Category: Housekeeping

Housekeeping here.

First, my apologies for the cliffhangers — in case you were wondering:

• the buggered burner: Dave the Chimney Sweep rebuilt the burner and re-installed it a fortnight later. The time we were without heating was survived with little incident and few cross words, thanks to an oil column heater in the smallest room, and a steady supply of hot water bottles.
• the blown B1: this, too, needed a stint in a workshop, but The Boys from McQuinn’s were terribly helpful with a loan pump to keep the water flowing, and generous with their patience and knowledge (like I said, the people up this way are helpful and friendly).
• the correspondence of D F Mamea, Esquire, newly of Northland: those situation reports are of much interest to myself and The Goddess but I bet they are of little interest to you, Beloved Reader — you’re here because I’m (supposed to be) all about the scriptwriting, and the last few posts, as entertaining as they may be, haven’t really been about that; I thank you for your forbearance.

Having said all that about the relevance of our new digs to writing…

The previous inhabitants had let the property go to seed in various areas (q.v. burner and B1), the most visible sign being the establishment of Jerusalem cherry through The Wood and in the Green Zone. Although its green, orange and red fruit provide a splash of colour, its fruit is rather poisonous.

“Solanum pseudocapsicum04” by Paul venter – Own work. Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 via Commons.

So, most days since we took possession of this land, I’ve been pulling that weed out by hand (Fortress Mamea is organic, thank you). It’s a simple enough job, mindless and repetitive (and immediately gratifying) but because a considerable part of the property is under this weed, it’s also an awfully immense task.

The only way to handle the size of the task at hand has been to a). prioritise the workload, and/or b). do it a bit at a time. Since the weed is fruiting right now, the priority is to pull out whatever’s fruiting because each of those fruit contain at least a dozen seeds, and any one plant can have as much several dozen fruit on them. Sometimes that gets boring — or overwhelming — so I stake out a little 5 by 5 metre area and pull out all of the Jerusalem cherry, and afterwards stand back and feel a little bit like General Sherman.

Which is a typically long-winded way of saying… I’ve started writing again.

The move to Northland, and the work required to tidy up the property and its surrounds for clear fields of fire, have consumed much more of my mind and energy than I expected. The blog posts — as you can tell — have been more about the new circumstances rather than trying to see the writing angle in things.

But I’ve started writing again. Which meant I had to dig out my notes and files to try and remember where I’m at with various projects. Some projects are so large and/or complex that I’ve had to prioritise my method of reacquaintanceship, or nibble at the edges to make sense of a small part of it. It feels a little overwhelming — a bit like a patient coming out of a coma and trying to come to terms with the time lost — but it’s manageable. I can prioritise. Or I can start small.

Just like with the damned Jerusalem cherry.