Now that it's actually done, it's something of a relief to see the back of 12 years of accumulated dust and junk (the latter too hard to throw away at some earlier point, the former very well built up as a result). Like all dodgy reportage, these pictures offer more in the way of an idea than a truth; Aiden helped a little bit, wielding the yankee on the wooden benches that I built. Ultimately the combination of dust being too much, and computer games too tempting, proved irresistible. The implication of leaving a shared room is the person moving out gets the first effort - they need to move in somewhere. Evan however seemed content and excited - in part for Aiden, in part for himself. Aiden's new bed took a while to happen - long story that - and not without frustration. The old office room is so small that a loft bed is the only option - then the people who delivered it declared the space too small to build the bed in. No level of rational explanation could shift this opinion, and it ended with a HK special passive aggressive stand-off, three days passing, and another team arriving to actually get it done (my contribution to the passive aggressive was to refuse to build the bed for them, even though I could clearly see how it could be done). The end result proved the point - the guys that showed up to do it had it sorted in an hour. Below is its new very happy resident peeling off the one remaining sticker, up in his loft. You will note immaculate walls - Polyfilla action by Rich, painting by Ange. Smiling by Aiden. (I happen to think the photo is very Bauhaus, with nice rounded Art Deco edges). On the subject of things arty, apparently Springs (of all places) is a global Art Deco architecture hub - boasting the second largest number of small-scale Art Deco buildings outside Miami - also a weird place come to think of it). If you're ever into that, it would be worth a tour (there are some very cool organised walking tours of places like Springs, Benoni and Hillbrow btw - places that one might not feel inclined to venture alone - but worth doing I think).
So the next stop is Ev's room. So far the only thing that has happened is the old bunk bed being dismantled - in this regard Evan was enormously enthusiastic if not especially helpful. His new desk, mattress, bookshelf and blinds have been ordered and arrive on Wednesday next week (which is a good thing - because Wednesdays are so immensely unpopular).
More rain, of course, thunders down. The parking lot fills, I worry about Ange's new car flooding. Thus fat it has successfully emptied into the road, roars down the hill into the sea - it all seems mildly wasteful.
