It doesn’t change. It’s amazing really, in a world where change is the only constant, it doesn’t change.
That’s incredible really because it doesn’t change no matter how soon I start or how late.
The absolute minute I really get my head down and get into the zone, getting ready for the show, then exactly then is when something will happen to steal my time. This time last year I got started nice and early, so happy to have no other responsibilities which is when I broke my arm. So I thought I would get started after Christmas, then I got the diagnosis. So this time I thought I would leave it till later as starting early seemed to attract misfortune. I had a ton of dolls that I made defiantly last autumn with a broken arm, and some porcelain slip, so I got started dressing, especially the 48th scale, the stand of which is looking utterly depopulated.
Who is going to derail my train of thought when all I want to do is sit and dress dolls?
Three of them. One is the OH. He had gone to see a specialist, needing taking in the car and fetching because the problem is gout. There will be further trips because he was OK when he saw the specialist but on Friday his foot had swollen up like a balloon and, contrary to what he was told at the last consultation, he could not be fitted in at any time it was bad, so I will take him on Monday probably with a normal foot but a picture on his phone of the balloon foot. This scenario, like the Mousetrap, could hobble and hobble.
Then there was the dishwasher. It was about twenty years old and behaving like a twenty year old. It didn’t know what it wanted to be but whatever it was, it wasn’t going to be a dishwasher, so it left the dishes unwashed. I suppose we should be grateful it didn’t flounce out of the house on its mobile phone, telling its social media friends what rubbish its family was. So the OH bought a new one with his Up The Big River Shopping credit card and it was delivered. We took the old one to the dump where the OH and a refuse colleague (two years night school and a day release course in cardboard) chucked it into the tin can skip.
I volunteered to clean out the space under the counter, having found the mouse nest (no mice) in the little wooden box that contains the pipe for the central heating drain down. That took half a day but the under the counter was shiny and new. For LO! The machine was delivered the OH said he would fit it, job done!
Yeah right. Below the counter lurked a hotch potch of pipes and drains suffering from the change over from Imperial to Metric measurements many moons ago. The result had been thoroughly bodged, one plastic pipe had been shaved down at one end, with what looked like a thick screwdriver and forced into the other. Having got it apart and discovered the bodge that explained why we had always had a leak under there with a bucket (actually the plastic container from dishwasher tablets, nobody can say we don’t recycle, it had been under there twenty years) below to catch the intermittent flood. So off went the OH to the plumber’s merchant. Before he departed I suggested we ring a proper plumber but he was not to be deterred and stated in no uncertain terms that I impugned him without justification, any person of reasonable intellect could fit plastic pipes together. From the third trip to the plumber’s merchant he returned not just with several different plastic pipes as before but a free bag of assorted plastic bits donated by a sympathetic (or terrified, who can say, I wasn’t there, I was trying to dress dolls) store assistant.
The drama lasted all day. I sensibly removed myself and left the person of reasonable intellect to struggle alone, just venturing in now and then for flood control. I do admit to one phase where the OH having cleared out the pipe, the joint of which was leaking ‘because of all the crud’, having been handed the soap tablet box full of water I did unthinkingly, yer Honour and I am sorry if it contributed to the swearing that ensued, tip it down the sink at one end of the system. Unstopped in any way by crud it almost instantly came out of the other end all over the OH crouched under the counter, over the end of the pipe but not the soap box, which I was, of course, holding in my hand.
Later, seated as I was in the dining room area (trying to dress tiny dolls, for some reason) I was well placed to watch about three feet of pipe sail through the air accompanied by language. At five of the clock the OH admitted defeat and I rang the proper plumbers, who had, of course all gone home for the weekend.
And then this week the Grandson decided to join in. The S&H rang on Thursday to say that his S&H had put a pea up his nose. The GDS is well advanced, he is only one and a half, the S&H was three when he necessitated the hospital trip to remove the peanut he had put up his nose. All was well until the DIL sent a message to the OH that they were all in the local hospital as the GDS had followed up on the pea, this time with a crayon and no one could extract it. The tale unfolded, hourly on the phone as the GDS, who was perfectly happy to shove a crayon up there was much less happy for a doctor to take a look and screamed blue murder any time anyone got near him. He stayed over night (the doctors skilled in crayon extraction being unavailable) accompanied by first his father, then, on shift, his mother and, finally, yesterday afternoon was given a general anaesthetic and the crayon removed. He is very well, having enjoyed the interesting change of scene. His sister is happy, having had her father to herself uninterrupted. His parents are like wrung out rags and, last time I spoke to them were hoping for a good, long night’s sleep, unlikely as they now have a son raring to go, as he has had the crayon, which was tiring him out a bit, removed from his nose.
Now, what was I trying to concentrate upon? Oh, yes, I remember, dressing dolls for Miniatura.