The builders arrived at 8am this morning with a van full of windows and doors for our house. We have lived here for 20 years. The house is something like 80 years old. Many of the windows were original – steel framed single-glazed windows, with He-Man handles that require a ridiculous degree of brute force to lock shut.
By lunchtime – after much smashing, crunching, breaking, and general destruction, all of the upstairs had become smart new double glazed windows, and our house had started to resember a slightly more presentable appearance. No longer the forgotten, ramshackle house in the corner. The downstairs windows, back door, and patio doors are being replaced over the next couple of days. I imagine the patio door might take two days – it will involve ripping out brickwork, re-plastering, and so on.
Anyway.
Late this evening there was a knock on our door, and my middle daughter opened it. A friend was standing outside, dangling keys in her hand. We bought the motorbike some time ago – a 5occ scooter for her to get to college on. Hopefully by September she will have completed a CBT course (Compulsory Basic Training), and will be able to ride it on the road. Her face was a picture, standing outside while trying the crash helmet on. This evening I have ordered her a book on basic motorbike training, maintainance, and servicing.
What else has been going on?
I’m still in something of a funk over the whole “blogging thing”. For the last couple of weeks I have filled evenings with movies, flying pretend aeroplanes on simulators, and strangely very little writing – which is odd, because I’ve spent much of the last twenty years emptying my head into the keyboard.
Perhaps it’s to do with lockdown. I’m not really sure.
Perhaps I need to stop thinking about it, and just be. One foot in front of the other.
Maybe I need to start reaching out to friends again, to remind myself who I used to be.
That’s a lot of maybes and perhapses, isn’t it.
