Sleeping on the job.

{The slow process of things, it is messy.}

The front of the house, an oven. A great open oven. Or perhaps a boiling pot. "Steak done in six minutes—lobster broiled in twelve!" Your own innards done in ten. Your pets, half the time! It’s terrific for paint drying. Not so terrific for fair skin, one’s sanity grip, and one’s physical endurance. Thin soles, how terribly hot, so quickly. Goggles pool with sweat under the tin veranda. Bruises form on legs where they’ve pressed too firmly on the step of the ladder. Paint flecks grace the forearms. Giving a facelift to the front of the house is as slow and hard as you’d expect. But it is also incredibly rewarding. And incredibly good for throwing frustration at. "'At me again, sir!' exclaimed Pancks, loosening his hold of his hair; 'at me again, and again!'" (Charles Dickens, Little Dorrit, Book the Second: Riches, Chapter 26: Reaping the Whirlwind). Sandpaper scouring-s, high-pressure water squirting-s, paint lashings, nails and putty and rough: it takes it all, swapping cares for satisfaction. A job done, in part, and the happy singsong of warm muscles. And best of all, to this backdrop of labour worthwhile, contented pets snoozing by the new front gate. Curled in balls of slumber, flaked like sausages, or liquid on the newly revealed bluestone step, the pets and the neighbour’s pets, those sleepy foremen on shift rotation, they make it all worthwhile. Happily sunning their bodies as we work slowly, we may be at the foot of the mountain, but the company is good and the view splendid.












{A succession of mornings that all look a little similar.}

+ Recently, a Birthday xo
+ Our zines arrive in W.A. (Enjoy them, Hila.)
+ (Louise's) New Year, new licence
+ "Enjoy life while you can. Because if you're lucky it's going to be 20 years before it hits the fan." (James Lovelock)