Lindy Kato (Writer)

I am late with my blog for the first time, although I just checked and it is still the 1^st of the month in Tahiti but it won’t be for long enough.

I had a tax assignment (it’s late), I’m finishing the next book (Bleak Expectations), and my head still isn’t right. That or I’m getting older and slower at the same time.

We are six years into a two-year project thwarted by COVID and then a lack of funds as well as builders on account of diminished contracts for my sweetheart which turned us back into builders when we said we wouldn’t. Before Xmas our roof was finally signed off and we had solar power put on (thank goodness a job that someone else did) and obviously we wanted it done to make hay during the antipodean summer.

Although summer didn’t really arrive and I don’t think there can be climate deniers left on the planet as rivers of rain have caused so much devastation yet again, eleven people died, six in one landslide, and at least two washed away in cars. It’s becoming more common. If you’re still thinking how can there be global warming when there are blizzards over America, then you are mixing up weather and climate. It is because of global warming that the polar winds are unable to keep the cold tidily in the arctic. I’m beginning to think that going on holiday in winter (the New Zealand winter) when the weather is more settled would be a better bet.

The point is I haven’t had a holiday at all because my sweetheart set me the challenge of putting up the gib board (plasterboard), plastering and decorating by the end of February. I’ve failed, I was always going to, not only is one granny insufficient but the plaster was struggling to dry in the high humidity.

So here is where we started and these are from 2022 and 2023, but this is the room with two areas that I have sort of managed to chirp up a bit at least.

The weed mat covered the insulation so we didn’t breath it in. We weren’t expecting it to make us smile as much as it did.

What I quickly found was my mood dropped as the plasterboard went up because it was disturbingly grey.

We decided the resale value would be the kid’s problem.

It’s a long way from finished and there is a whole other room to do. Most people don’t have a year-old wall oven still on a dolly (I know a dolly is something else in Australia, this is a board with wheels for shifting stuff) in the dining room next to a tool chest with paint tins on top, plus everything will have to move again to put the floor down. But I can tell this is going to be my favourite spot.

Has it been worth no holiday, no beach (apart from the other day when I stood and shouted obscenities at the ocean because I was upset, in case you are worried, we don’t have ‘people’) and two broken shoulders? See for yourself.

I’m back at work so I don’t know when the push for the next room can start but you can see it won’t be boring!

Fighting beige until the end.