Thursday 3 April 2008

First quarter, 2008 !

Today is a beautiful day - the sun has real strength, both in temperature and light. But more cold and wintry weather is forecast for the week-end. The season is on the cusp.

Time, at least, for a quick evocation of the first quarter of 2008 here in Clees Lane.

For the first weeks of the year, we virtually hibernated. The weather was predominantly wet, and we've inclined this way in recent years, and now we can give way to it without guilt. We got the fires lit, and played lots of snooker on the 6' table I gave Nina for Christmas. She did quite a lot of family history online. I got stuck into extending my understanding of Midi control, particularly in the context of playing live. Talking of the snooker, Brindle has evolved her own routine ! She's always been 'big' on balls, especially tennis balls. Now, when we 'set up the balls' , she appears (from sleep, quite often) with a ball in her mouth, and if we make sure she has a second one, she has her own game under the table while we play - a sort of football with her front paws, but there must be a ball in her mouth for it to start. What I find interesting is the social dimension of it - there is such an undoubted sense of 'this is what I do while Nina and Ian are playing on that table.'

As we got into February, it became easier to find work to do. I began the process of rescuing the pine-end of no 5, adjoining our house (partly visible in the background of some of the photos published here in August). Work with lime mortar is very satisfying - it is a markedly more 'organic' material than cement mortar, despite being caustic. Inside no. 4, Nina stripped back the original lime 'plaster' (and some later cement patchings) of the stone wall beside the stairs, and re-clad it in lime, and she is now following on onto some of our adjoining plasterboard surfaces.

Jenny and Alex came down for a night so we could all go to Y Polyn again (Alex's first visit) for St David's Day lunch - it was deemed well worth the trip - and we touched base at Allt Y Capel (Alex's first sight of that, too) . Later, Nina and Brindle and I went down to Guildford, where we and Jenny went to see an excellent (Peter Hall) production of Uncle Vanya, with Neil Pearson as Astrov. Brindle and I came home next day, leaving Nina and Jenny to jet off for a week at Sharm El Sheikh.

I've 'had a skip' and emptied the garage of number 2 (untouched for 20 years, I should guess), and am making some basic fittings and repairs before we repatriate our stored possessions to this new space. We've also snatched several of the best days for trips to the wood. A new 'big beast' chain saw has been inaugurated (demonstrating again, that in the case of tools, bigger and sharper can, properly handled, also mean safer). And Nina has at last mastered the starting of the smaller saw. Anyway, several good days (going to the woods always feels like touching base - it puts everything else into perspective) and several goodly loads of fire wood.

Yesterday Nina had a small operation as a day-patient in Singleton Hospital to tackle a cyst near the opening of her Eustacian tube. She is for the moment recuperating quietly. I can hear 'Lorna Doone' quietly behind me.

These months are 'the' time for evening classes and similar activities. I'm taking a Photoshop course on restoring photos, and at the Ystalyfera Heritage Society we are finally in full process of archiving old photos and other paper artefacts from the locality. So some weeks I've been out three evenings.

When we judge spring has really come, there is work to do in the garden (the potatoes are chitting quietly in waiting), and then no 6 awaits - we'd like to get a floor and roof done before next winter.