Love Is Blind. It's Also Cupboard.

Blogspot isn't letting me access my account at present, so I'm composing this in Word on Wednesday afternoon. Heaven knows when I'll be allowed to post it...

You’ll be thrilled to know, possibly, that both Collected Works and Time Signature quite definitely exist in book form. I've seen them both in Forbidden Planet, and very pretty they look too. Hopefully my contributors' copies will turn up from Big Finish at some point in the not too distant future.

This past week’s been a tad trying, as B. and (latterly) I have been redecorating our kitchen: papering and painting walls, painting and re-handling cupboards, putting in new shelves and blinds and all kinds of faff and fiddle. The results –- still incomplete though they are –- are looking good. Whereas before the kitchen was coloured




with




cupboards and a big patch of bare




plaster beneath waist level from when we had a damp course put in, now it's like totally





with cupboards that are all





and chrome fittings which are like




. Only more reflective.

(One day you'll be able to set the reflectiveness of your computer screen to any level you want. We'll have to think of a new word for mirror websites.)

As I've mentioned before, I don't react well to having my habitat mucked about with, so I've found all of this fairly stressful. (On the plus side, though, this has provided an excuse to eat plenty of cheese and chocolate -- which, on the minus side, my waistline hasn't been inclined to accept with any sympathy.) The cats have been very clingy, as well, and are suspicious of the way things smell in there now.

In particular, having the blinds missing for over a week has made me feel surprisingly vulnerable, although I'm quite sure none of our rearward neighbours has any interest in watching me cook, eat, or indeed screw (which I've been doing quite a lot of over the past few days -- there've been a good many fixtures and fittings to attach to things. Ho ho ho, I bet you all thought I meant "screw" in the sense of "copulate".)

Now, though, we have shiny venetian slatted things up instead, which are far nicer than the dangly fabric things we inherited from our predecessors. They're so reflective that they make the room feel daylit even when half-open, which is fantastic.

The whole thing's a big improvement, naturally, but I can't help feeling it's involved an great deal of effort. Still, that's just me -- certainly B.'s very happy with the whole thing, which is good, and she claims it will make the house more saleable when we move. So three cheers for that, even if they're rather weary and stressed cheers.


[Edit 29/10/2006: Better approximations of colours, courtesy of B. Although I'm not sure about the plaster, to be honest.]

Cognitive Dissonance Update

I spend way too much time on this computer. After B. and I painted our bedroom back in July, I kept worrying that someone would accidentally click "Undo" and rever the colour of the walls to sickly green.

Now I find myself attempting to highlight words on a piece of paper by tapping them twice briefly with my fluorescent pen.

Intense Neurological Paint

Substantial chunks of this week have been entailed in painting the bedroom, which prior to Monday looked a lot like this...





...and now, mercifully, looks rather more like this.






I'm a territorial animal, and like the cats I get unhappy at signficant disruptions to my habitat. Having all the bedroom furniture, and in particular the books, stacked up against walls and in crates elsewhere across the house has been distressing for all of us, but now everything is back where it goes, and there's a marvellously restful lack of eye-wrenching disgust involved in looking at the bedroom walls. I thoroughly approve of it.

Unlike B. I'm not someone who sets great store by interior decorating, but it's surprising (or perhaps under the circumstances it's actually not) how much more like part of my home the bedroom now feels. Obviously being reminded of a hideously misjudged decorating decision which I would never under any circumstances have made, every time I opened my eyes in there, has had a subliminal alienating effect whose strength I never realised.

Now all we need to do is stop the bathroom looking like this...





...and I'll be happy.