Why has everything taken so long?

A frustrating morning which on review makes it look like I’ve been really lazy.

Not so: every single little job has taken longer than it should. Gutter work that needed a lot more effort than seems reasonable (but was worth getting right*, looking at the weekend forecast). Pool work that was more complicated than it should have been (and required some arm-deep work underwater – brrrr). The static bike “computer” having to be dismantled and repaired. A hole in the ceiling to patch up. The washing machine playing silly buggers. Tomorrow’s blog post to write. Images to edit for the school.

Just simple stuff that took ages and filled the morning.

Oh, and all of that against the backdrop of 12 hours of power cuts including ALL THREE of these:

…and more besides.

The afternoon will be spent watching horseriding over on the far side of the mountain.
The evening will apparently be spent in darkness.

* although i’m not completely convinced that i have done

Day 420 – That weather, though…

It rained all night and it’s rained all day. It’s still raining. We’ve had 225mm (that’s the whole 9 yards inches) in the last 22 hours – that’s a lot of water – and it’s still banging down out there. Hard.
I’ve drained the pool twice already today: I’m going to have to do it again tomorrow morning.

It does seem that the first three cold fronts to hit the Cape this season have been particularly vicious. And there’s plenty more rain to come in the early hours of the morning.
You know it’s bad when there’s an old guy with a grey beard and a staff leading animals two-by-two towards the harbour. That didn’t happen today, because it’s all just myth and legend, but actually, it wouldn’t have surprised me.

I have been working inside all day and it’s been particularly satisfying to get a lot of longstanding jobs ticked off my list. There’s been some electrical work, plenty of painting, a bit of cooking, some organisation of “stuff”, and some angle-grinding. Barefoot and nylon shorts probably not the most advisable attire for that last one.
Things got a bit stingy and melty rather quickly.
Would not recommend.

And yes, I know I keep going on about this, but the fire has made the whole day bearable. It’s done brilliantly in spreading its warmth quite a long way across the ground floor of the house. It was a good decision. And it’s nice (and sadly uncommon) when you can look at something and really think “yes, money well spent”.

And now, with the boy out and about at Scouts, I’m going to settle down on/in the beanbag and watch a couple of Youtube videos that have been teasing me from my various devices and trying to get me to give up on today’s jobs. They did not succeed, but now with the list so completely decimated (not literally), I feel that I deserve to have a bit of down time.

Making the list

Did something happen? I mean, I’m only asking because everything seems to be a bit crap with stuff online at the moment.

The internet is slow (ok, so no change there), my ifollow app didn’t want me to watch Sheffield United playing yesterday*, logins aren’t working, the latest update of the Jetpack plugin on WordPress is clearly borked, my Gmail had a wobble on Friday and still hasn’t really recovered.

That sort of thing.

And it’s not just here at 6000 Towers – I have had reports from others troubled by similar issues both in Cape Town and further afield.

Nothing major. Nothing huge or life-threatening. It’s all just a bit iffy.
And all really irritating.

But I can’t really lay the blame for this solely on the internet: there are a million** small to medium jobs that need attending to around the house as well.

Equally minor. Equally irritating.

This weekend marks a bit of a watershed in my life. I’ll likely elaborate on that more in a future post or seventeen, but I’m hopeful that these minor issues can now be sorted, one by one.

Still, the trouble with making plans to address these things is that some sort of priority system needs to be implemented if there’s to be any sort of meaningful progress. That system needs to be based on not just how urgent the task is, but also how annoying it is not having it done, how long it’s going to take to complete, whether or not it can run concurrently with other stuff, and whether it’s something I can do myself or whether it’s something that I have to rely on others to fix.

Thus, even making the list is a fairly difficult process. But without it, nothing will get done, and so that is priority number one.

I might get around to it tomorrow.

 

* still, ain’t no win like a 93rd minute win. 🙂

** this is clearly a ridiculous exaggeration.