preparations

Preparations are finally underway for the grand tour. Today we managed to get a whole section of the caravan up to a fine gleam, and found a little treasure under the cracking paintwork, which could have been lost forever. It kept our spirits up on this cold and breezy day. 6 hours of scraping and wiping, mindless repetition, with the leaves constantly floating down, forming themselves into little brown piles in the gutter which disguised the similar toned dog shit that i managed to step in twice.

Recycled a cooker to Jules. We 'inherited' it from Margaret, our previous neighbour, after she died. Seemed sad to see it dumped outside the flat so we took it in and thought about her when we cooked on it. After its brief sojourn with the ShippHill household its moved on to jules. As if the cooker's taken on a life of it's own, we've been around for the first three stages. new, 2nd hand, recycled. who knows, one day it might achieve 'vintage', 'rarity' even 'antique'.

The house is full of dust, it billows from the kitchen, through the weave of the sheet that hangs pinned to the doorframe. Paul comes out grey, and we realise we shouldn't complain. The kitchen is being rewired, and we find countless wires hanging plugless out of the walls behind the cupboards. We've lived like this for 2 years, but we can't expect a tenant to take on such a high risk lifestyle it seems.

No heat, so we've resorted to wearing our outdoor clothes indoors.

The place is in semi chaos, the kitchen has moved into ottilie's room, mark's studio has moved into the dining room, and the living room is covered with lists of jobs to be done - no children this week so the motivation to tidy has ceased to exist.
So much to do and so little time.