This is the first October we have been in England in five years. We had a month-long sortie to the Costa Brava during September with Sarah and Rob on the assumption that our long awaited new dining room extension would be under construction during October and November. Then an accident befell our builder. Sadly his broken ribs mean building work is delayed yet again. The new start date of mid-March means we can filch a couple of months in Spain during the dark days of January and February, but until our ferry to Santander departs on 4th January we are stuck at home watching the endless twists and turns of the Brexit tragi-comedy; no wonder John Le Carre has just used it as the background to his latest opaque and convoluted thriller; the machinations of the 1970s - the Winter of Discontent and the Cold War must seem quaint by comparison.
Of course the sensible thing to do is simply reconcile ourselves to realities of our situation and get on with life. However circumstances seem determined to undermine any half-baked attempts at a latter-day make-do-and-mend 'dear old Blighty' Dunkirk spirit. Firstly, we have both developed stinking colds. Abroad we don't tend to go down with bugs, being active outdoors in mainly sunny weather combined with a fairly solitary existence keeps viruses at bay. Secondly, despite our best efforts to live in the 'here and now, and embrace the excitement of the moment (though does being up-to-date with 'Strictly' really compensate for sunny days in the South?), anyway, any attempt to raise our spirits is undermined by Facebook's almost daily automated 'On This Day' posts reminding us exactly where we were in October over the last few years.
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Bombarded by jolly pictures of pueblos blancos under cloudless skies while watching the drizzle outside is not a recipe for feeling perky about life. We have reached the 'oh well mustn't grumble stage' and in order to maintain some semblance of sanity have embarked on a house decorating spree - a surefire sign of my desperation, as I hate painting and decorating. However, a house 'make-over is long overdue; one of the casualties of our itinerant lifestyle over the past five years has been regular house maintenance. In the past week we have de-cluttered and repainted the hall and stairs, commissioned a carpenter to redesign the woodwork in the smallest bedroom, cleared it and begun to redecorate that too.
In the process we discovered a downside of only occupying our house for about six months of the year. Most of our carpets had become infested with moths. Their larvae have been merrily chomping through the woolen fibres; our carpets are damaged beyond repair, Luckily all of them are heading for the tip anyway in the spring to be replaced with oak flooring as part of the re-building work. After a lot of lugging furniture away from walls and some determined chemical warfare we destroyed the infestation. We'll just have to live with the bare patches for a few months.
We surmise that the the work we need to do in the garden after the extension is completed next May will preoccupy us for most of the summer. Whereas I am not enthusiastic about decorating I do enjoy minor construction projects and am looking forward to relaying the patio, building a big deck outside the new bifold doors and have plans for a 'pop-up' summer vegetable garden and outside kitchen in the flagged area behind the garage. That takes us to next Autumn when we plan to head back to Greece, this time heading through Croatia, Montenegro and Albania, all new territory. By then we might be constrained by post Brexit visa restrictions - so longhaul might beckon in early 2021, back to New Zealand with stop-offs in Singapore and Vietnam - and possibly a short break from Auckland to a S. Pacific island.
So no shortage of of long term plans - nonetheless short-term tedium feels utterly stultifying; right now life between now and January, as the days shorten and the Pennines go into chilly dull mode, seems like some ill-judged attempt at occupational therapy, finding things that need to be done just to fill time. I hate that.