Jacey Bedford's Journal

I've spent most of the day trying to catch up with my filing. I still have to deal with the last two week's worth of mail, the bathroom needs decorating, the kitchen needs tidying and I'm wondering what we should have for dinner tonight...

Best Beloved is outside, sawing and hammering in the barn, working on the endless restoration project.

And I should either be getting on with earning money (the real music agency day job) or writing (which is actually what I would like to be doing), but real life keeps on getting in the way.

I've decided what I really need is a wife. Applications accepted from any gender. Must be able to cook, clean, keep household accounts, answer the phone, organise clutter and undertake light office duties such as filing and trips to the post office. Clean driver's licence.. Ability to decorate and do minor household repairs would be an advantage. Some gardening in spring and summer appreciated but not essential. No bedroom duties required.

Despite being promised blizzards we have a light covering of snow, sans gales. In fact the winter sun must have woken a hibernating peacock butterfly. Best Beloved found it flapping about in the barn. Apparently they do sometimes wake early but they go back to their hibernation if you put them somewhere cool and quiet.

http://www.britishbutterflies.co.uk/2007/asp/species.asp?vernacular=Peacock

Our barn swarms with beautiful peacock butterflies in summer but I didn't know they hibernated in there as well. I always feel so sorry for them because they never seem to be able to find their way out into the garden. Apparently they live on nettles and we're gradually reducing the amount of those in the garden. Maybe we should leave a patch for the butterflies... though there are plenty in the farm field just over the wall.

Work was interrupted today by a clunk from the back door and a shout from the kitchen. By the tone of voice I knew I'd better get a move on. The voice said: Please come and help me as fast as you can but I'm trying not to panic you because there's not too much blood - honest. It's a tone of voice I'm horribly familiar with as the wife of an avid Do-It-Yourselfer.
Actually Best Beloved is a great Do-It-Himselfer. He's handy with any number of dangerous looking implements and is always extremely safety conscious. Without sprain or strain, he's just demolished and rebuilt the inside of our ancient barn - including taking down a whole upper floor and digging out the lower floor and laying twelve tons of concrete. He's also taught himself to build block walls (taking advice from a builder friend) and the most recent accomplishment is a fifteen foot high by twenty-five foot long block wall that's impressive in it's clinical verticularity. Not bad for an old guy, eh?
But small accidents happen. We need to budget for elastoplast and antiseptic cream, spray-on skin and finger-stalls.
This morning he was hanging joists to replace the demolished upper floor and caught his finger on a joist hanger. By the time I got into the kitchen most of the bleeding had stopped but his index finger was open to the knuckle, so it was grab a sterile pad from the first aid bag, get him to hold it on tight and call the local health centre. Bless them they said: come straight down. As we walked in the door they were waiting and ten minutes later Best Beloved had two stitches, a big white bandage and orders to keep it clean and return in two days for the dressing to be changed.
Did I also say he was incorrigible?
As I write this is he sitting in front of the telly taking it easy? Is he even upstairs in the studio getting on with some of the clean work that's to be done? Of course not. He's back out in the barn... Here he is having a celebratory cup of tea with the above mentioned finished block wall behind him.

If anyone wants to see the barn's progress (so far) it's at http://www.jacey-bedford.com/barn01.html