Restless dreams

I slept badly last night and dreamt of snakes, websites and painting. It is clear what is on my mind. Today is the official launch of the Residents’ Association and the historical society websites. It’s a small event up at the school at 10.15 (come along if you’re in the area). I have a small role to play in my non-Blithe persona. I’ll be the one with a small boy clinging to my leg or hip. Maybe not a professional look but I recently read an article on Gail Kelly, one of Australia’s most successful woman CEOs, who described attending a job interview at the first bank she worked for when she was changing careers from teaching. Her dad had wangled her an interview with a major South African bank and she couldn’t find anyone to look after her baby triplets. Her mother looked after one at home, one was deposited with the receptionist and she did the interview holding the third. She got the job and started her rapid upwards move.

I have pre-lecture nerves. What if the website is down? What if the laptops aren’t working or can’t find the projector? Silly concerns. If any of these things happen we’ll just have coffee and cake and enjoy the company. And if no-one comes, there are 45 schoolchildren to demolish the cake.

The snake winding through my dreams was our newly resident, or perhaps newly visible, carpet python. It appears to be living somewhere in our roof and likes to venture forth around midday, slithering off the roof and into the pittosporum tree next to the office window. I hear a small flurry of birds, then perhaps a tiny creak and look up to see its length stretching across the gap. As soon as it is in the tree it disappears, its startling yellow and black markings effective camouflage. I worry about the guinea pigs. How will I explain to the children that a python ate their pets? I have to hope that there are enough rodent alternatives at the moment to keep it occupied while I think of ways to fortify the cage.

And painting, it continues ever onwards. I’ve temporarily run out of prepped areas to paint and have to go back to sanding and scraping. The hallway now matches the old house. It’s hard to believe it was once a horrible green bathroom. The house seems to be organically growing outwards as areas get painted. Now the connection and hall are part of the house and the area lying beyond seems to be the extension. I hope that the effect will extend to all of the new area – that it will seem to be a part of one whole and not something tacked on the back of the house. Meanwhile I need to go make sure that the last of the paint is off my hands and out from under my fingernails before I start waving them around in front of people.