Schoolroom Skylights

It’s been extremely windy today! I hope this isn’t ushering in a very windy autumn, we don’t really know what to expect. It feels like it should be just about to rain, but apart from a few drops earlier there hasn’t been much.

The golf refused to start this morning, so if we wanted to go anywhere it was on foot. Nick had planned to do a hospital visitation, so he had to walk there too. The boys and I had a very pleasant walk down to the market to return a DVD, then to Spar for bread. Caleb boldly squeezed my little half loaf of bread in front of about 30 others. Walking back we had a bit of rain, but because it was so windy, the drops dried before we were even home. It was fun, actually! At some point during the day, the second Ford was returned to us, although the golf is now also still sitting here, but thankfully now we have a reliable car. Steve and Maureen popped on late afternoon to give a report on the schoolroom roof…some comedy drama has gone on there – there are skylights in the roof, which originally were going to come out and be replaced by a Perspex sheeting, so the whole roof would be flat…then it was discovered that because the church is a ‘listed’ building (historically important to the island), and because the schoolroom is attached to the church, any structural changes have to be approved by the council and the ‘agency’. Therefore the skylights were going to be left in and redone. Anyway, today when Steve and Maureen popped in on the building to see how it’s progressing (because they’re on the building committee), it was discovered that the builder had happily removed the first skylight and had already put the timber in place to hold the Perspex. They didn’t know whether they should be delighted or distraught, since they (and Nick) had wanted only the Perspex, but there was some doubt, and long stories…but now it’s been done and can’t be easily undone. So we may have to put in a retro-application or something for it to be approved! What a muddle.

I spent a large part of the afternoon cutting up a pumpkin. Here’s a little story of how to have fun in summer: take one pumpkin. Get someone else to slice it open because you don’t have enough strength to do the first cut. Then proceed to slice and peel and pip the pumpkin in a hot kitchen on a hot day, thereby working up a sweat and almost blistering your hands. Then accidentally cut your hand with the sharp serrated knife, while your children come in and say “I don’t want that”. Then cook the pumpkin and drain it in a colander, but run out of time to do anything further with it, so subject your family to pumpkin in its mashed state for supper. Then, finally, drop the bowl of cooked mashed pumpkin on the floor. Isn’t that a good way to have fun? Fortunately this story does not describe my experience to the end, but wouldn’t it have been funny if I had actually dropped the bowl? The pumpkin is now in the fridge and ready to be frittered tomorrow.