Hiatus Warning!

Must be my day for goddam dust.

See, Natalie has finally succeeded in her ongoing harangues about the state of my study. We're getting a bloke in to sand back the floor in the sun-room and restore the much-abused polish, and I agreed that I'd clear out my study and strip the carpet so this room could get prettied up at the same time.

Of course, that means yanking out not only the carpet and the underlay, but years of accumulated... stuff... in here. Which I've been doing for a few days now.

The carpet itself is plain nasty. It appears to have been laid down in the Early Filthocene Era, and repeatedly been conquered by hordes of unwashed barbarians from various incredibly dusty regions of the world. I've pulled up half of it by now, and honestly, I'm choking in here. It's Snot City, and I am the Chief Boogermeister. Achheh. Kaff kafff hacckkh!

Meanwhile, the elderly cast-iron grill in the bottom of our wood-heater/fireplace thing has finally given away, big-time. It's interesting what happens to cast iron that gets repeatedly heated and cooled: today, as I was pulling the thing out, I snapped a couple of the grill-bars with my fingers. These things are at least a centimetre wide, and 3/4 of a centimetre thick. They're not rusted. They're just... heat-fucked, I guess.

I've been looking for a replacement grill for over a week now. Tried both hardware places. Tried both farm-gear places. No go. Launceston wasn't much help either, until this morning, when I took the Mau-Mau in and we tackled a specialty camping-goods outlet. Got myself a loverly new grill, and all I had to do was drive an hour there, and then an hour back again. Oh, and then cut it to fit with my angle grinder. Oh, and then pull the old one out, with all the struggling with fine ash you might expect. Achhehh! Kaff kaff haccckkh!

Anyway, the point of this post is not the dust. Not really. No, it's the satellite modem. See, that little box of goodies sits on the desk in my study. The soon-to-be removed desk. And there's no way to relocate the cables that come down the wall and up through the floor and everything. So from Thursday, there's going to be a bit of a hiatus hereabouts, because I'm not leaving an incredibly expensive satellite modem (and a cheap router) hooked up in a room that's about to have the living shit sanded out of it.

Also, there's three layers of varnish and/or polish to consider. Normally they'd only take a day or two, but it's winter in Taz, and we're having a dampish spell. (Okay. Soggy. Dripping. Deliquescent. Very fucking wet!) Ergo, the varnishing process won't be done quite so quickly.

Not to worry. You'll manage without me for a bit, right? And when I get back into my study, think how much more cleverly I'll be able to write with all that polished wood underfoot...