especially when we've had chicken for dinner. So when I heard a scrabbling noise I thought nothing of it. Poor fellow needs some perks. Then I heard a familiar noise...
crunch crunch crack crunch CLUNK crunch crackle crunch.
... and I had to see.
I walked out to the kitchen to see an ENORMOUS hedgehog, far too big for its boots sitting in the inside-cat's tiny dish. When it saw me it shot me a guilty look and leapt out of the biscuit dish and into the water bowl. Then it gave up and sat there, regarding me.
Now I had no wish, at that time of night to go picking up a large, wet hedgehog. I'm told they're "riddled with disease". So I shooked my head, wagged my finger and left the room, hoping it would see sense and leave of its own accord. A few minutes later I heard more scrabblings and crept out to see again only to find this enormous ravenous beast nosing its way around the rubbish bin and obviously heading for the bag of biscuits in the open pantry, leaving filthy wet footprints as it went.
This was too much! I showed it my foot, at which it began curling itself up into a basketball. Oh no you don't, I thought, and with my foot spun it round on the slippery lino then gingerly presented my toes to its rear. That was all the encouragement it needed. Showing me the full length of it's ridiculous legs the monster skittered out the kitchen door and back into the night.
But I can tell it's been in since. When I have to wash the dirt out of the cats water bowl. And when I regard the pantry floor. And sometimes in the night I still hear it...
crunch crunch crack crunch crackle crunch.
Don't get me wrong.. I thought it was absolutely adorable too a couple of years ago when it started. Little did I know that that was the thin end of the wedge.
"In summer when the nights are long..." I like to recline on the tattered old couch in what passes for our conservatory, in partial darkness, reading by the light of the bathroom window. One night, though I had heard scratchings and crunchings previously, I heard a noise and looked over the edge of my book to see a tiny hedgehog pushing its way in through one of the diamond shaped holes in the trellis. Entranced by the nearness of one nature's little miracles I sat there quietly and watched as, once through, the little darling circumnavigated the conservatory. Never straying far from the wall, it ambled the longest possible route to the cat's dish. It then pulled itself by the rim of the dish on to tippy toes and poked it's nose down towards the alluring smell of the biscuits.
crunch crunch crack crunch crackle crunch.
Every night in summer the dear little thing would visit. I got into the habit of leaving small handfuls of cat biscuits on the floor nearer the trellis for it so that it wouldn't have to walk too far. And often as I got up in the night to go to the toilet I would smile to myself as I heard it through the wall at its dinner
crunch crunch crack crunch crackle crunch.
I remember the last night it came through the trellis too. I was out reading on the couch again and heard the familiar scrape of spines. I looked over to see my hedgehog had grown some, and was struggling to force itself through its customary hole like Pooh after eating too much of Rabbit's honey. Its head and its forelegs were through, and the more it pulled the more balloon shaped the leftover hedgehog mass on the other side became. Eventually it had to give up, but it soon found another way in now that its legs were long enough for it to climb up the edge of the garden.
Crunch crunch crack crunch crackle crunch.
When a hedgehog eats cat-biscuits it does it much louder than a cat does. It sounds like little shards of pottery breaking in its jaws. That sound ceased at the end of summer, but returned the next along with my now respectable sized, full-grown hedgehog. My wife began to complain about the little black turds around the floor of the conservatory especially around the cat dish, and sometimes in it. I had long stopped leaving extra biscuits around for it.
Crunch crunch crack crunch crackle crunch.
Well, summer came again and once again we are enjoying our conservatory. These days I don't so often sit out there late however. I'm often inside at the computer of an evening. With the weather warm however it's easy to leave that door open until the final lockup when I go to bed.
We have two cats. One for inside and one for outside.
The inside one is a dainty tortoiseshell female who we have had fixed because we don't like the idea of having kittens. She gets fed in the kitchen in a nice clean pair of bowls and sleeps on the end of our bed keeping our feet warm as her way of saying thanks. The outside one is a longhaired ginger tom who we never got fixed, I guess because we don't mind the idea of other people having kittens if they want them. He is wild and free and often quite inexplicably soaking wet. He gets fed in the conservatory, shares with the hedgehog and leaves hair on the old couch there as his way of saying thanks.
Anyway as I was saying I haven't been sitting out late, but I've been inside and leaving the door open till I go to bed. I've been hearing noises from the kitchen through the wall. It's not uncommon for the outside cat to come in and investigate the contents of the rubbish bin, especially when we've had chicken for dinner. So when I heard a scrabbling noise I thought nothing of it. Poor fellow needs some perks. Then I heard a familiar noise...
crunch crunch crack crunch CLUNK crunch crackle crunch.
... and I had to see.
I walked out to the kitchen to see an ENORMOUS hedgehog, far too big for its boots sitting in the inside-cat's tiny dish. When it saw me it shot me a guilty look and leapt out of the biscuit dish and into the water bowl. Then it gave up and sat there, regarding me.
Now I had no wish, at that time of night to go picking up a large, wet hedgehog. I'm told they're "riddled with disease". So I shooked my head, wagged my finger and left the room, hoping it would see sense and leave of its own accord. A few minutes later I heard more scrabblings and crept out to see again only to find this enormous ravenous beast nosing its way around the rubbish bin and obviously heading for the bag of biscuits in the open pantry, leaving filthy wet footprints as it went.
This was too much! I showed it my foot, at which it began curling itself up into a basketball. Oh no you don't, I thought, and with my foot spun it round on the slippery lino then gingerly presented my toes to its rear. That was all the encouragement it needed. Showing me the full length of it's ridiculous legs the monster skittered out the kitchen door and back into the night.
But I can tell it's been in since. When I have to wash the dirt out of the cats water bowl. And when I regard the pantry floor. And sometimes in the night I still hear it...
crunch crunch crack crunch crackle crunch.
Monday, January 10, 2011
Hiatus in creative activity
Big Sigh...
The days of me relying on my employer to keep me busy were cut short at the end of last year. This doesn't mean I'm not busy. When I saw it coming I got on the phone and rang a bunch of people I knew might have something for me to do and announced that I was worried. Not one of them had anything for me.
Shortly after that the phone started ringing... people I have painted or plastered for before (none of whom had any connection with the people I had called) or people who had got my name from someone else started calling.
"Would you have time to do a skimcoat for me?", "We're doing up another room, are you at all free", "that job I was hoping you would be able to do, can you do it on the twentieth?"
Obviously I do a good job.
Now I have two houses to paint, a gibstopping job (which I might get to paint too) and a couple of tiny things to get through. Work till the end of March at least... The problem is the headaches, trying to work out if I can do all of this in time suitable to the people who want it done, organising in advance, talking people through their choice of colours. Don't get me wrong, I like making people's houses look nice, but when the work floods in and you get a bottle-neck (three-jobs-that-should-take-a-fortnight-each-to-be-done-preferably-by-the-end-of-the-month) my heart rate increases semipermanently by twenty percent, my head aches, and I find I can't relax at all unless I'm up a ladder with a bush or a trowel in my hand. Can't but very nice to live with huh? That's why I quite liked having an employer.
so... the prospects of my producing a poem each Sunday, or getting my hand near a piano look dim for the near future - at least until I can calm myself down.
Maybe I should announce to the world at large that I want a nice, quiet, desk job... perhaps the phone will start ringing a different tune if I do...
The days of me relying on my employer to keep me busy were cut short at the end of last year. This doesn't mean I'm not busy. When I saw it coming I got on the phone and rang a bunch of people I knew might have something for me to do and announced that I was worried. Not one of them had anything for me.
Shortly after that the phone started ringing... people I have painted or plastered for before (none of whom had any connection with the people I had called) or people who had got my name from someone else started calling.
"Would you have time to do a skimcoat for me?", "We're doing up another room, are you at all free", "that job I was hoping you would be able to do, can you do it on the twentieth?"
Obviously I do a good job.
Now I have two houses to paint, a gibstopping job (which I might get to paint too) and a couple of tiny things to get through. Work till the end of March at least... The problem is the headaches, trying to work out if I can do all of this in time suitable to the people who want it done, organising in advance, talking people through their choice of colours. Don't get me wrong, I like making people's houses look nice, but when the work floods in and you get a bottle-neck (three-jobs-that-should-take-a-fortnight-each-to-be-done-preferably-by-the-end-of-the-month) my heart rate increases semipermanently by twenty percent, my head aches, and I find I can't relax at all unless I'm up a ladder with a bush or a trowel in my hand. Can't but very nice to live with huh? That's why I quite liked having an employer.
so... the prospects of my producing a poem each Sunday, or getting my hand near a piano look dim for the near future - at least until I can calm myself down.
Maybe I should announce to the world at large that I want a nice, quiet, desk job... perhaps the phone will start ringing a different tune if I do...
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