Moving Forward...

-


 

I'm still trying to catch up on my reading: The New Statesman keeps dropping through the letterbox long before I've finished the last or even the second-last issue. Mostly my fault for having a butterfly mentality, but what the heck: loads of interesting and thought-provoking stuff to take away for next week's mini-break to Shropshire: I'll post appropriately, as and when able. Also, my to-be-read book-list is starting to groan a bit, so I'm going to have to take some decisions and apply a couple of filters to my aspirations in that department, otherwise I'll be in the same predicament as the centipede in the Sufi parable: immobile, considering how to run, without first having mastered walking.

Anyhow, it looks like the finance to get cracking on the stove installation, and the rest of the living-room upgrade is imminently available, which is a relief: I've been itching to get on with the job for over a week, now, since the fireplace was opened up and the chimney-piece finished. I particularly want to get started on the flooring [pictured is the AI-interpreted serving suggestion from the flooring supplier's website: impressive attempt, if a tad flawed], as I think that will make a huge difference to how the room feels.

But first things first, I've got the slate hearth piece to bed in, which will be inset into the flooring at the front of the hearth/ingle [the piece of Bethesda slate can be seen to the right, leaning against the wall] and the back of the ingle needs painting in a darker colour for reasons both aesthetic and practical: oh, and the loft has to be cleared for the stove installers to be able to work up there. Still, we now have light at the end of what has proved to be a rather long tunnel. Keep you posted...

 

 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Of Feedback & Wobbles

-
Image
Many years ago I came up with an analogy for poorly damped feedback loops. The feedback loop that prompted this frankly tart analogy was indeed a horror. Anyone who remembers shame-faced their first attempts at clutch control resulting in the good old kangaroo launch across the lights only to stall in the middle of the crossroads will have some idea of the kind of data transfer lag involved in said system. The analogy I made was that of a large blancmange. Untouched, a model of stasis and eminently stable and predictable; but prod the bugger and the resultant chaotic behaviour needs a very complex physical model and some very decent computing horsepower to predict its outputs, if at all. The system in question was a large and complex audio-visual display at what eventually became 'The Electric Mountain' in Llanberis. We were ultimately contracted to maintain the thing having been witness to and peripherally involved in its installation. Certainly not involved in its des
Read more

Sister Ray

-
Image
Ray Keats - aka Ann Key - local artist & family friend, died this morning. She'd been ill for some years, but never let it get in the way of her work or of tending to the massive network of friends, colleagues and fans she had accumulated over the decades. Her house on the High Street of Rachub, just below where we live - a former cockle factory(!) - bought many years ago when she and her late husband Ronald moved here from Manchester to set up home in Yr Achub, is currently still home to her paintings and drawings, and the front window displays her work, including the last drawing she made in hospital, just days before she died. Her good friend Colin has been a diamond in her latter years, looking out for her and just being there when she needed him. She will be much missed by this tiny community of ageing bohemians up here in the hills, but suffice it to say, George, her cat, will be well looked after now she's gone.
Read more

A Time of Connection

-
Image
I was just reflecting on the vacuum of continuity that's left behind when someone dies: that sudden sense of disjoint, of fracture, in one's personal history that takes one completely by surprise at the oddest moments. These pinch-points in memory can often yield some surprising revelations of fact about periods in one's past. One such occurred to me tonight, tending my rather lazy meal of pizza in its journey from shrink-wrap to mouth via the oven. Al's recent demise still catches me out from time to time: the space he left bounded by forty plus years of friendship. But the thing that struck me tonight was just how much change was happening on a personal and social level in the very early years of our acquaintance. Between moving here from Birmingham in September 1980 and our buying our first proper house eighteen months later, all manner of things occurred that would chart the course of our lives to the present day. At around the time of our meeting Alan & Irene [
Read more