unveil1

Thank you to all my dear readers who are still bearing with me. I had no idea how draining house alterations can become. Don’t get me wrong, so far we haven’t had any major catastrophes. The builders are extremely pleasant and there is really nothing to complain about. It’s starting to look more finished, but the novelty has definitely worn off and it is dragging on a bit. The abode is still drafty and winter is approaching fast. It gets dark early now and the nights are pretty cold. All I want to do is curl up and hibernate and wake up again when it is spring time.

Unfortunately the exhibition is only six weeks away. My new book is not progressing at all. I have to admit the renovations and the cold have killed my creativity :). Nevertheless, today I set out to make new puppets. I finally decided to create a new lot especially for the exhibition and I am going to sell these. So I set up a make shift studio on the washing machine. When I had the first puppets ready for drying – you will not believe this – my trusted old oven decided to up and die. It is a very old thing and I was expecting its demise soonish. To be honest, we have already bought a new one, but of course this will be only delivered when we are done with the renovations. At the moment we neither have a floor in the kitchen nor a staircase to get up there. The old oven could really have been more accommodating and lasted another six weeks until the exhibition is in the bag. Now I have to find another way to speed dry the puppets. Otherwise I won’t have any new ones ready for the exhibition. Each puppet takes at least four rounds of modelling and drying. And the drying process can take ages, particularly at this time of the year as I can’t rely on the sun to shine. We don’t have any heating at the moment either. It would be futile with all the holes we still have in the floors and walls. To keep warm we have to put additional layers of cloths on.