well, i’ve spent most of the day disassembling, moving, raking, hoovering, cleaning, washing, mixing and pasting polyfilla into sundry grooves, cracks, voids, dents and drill-holes…

i am finding it fun, if a little insular to be doing it on my own, not to mention that it seems to mostly comprise short periods of gunkiness, interspersed with long periods of waiting for stuff to dry.

the bedroom is entirely clear for me to work in, and i think i have fixed most of the stuff that needs serious filling; tomorrow is skimming, sanding and steaming day, although i might skive-off the morning and do something cultural — like the harry potter movie. (ahem)

my hands are wrecked from too much washing, the spare room is packed to the eyeballs with just enough room to breath, and the cats are finding the changed circumstances to be slightly worrying — nosing around the decorating room with great care.

some people at work yesterday were quizzing me as to how went the motorcycle show; it took me some time to remember what it was that i was doing on wednesday (a lot of it was occupied with driving the 230 miles there/back) but i found it to be good fun.

it’s not something i would do every year, but it was great to try out all of the bikes that i am interested in, plus i think that i’ve fallen in love with the 2003 KTM 450EXC enduro bike, or its near-identical 250cc brother. i am sorely tempted…

ah, yes, and there was the moment on the kawasaki stand, when simon and i had to ask a pair of utterly gorgeous women – who were clad, incidentally, in skin-tight leotards in the style of kawasaki race kit – to get off of the quad-bike that they were posing upon, because we wanted to get a good look at the machine. they were rather crestfallen about this, but simon has a smallholding, and was wanting to look at the kwak bikes for agricultural purposes. usually he’s a chief ueber-letch, too, which made it doubly ironic.

it’s evening — time to calm down, so i’m having a nice ardennes pate with a half-bottle of chilled sauternes; god knows why you can only buy half-bottles in the country, maybe they think nobody’d want more.

the dehumidifier is running in the spare toom in order to gently accelerate the drying process, and i’ve been watching what not to wear on the BBC; watching, it struck me once more what a charmed life i and several of my geek colleagues/friends lead – the freedom to spend money without great worry regarding the consequences. to live in comfort, without (much) fear.

yet somehow, so many of us/them still manage to be neurotic about life. quite thoroughtly traintracked. bonkers, or at least slightly bannister. fretting about things that are cosmically trivial.

are we bourgeois yet?