Sunday 20 March 2011

The Turret Installed

A post by Madame

I've fallen behind in writing what's happened at Home lately. Time and energy don't seem to have coincided!

18 March 2011

I arrived Home in the front driveway, walking along and singing or calling out (I can't remember which) to Louis. He threw open our bedroom window, and came to greet me. I mean exactly what I say, there: this isn't one of those “writer forgets to describe character's path” moments. He didn't go downstairs and come out the front door, but stepped out the window to where I was. It was like he had a curving ramp of air, and seemed to half-walk, half-drift down. When he arrived on ground level he knelt, throwing his arms wide in a greeting that was both romantic and self-mocking; he was obviously still mentally laughing at the image of Buzz Lightyear in Spanish mode.

Once he'd stood up and greeted me with our usual hug and kiss, he said the coffee was brewing, and we linked arms to go inside. Breakfast was piles of toast and honey, this morning (I presume the Poor Little Cat had bacon prepared for her, but I don't remember it). I do remember a grey tabby rubbing around my legs, and reaching down to find it wasn't Katie but Thomas, Tomtom, who crossed over in 1993. As I said to Louis, it's confusing having so many repeats among our cats. Three grey tabbies, two all-black cats, two black-with-bikini cats … Cindy and Magnus are the only uniquely coloured ones there, and on this side, Maddie is close enough in colour to Magnus that I still think it's him when I see her from the corner of my eye.

We had our toast and coffee, and had a bit of fun trying to drink the coffee with arms linked, like a couple with champagne glasses. The consensus was that it was romantic but too complicated!

The best part of breakfast was, ah, some mutual grooming at the end. Honey is messy stuff, after all. However that had to be curtailed. I was sitting on his lap and there were hints that we might get seriously distracted from the day's gardening if we pursued this any further. I won't repeat what Louis said (it's one of our few running jokes I have kept relatively private) but it made me laugh.

From breakfast we took ourselves to the shed, and I have keyhole-glimpse clarity of seeing him pushing the wheelbarrow with our bits and pieces in it – those lovely arms and hands gripping the handles! - and his trowel shoved into his back pocket.

The first task of the day was to finish the turret-cum-garden seat. I think I've mentioned that we opted to do it together, by mind, rather than try to make it physically. It was a simple enough matter: holding hands and visualising the form we wanted, and asking the energy around us to take that form. And there it was … a circular stair-tower, open into the new garden plot and with the new walls emerging from it, with a couple of steps leading up to a seat that takes up the width of the circle. I'd asked Louis (only half jokingly) when we started if there would be room for lovemaking inside, and he said he would make sure there was …

I was jumping up and down with excitement when our turret formed. It looks so good, it's solid and looks old (it is meant to look half-ruined, like the wall) and has bonded with the brick courses we'd already laid. It has a window above the seat, and a partial roof at the top (slate, I think) to offer some shade. It's a different sort of satisfaction from physically making something as one does on this plane, but the pleasure of seeing something one created is still there.

We spent the rest of the day bricklaying, and singing. That's all I recall; I'd been standing a quarter-hour in Fawkner Park while this played out in my mind, and needed to get moving to get to work. The only other information I have is that I returned Home after being woken by a coughing fit here (the cold I had a few weeks ago is making determined efforts to return) and that we had the whole day together … and had the energy for two rounds of lovemaking during the night There. Which may explain why Louis had no plans to do anything other than sit in his rocking chair that day!

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