Just barely back, not up to speed

We got back on Saturday - Immodium is useful for long bus trips and flying but utterly utterly vile in its effects even though the effects are why I take it - and spent Sunday buying and beginning to lay underlay and laminate flooring in the front room. We're going to relay today because Plan A, which involved minimal furniture moving, was made by me when exhausted and approved and endorsed by Rob before he read the how-to-lay-laminate instructions. Nonetheless, we made great progress and expect to finish it fairly promptly today, if we move all the furniture.

Well, the front room, anyway.

Luckily the hall is easy - no furniture - and the dining room is fairly easy, since it has less fitted furniture and more easily moved stuff. I think I might want castor cups. And sticky-backed felt. I haul furniture around a good deal.

Other than that I went to a sling meet and found lots of stuff I ought to have posted before we went away. Oh, and mended the shower and mowed the lawn and had a shower and dressed children and cooked lunch and went to a slingmeet and bought a butler's pantry (what on earth shall I store in the wine rack?) and read some books. I wasn't reading enough before we went away and I intend to do more.

Fáilte, Fia!

Welcome to the world, my new niece, eldest daughter of my second-eldest sister, baby Fianad Eibhlin, born on the 12th of July. She is thriving and average sized and happy and healthy, and her mother will recover fairly normally and is delighted and brilliant and brave.

This baby is one of the longest-awaited of my acquaintance and much welcomed by every generation available. Linnea is thrilled, for one. Rob is delighted. I occasionally well up with tears, in a good way.

(And I still haven't read my email).

In Memoriam: Nollaig and Tadhg

Nollaig and Tadhg Kenneally-Owen died more tragically than most a year ago today. Let us not forget them, and if you know any new mothers who appear depressed or overwhelmed, reach out. Be there. It's almost impossible to ask for help when you're overwhelmed with depression, and depression and a small baby combined makes it much harder.

They are at peace now but Nollaig's family will never, ever "get over it". Ever. How could they?

Laminate

People who say laying laminate flooring is easy have never removed their skirting boards to discover that the last inch of their walls is mysteriously missing in action. It's hard to judge 5mm from the edge when you can't see the edge. Also, moving furniture custom-built to precisely fit the width of the room is hard.

However, we are so far very pleased with our results and will no doubt manage to finish it somehow - though the fiddly bits in the alcoves will have to wait until tomorrow, we're redoing the bay window tonight. For aesthetic reasons we're laying it at 90 degrees to where I planned before buying it. None of my furniture-juggling schemes work, we've just had to move almost everything out - into the street in some cases!

I believe this room is the most difficult. The other rooms have larger and heavier furniture but nothing built ot go wall-to-wall like the bookcase in this one. The sooner I do built-in wall-mounted bookcases the better, but that's a big job too...

And at some point I will have to plaster the last inch of wall (leaving a gap for ventilation) and remount the skirting boards.

There's nothing we can do about the curvature of the walls. Perhaps curved walls aid energy flow or something. They don't seem to aid my temper any.

We have a tube of squeezy goop for fixing small cracks and gaps around piping etc. We'll be using it near the base of some of the skirting, too. Dammit.

If only the original 6" skirting boards had been left in situ, none of this would be happening to me.

But carpetlessness means sneezelessness.

And tomorrow I must ask a doctor to get me tested for Lyme disease because I had a big super-extra-itchy tick bite while we were away and then got a sore throat, headache, dizziness, slight fever, sinus ick, and seriously upset stomach. Dammit, dammit, dammit.

I feel fine now, of course.