read write run

For a little while last week I was almost feeling organised. I put a diary here on the desk and started making my lists and ticking them off as I achieved each objective. You know. World changing stuff: hang out laundry. Bring in laundry. Research poem. Go to the gym. Let’s just say there’s not a whole lot of structure in my life, and trying to get things done on the kitchen table is confronting for me. The high point of my life was in about grade 2, when I had the inside of my desk so neatly arranged that I didn’t have to lift the lid in order to pick out which of the six identical exercise books I needed for the next lesson. I mean, it just made sense to me that my English book (fun) should be kept on top of the stack, and my maths book (yukkie) should be kept on the bottom. And that the dictionary (small) belonged at the top, where it was neatest, and the atlas (biggest) belonged at the bottom where it could support all of the rest.

Neatness and order. That’s what I’m trying to do with my life at the moment. And the pantry and loft are all coming into line at the moment.

I painted an undercoat onto the loft stairs during the week, so that they would be ready to go in on the weekend. Beloved’s leg and back are still playing him up a bit, but he soldiered on like a brave little Vegemite, and it got done. There was some exasperation as we had to put the stairs up, measure a bit, take them down, cut a bit, put them up a bit, swear somewhat (Beloved’s secret ingredient to all household chores) cut a little bit more, and put them up again.

Here, though, finally, is a view of the stairs in place in the loft. They are bolted in and ready for the first person to walk up them and into the exaulted storage space above.

I said Beloved should go first because he had dome all of the work. He said I should go first because I was lighter. This absolutely floored me. I was lighter. And it’s true! Not by much, but for the first time in many years I am actually lighter than Beloved. Now impressive as this sounds, bear in mind that he’s 185cm tall (6’1″) and 10kgs overweight according to the doctor, and I am 160cm tall (5’3″). But no! Less is less and I weigh ever so slightly less than does Beloved and he let me be first to go up the new stairs. It was massively exciting, even though I left dirty footprints on my white undercoat. Oh well. I’ll be painting over that soon enough, so not to worry. In this first photo I am standing in the (now removed) doorway that backs into the bedroom. I couldn’t get any further back because I’m against a wall. This part of the bedroom was once a hallway. Eventually this doorway will be filled in with a bookcase so that we can have a “secret” entrance to our hidey hole of a loft.

So here I am, looking down into the pantry. As you can see, we still have only half a floor in the loft, so it’s a little scary if you’ve got a tendency to vertigo, but when it’s all filled in it won’t be a problem.

I know I had that big rave about neatness and order before, and as you can see, there isn’t a whole lot of it in the pantry. Okay, stuff has been pushed out of the way while work goes on for the day, but things like the flour box and freezer are a source of constant annoyance. Not because there’s anything wrong with either of them, but because they serve as temporary storage space for the porridge oats, the cake box, the muffin/fairy cake carrier, and the metal shelf thingy that used to live in my locker at work. Now, every time I want to get some flour or rice out of the flour box, they get moved onto the freezer, and every time I need something out of the freezer, they get moved back onto the flour box. This happens at least once a day in each direction and it doesn’t fit in with my view of how the world ought to work.

And here it is. The loft. It’s just a little bit on the junky side at the moment. A lot of what’s in those boxes belongs to Radio Boy who says he needs it, but I reckon if I got rid of it he’d never even notice. I could donate the books to the local hospital, give the sick kids something to read while they get better.

The mattress and base and bed head were Radio Boy’s too. He doesn’t need them any more since he bought himself a nice queensize set when he moved to Bega. Someday, when we have the room space, we will probably use these as a spare bed. Who knows. Maybe someday we’ll have a grandchild sleeping on that mattress. Poss’s old single bed mattress is there too. The bed (one of those nifty bunk/desk/shelf arrangements) has a new home now, and like I said, maybe someday there will be a grandchild who comes to stay and sleep on dad’s/mum’s uncle’s/aunty’s old bed. Am I turning into a cluck? The other thing, right in the middle there, is my Fowler’s Vacola canning kit. Been ages since I’ve done stuff in that, but one year I made the most brilliant mango chutney. Looking forward to the day when I have the storage space to do that again. Down the the Queen Vic market for a box of mangoes. Yummy.

I’ll have to do a blog on the market one of these days. It’s a fabulous place. Beloved and I used to shop there regularly when we were first together. Going in on a Saturday morning with the backpack on and stocking up on fruit and veggies.

I hadn’t been there for ages, but since I was there just before Christmas, I  spent a day there and it was even more fabulous than it used to be. I bought Beloved the most amazing coffee machine (will have to do a blog on that, too) and had a good wander round all of the shops.

Aside from anything else, the market has a mysterious and spooky history. It was the place of Melbourne’s original general cemetery. When the market took over, some of the graves were opened and their contents moved. Some. Not all. Headstones were moved, but beneath  the carpark are the remains of a good many of Melbourne’s early citizens.

It didn’t feel at all spooky on the fine day in December when I was there, though.

The next step in the loft and pantry story was to box the stairs in. Don’t want any gaps showing since Poss and BF use that bedroom (the one behind me in the photo, so you can’t actually see it). Also stops the cats from sneaking in.

Don’t look too closely at the paint job. In the end I will paint it all black so that it merges into the dark and spooky heights of the loft. Yeah. Spooky. I mean, what’s the point of having a loft unless it’s just  little bit on the spooky side?

Spooky? Yeah. That’s what I want. And just to show you what I mean, here are a couple more hints. These cobwebs are just part of our life here, living with very high ceilings and open beams, and a person (me) who is disinclined towards housework. As I read in a cross-stitch pattern this morning “if a woman’s work is never done, why bother starting?” That’s a profound thought that I am tempted to turn into a personal credo. Besides, if you sweep down cobwebs then your hair gets all dusty and cobwebby. I am more of the school of thought that says “if I chuck a handful of glitter into it I can call it a decoration.”

The other spooky moment came when I took this photo of Sophie. Now I know there are those who insist that orbs are nothing but artefac. That they’re all about light reflecting off the lens or dust in the air or dud pixels not processing properly or something else that sounds plausible and sensible and frankly quite boring, but I like to think they’re just a little bit spooky, so I was pleased when I took this photo of Sophie during the work on Saturday, and found this orb hovering over her. Nice one Soph. If anyone’s going to communicate with orbs, it’s that old grimalkin.

On Sunday we bought the final bits of flooring for the loft. They haven’t been installed yet, mainly because Sunday was hot and the loft gets really hot. Instead, we did a bit of work cleaning out the pool, which should be ready for swimming in about March, when the weather turns cold again. Oh well. So my plans for spending part of today putting Christmas into its own corner of the loft have been somewhat stymied, but that’s okay. It’s beginning to look like a real possibility now, instead of just one of those wonderful fantasies I tell myself as I’m falling asleep.

And this is what the pantry looks like, now that the staircase is in place and boxed in. I’m not sure if I’ll paint this side of it black or white. I’m thinking white, as black might be a bit heavy and make the space look too small.

Not sure what I’ll put on the side, but I have decided that the sloping bottom of the staircase could be a very good place to put in some hooks for hanging up herbs for drying.

In its position over the freezer, it’s nicely out of the way. Not even Beloved (who is notorious for banging his head on stuff) has banged his head on the stairs.