Wednesday, February 10, 2010

Back on the Horse

You are trying to do something every day, or almost every day.  It goes well for a while, then you get busy or sick or lazy, a few days go by, so when you look to get back to it things have piled up a little and the task seems a little overwhelming, you are still busy, so you put it off.  A couple of days later it’s even worse, you feel behinder and behinder, and before you know it a month has gone by.  You feel guilty about the whole thing, which takes all the fun out of it, seems like a chore now.  Gets tempting to just let it go. 

How good habits get broken.  Losing weight, exercising, and of course writing.  All that plus everything has been going so well there isn’t really anything to complain about, and some of the most recent complexities with the apartment are in the present tense.  It was easier to write about things that have already happened than it is to discuss things that are happening now, because the present comes with the possibility of offending someone, or divulging something before it was supposed to be public, or something like that.  Of course, good blogging is all about divulging in the present tense, risk of offense be damned.  Or it’s about the ongoing tension of deciding what to divulge, taking chances with offense.  I think that’s why I could never be that kind of writer.

Anyway, like I said, things seem to be moving along in the apartment.  It is very odd to be watching an expensive renovation from such a distance, getting an update every week or so, if that often.  The architect, Monsieur P, sends us an official update every week, but so far it is mostly about wiring and where the gas meter is going to go.  There are picture, via Philippe….

livingroom1

The Livingroom…..

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

livingroom2

painter1

The painter… nice picture, Philippe,

 

 

 

 

And the toilet, looking particularly nice.

toilet

Still worried about that separate toilet.  The main bathroom might feel small withobathroomut it.  Here is some kind of view of the bathroom.  That’s a skylight up above, we are replacing it.

plasterer

That’s the plasterer, working in the kitchen.

To wrap up an old drama, a month ago I emailed the previous owner, Monsieur L., to see if there was any chance he might give us the keys to the mailbox and the bicycle room that he had never left.  I didn’t really expect to hear back from him, but a couple of weeks later, out of the blue, there it was.  Yes, he had indeed found some extra keys.  I passed the email on to Philippe, they got together, and he handed them a huge ring full of unidentified keys.  Somewhere in the mess was the mailbox key, and….. we haven’t gotten any mail.  No one knows we live there, or don’t live there, or whatever. 

Have I mentioned that we have had more snow here (Virginia, that is) in the past month than in the last ten years combined?  Yeah, that’s why I haven’t been blogging.