Thursday 19 June 2008

pictures from home

First, here is the bookshelf we made in the back room. It looks quite good doesn't it. Only a very few degrees off complete straightness, and pleasingly cheap. As in, less than a new pair of shoes. It is the correct shade of brown for the rumpus room. And best of all it holds books.



The shelves have no back and behind them is an unplastered brick wall. (It's double brick in this part of the house.) I hope this isn't bad for the books. I was stroking an item in my collection of Mansfield Parks (see the shelf with the lamp on it, those books are all Mansfield Parks) and it felt like perhaps it was a bit damp. I could have been imagining it. Maybe I'll move the worth-preserving books to a different shelf somewhere else where the cold air doesn't trickle down from the ceiling.


I am working at home a lot at the moment. It's easier. And while I do have a perfectly good study with comfortable chair and big desk, I had to move to the kitchen table today because the desk is not actually big enough to accommodate all my crap plus two cats who seem to be especially interested in the arcane procedures by which end-of-semester grades are calculated. It was easier to move than to keep pushing them off again and again.



Coming up next: a video of chickens grovelling in filth. Never say this blog does not address the burning issues of our day.

15 comments:

jo(e) said...

Oh, that's a great bookshelf!

I'm always looking for places to add bookshelves in my house.

Mindy said...

Nice bookshelves. I'm hoping that mine will be installed this weekend and all the books can come off the bedroom floor.

Strangely I have also just posted on my chooks, but no video.

Anonymous said...

Nice bookshelf.
But more importantly: I finally got Bazlotto, or perhaps Powerbaz as one of the images is of another Bazlotto win. King of the office!

Ariel said...

I love the bookshelf too. If I bought a house I would be lining all the walls with bookshelves, I reckon.

I spent the last fortnight at the kitchen table instead of in my study. It took a big effort to move it all back, as I accumulated a pile of papers and coffee cups and stuff in general to fill the space. Moral: don't keep the kitchen-table-as-desk too long.

R.H. said...

Damp rises, from the earth, but there should be a 'damp course' to prevent it.
I notice your ceilings are low, compared to mine. As is my refinement, compared to yours.

-Robert.
Yale.

Mindy said...

OMG, I just got an UnBaz lotto.

Kerryn Goldsworthy said...

Ceiling Cat and Basement Cat overseeing the marking. I love it. Are they dividing up the souls of the students between them?

genevieve said...

Wonderful article in Meanjin, Ms T.
I am saving your chook video to watch tomorrow after the ballet. It will give some perspective to the afternoon's middle class entertainment.

Ariel said...

I, too, just finished your Meanjin article and loved it. Well done. A standout in a really magnificent issue!

lucy tartan said...

AM: congratulations on your glorious bazlotto triumph, I do hope you enjoy the congratulations, glory etc, because that is all the prize there is.

(Powerbaz - yes I think so. Why the hell not.)

Mindy: unBaz is an omen. Auspicious times ahead.

Genevieve & Ariel, thank you, it was fun to write - and I love sharing mag space with Ms Duck. Couldn't be better.

lucy tartan said...

Mindy, your chooks must be different colours - you can tell them apart. Our pair both got out one day recently while we were at work. A neighbour from across the street spotted them in our front yard (which isn't fenced) and put them in hers for safekeeping. She said she didn't like the way all these cats were eyeing them off. It was really good of her to catch them (especially as it meant her yappy little dog had to be shut inside and when we went to get them the dog was going mental.) But the cats would just have been guarding the chooks, or at most feeling mildly curious about what they were going to do next.

Our chooks were pretty excited to get home too as it was just turning dark and they had just realised their bedroom was nowhere to be seen.

Miss Schlegel said...

Your house looks nice. May I move in with you?

Also, notice how basement cat is trying to steal our souls with hypnotising eyes, while ceiling cat is looking politely to the side, allowing us to exercise free will.

I follow basement cat.

PS I hope the bookshelf doesn't fall on you Leonard Bast style. All acquaintances of Miss Schlegel's should beware of falling bookshelves.

R.H. said...

I'm guessing that room is an add-on, but I'm hoping it's not a Greek renovation. Such was the case in the ramshackle of my last girlfriend (Duchess) which I endeavoured to correct. Meanwhile she endeavoured to correct me, and it got all very dramatic: a sort of Bosom Park without the hairdos. But should I care? Pshaw! Her cooking was magnificent.

-Robert.
Princeton.

.

Elsewhere007 said...

Who is that handsome black cat? Is s/he on Catbook? Looks just like Otty..perhaps related back in the Brunswick primeval cat alley...or whatever.

lucy tartan said...

That's Albie. I regret to say that he is on Catbook. I'll force him to make friends with Otty.

Whenever I think about cats and their actual relatives I get a fleeting mental glimpse of the real world.

We heard the other day that Pudd's mother got run over. Sad news, but he took it calmly.