Agent de la Merde

My life seems to revolve around architecture and my love of it (although this love affair is straining... read on!).

The drain outside our kitchen has been backing up recently so I thought I'd better open the main inspection cover and check everything was ok. Confronting me was a sea of rotten, turgid, quite possibly luke warm,... shit. So I opened up the other cover at the end of the drive which feeds into the main sewer. More shit.

I have therefore spent the last three days becoming an expert on the ins and (not) outs of domestic drainage, which includes practical experience. I almost wish there was an exam at the end! Two days of rodding have proved useless, today the officials came in a lorry with a big tank and officially announced there was nothing they could do and I am officially in the shit.

It would seem that the connect pipe has possibly collapsed at the point before it meets the mains drainage. This means that, even though it is half way across the road, it apparently belongs to me, therefore has to be maintained, by me. This really is shit news. The insurance company are now involved, although they seem to want to just pass the buck, as the heat, (and the shit) quite literally rises.

Anyway, today went up the woods for a walk...

Here's a nice picture of the house opposite. The drain runs right down the middle of the road, although judging from the number of rods we shoved down it, I'm surprised they didn't pop up in their living room.

Parachutes

Yeah, I wish I could land softly. I have to curl up my knees and take the blow, then stand up again.

you're invisable now...

...to quote Bob Dylan. I think so few people ( if any at all) read my blog,I can really purge myself of anything, very cathartically, and with no comeback. (There could of course be some community in the rainforest that reads religiously and follows my every post as gospel.) Anyhow, what I'm trying to say is, the comet that I thought glowed brightly and briefly before spinning away behind the sun,... actually has turned tail and stuck in a local orbit, which would make Einstein turn in his grey suit, not to mention flipping my own event horizon. The universe is a particularly weird place. Einstein said there is only one test to see whether you believe in a higher power; such as god or a guiding force... just ask yourself. Do you find it a friendly place,... or not...? My jury is still out.

An ever shrinking universe

...then a mason came forth and said, Speak to us of houses. And he answered and said: Build of your imaginings a bower in the wilderness ere you build a house within the city walls. For even as you have home-comings in your twilight, so has the wanderer in you, the ever distant and alone. Your house is your larger body. It grows in the sun and sleeps in the stillness of the night; and it is not dreamless. Does not your house dream? And dreaming, leave the city for grove or hilltop? (Kahlil Gibran)

Nostar

I'm so knackered at the minute I can't find much time to blog. Sam has had terrible teething problems, waking in the early hours, screaming with pain. It's very distressing. He's not one for crying without a reason, we know when he's in pain-plus his cheeks glow bright red, a tell tale sign.

Meanwhile I have been teaching digital photography this week at Ritchie Park, a really nice two days.

Luma

A small victory tonight. I have re-activated my solar panel lighting in my new garage. It might not be dazzling, but it's one little thing brought from the last house and resurrected out of the ensuing chaos. It's so frustrating not being able to get on with things, my time has become more valueable than any bank account.

The snow and ice has eased off a little, more is predicted... It's photographic heaven!

Here is our castle...