Disgruntlement

There seems to be a strong relationship between my blogging and my other writing. When I manage to blog, it usually means that I am not writing. When I am writing steadily, I don’t have the energy to blog as well. So please take it as a good sign that I haven’t been posting much recently.

There is also a relationship between progress on my writing and my ability to do Sudoku. I just can’t work them out at the moment, even the medium ones. I am happy with how things are going with my book, but I am feeling generally out of sorts with the world.

The renovations seem to be on temporary hiatus. The electricians were here for a couple of days last week and disappeared leaving wiring hanging under the house, but no electricity to or fixtures in the house yet. They were supposed to call to let me know when they were coming back. I rang today and they may be here tomorrow or maybe the day after. The builder seems to have things other than our project on his mind. The tilers who need to do the laundry so that we can get our council plumbing “wet area” certification called today to tell me that we need extra sheeting after we’ve already had the whole area sheeted in structural plywood.

The good news is that Mr. Blithe and our neighbour (remember the delightful one?) managed to lift the major beam in the living area and remove the ceiling joists so that we can continue our quixotic restoration of the ceiling in that area. Many years ago, a dropped ceiling was installed and we’ve decided to raise it back to the original eleven foot ceiling to match the rest of the house. The first task was sliding the beam up about 30 centimetres and bolting it to a smaller, higher roof beam to make sure that the whole thing is secure. Actually the first task was removing the dropped ceiling: something that involved much crashing, huge amounts of dust and so far our only injury on the job – a heavily cut and bruised ankle for Mr Blithe. On removal of the plasterboard ceiling, you could see the tongue and groove (VJ) walls going up the full height of the room. It looks great and I promise photos later.

Making me even more cranky, FIFA has banned Iraq from World Cup soccer competition for 12 months following the Iraqi government’s disbanding of the Iraqi Olympic Committee and affiliated sporting committees. Why should I care? Well Iraq and Australia were to play a qualifying match at Suncorp Stadium this Sunday – the first World Cup qualifier to be played in Brisbane for almost two decades. We are not habitués of such events, but Mr. Blithe and Blithe Girl were going for her birthday treat. She has been counting the days since we bought the tickets within hours of them going on sale. Unless FIFA receives a letter from the Iraqi government before 10pm on Thursday, the match is cancelled. FIFA stands to lose about $3 million. We might have to severely disappoint a little girl. I think we have the worst of the deal. Even the Iraqi government seems determined to get me offside. You’d think they would have other things on their mind.