Time cycles

Years after I’ve left university it is funny how the university year still shapes my life. Part of it is that after a decade at university, my internal calendar still makes me jumpy in autumn, the beginning of the academic year both in northern and southern hemispheres. The cooling temperatures interspersed with languid warm days, the sense of urgency that the falling leaves of autumn brings always brings signals to me that I have to get going, do things, put my head down and tackle whatever new that is coming my way.

The other way that the academic calendar still shapes my life is that Mr Blithe works at a university and his work timetable changes with the time of year. As his schedule changes, so does mine. Right now it is the semester break, what is officially called a “non-teaching period.” Mr Blithe doesn’t teach but he does catch a university bus to work. As the frequency of buses is downgraded to correlate with the holidays, he leaves for work a bit later. And I lose out on my precious near hour to write. It’s not his fault. I just can’t write when there is someone else wandering around getting ready for work, even a quiet pleasant someone.

It’s also the school holidays so writing has been relegated to the backburner for a couple of weeks. I’m trying to type up and tidy what I’ve done so far so that I’m up to date on the purely administrative side.

I’ve also spent most of the last week working in moments, spare and otherwise, on the website for the Residents’ Association. As of today, we have gone live in a kind of “soft launch” for people to have a look at and get an idea of what we’ve done. Feel free to take a look . Tonight is the monthly meeting of the association and I really wanted to have something done to show them. As well, I am weary of the project so it is good to have something finished. There are still various ends to tidy up. The designer is going to teach us how to administer it and make minor changes ourselves. The associated blog that we are using as our calendar will need to be regularly updated.

Then there was an entire weekend spent working on the house. We are becoming so boring. The yard is looking shaggy, friends are ignored, I can’t remember when I last got a haircut. But progress is being made. The laundry is tiled, the connecting hallway is sheeted, the living room ceiling only has two more panels to be put up. We’re about to tackle sanding and painting the utility rooms (toilet and laundry). We have aches, odd shaped bruises, scraped and punctured hands and sore knees, but we are within sight of completion. Whatever will we do with ourselves after that?