Koi carp and builders blues…

At last, after a long wait and a lot of drying out (the burst pipe disaster at Christmas) work has started replacing the buckled floors.

Fours months on and my kitchen and hallway are about to be returned to working order. We couldn't replace with the same - but so what?

Three men are upstairs sawing, hammering and banging as I sit at my desk in the cellar fiddling about with my computer pretending to be busy.

Outside three different men have begun to paint the outside of the house after the winter weather finally stripped most of the paint away from the window frames.

It is all go as they say.

I hate having builders and decorators in. They make me feel inadequate as I’m convinced that I should be able to do everything myself. Oh, I know that the floors are being replaced under the insurance, but the floors that they are replacing are the ones I laid myself and when they have laid the new floors I just know that they will look better than mine.

The painters and decorators make me feel cowardly. Surely I should be able to climb up a fifty foot ladder to get to the top windows to give them a lick of paint. After all it’s only three stories up, in the wind, with a paint tin in one hand and a paintbrush in the other.

And then there’s the noise.
And the endless cups of coffee.
And the happy singing and whistling.
And the laughter.
And the questions about how I want things when I really don’t know or much care.
And the fact that they are gainfully employed doing something that they are good at and I suspect enjoy...

and I’m not.

Bloody builders and painters, no wonder I have the blues.

The fish?

Oh yes. These are the fish at the garden centre that I wandered off to so that I could get away from the builders and painters. Koi Carp. Large ones. Reds, whites, golds, oranges, blacks, all glimmering-shimmering as if each one had swallowed a light bulb. They flashed and gleamed in the dark water, rising, going deep again, as they slowly moved around the pond.

I just stood on the Japanesey bridge staring into the water and thinking about - well just thinking really.

I watched them for ages then came away.

It is all go as they say.