Saturday 17 November 2007

Move the scaffolding, she's ready for her closeup

partly cloudy, high 2 degrees

Woke up to a couple of inches of snow on the ground. It's beautiful. I adore the first couple of months of winter. Until March. By St. Patrick's Day it's time winter was over. Now that would be a miracle worth having. If St. P managed to rid Quebec of all the snow.

Had a great email from Gary last night. He's our contractor - but he's also a great friend. He's one of those mystery people in our area. You think he's a great contractor and then find out for most of his life he was an incredibly successful and sought-after photographer. In fact, when you wander around Loblaws, a lot of their photos were taken by Gary. He's taken all my author photos. Marvelous to have a construction worker/photographer. First he stuccos and gyprocks me - gets me plastered, splashes on some paint - then takes the picture.

Anyway, Gary wrote to say in our absence the renovations to our bedroom/bathroom have sped along. Which I find frankly surprising. How could they have made such progress without my supervision and helpful advice?

Can hardly wait to see the progress. Right now we're camped in another bedroom, stuffed with all the clothing/furniture/books/lamps, detritus from the master suite. The mattress is on the floor, which means Trudy wakes us up every morning at about 5:30 with a wet nose to my nose. And a tail thumping the bedclothes. Some lucky mornings she brings her fluffy ball, which she's had since she was 6 weeks old, and thrusts that into our faces. Yum.

We leave Hovey Manor this morning. Sad. But looking forward to lunch with one of my best friends. A really gifted artist and writer. She's created a series of stunning children's books, and illustrated them herself. A New York agent is interested (not surprising, frankly - they're astonishing works) so we're going to have a celebratory and strategizing lunch. Cheryl Long is her name - and she happens to be Gary's wife!

Small world. Not actually unlike Three Pines.

Be well - and we'll talk tomorrow.

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