Procrastination - at least while the coffee perks.

Today is the day the kids went back to school.  My wife has gone to work and I'm in the office, listening to the burble of percolating coffee with my faithful golden retriever asleep by my feet.  It's a whole new start into my writing routine but where to start?

Doc Merl's Rolling Apothecary is well under way with a good deal of life breathed into it during Clarion West's Write-a-thon.  There's also a short story called The Question, a little bit of political science fiction.  Then there's another short story, The Last Repairman, about run-down cyborg people after the fall of civilization.  Doc Merl is the one I'm in the mood to move on but both of the others are for anthologies that have deadlines so I'll need to flip a coin and get flying.

Listen to that - the coffee's ready.  Time to get to work.

The Porch...

Last year our front porch was showing its age.  It was drab and tired and the front steps were evolving from rickety and loose to downright dangerous.  The afternoon my son leaned on the railing and narrowly avoided tumbling with it onto the lawn four and a half feet below was my call to action.  I made a temporary fix that lasted through the winter but springtime illustrated that something a little more permanent needed to be done.

Last year, we had a garage/office built by an excellent contractor.  We knew who we'd ask to fix our porch.

This is how the porch looked shortly after we pulled down those deadly stairs and the aged and weathered siding.

Here's how it looks now, from pretty much the same angle:

We added a bit more deck area on the exterior landing of the porch.  Enough room for a chair:

And I've always resented the amount of wasted storage space under our enclosed porch.  I asked our contractor if there wasn't some way we could access that space.  We sussed it out and here's the solution:

If you look to the right of the steps you...well, you really can't see anything, can you?  Let's have a closer look:

This shot is a little blurred but the hardware is the only thing that suggests there might be a set of doors here.  Let's open them and take a look:

Access to all of the space under the interior and exterior parts of the porch.  He even came up with a hinged, fold-out ramp so I can roll the lawn mover and wheel barrel over the lip at the base of the porch.

Very pleased with the way the porch matches and compliments the garage.  There's still some landscaping to be done to bind everything together but we've got a good start on that.

Once the landscaping is finished I'll add some more pictures.

Travelling Gnomes

I love gnomes.  I have for years.

The fault belongs to Rien Poortoliet and Wil Huygen.

Who are Rien Poortoliet and Wil Huygen? you may ask and I wouldn't blame you a bit.  They were a pair of Dutchmen who created these:

Since reading these books as a teenager, I've had a special place in my heart for well-made gnomes.  There are a couple of beat-up gnomes hidden in our garden and I have my two office gnomes that keep me company while I'm writing.  Imagine my delight when we were visiting Rockwood Conservation Area on the weekend and saw this:

Right under the front gate was a person of Gnomish persuasion.  He had a tag:

And on the other side was his name:

So an adventure, huh?

We had originally gone to Rockwood for a swim but a sign warned us of high bacteria.  I grew up eating rotten raw chicken from stagnant mud puddles but when it's your kids sometimes it's best to err on the side of caution.  So off we went to Guelph Lake Conservation area to swim with Gnomeo along for the ride.

Gnomeo seemed to enjoy the water of Guelph Lake, but insisted on staying on the floatie.  Then he joined me for a snack.

When we got back to our house, I introduced him to Rocky, the little fella who guards my office garden:

And showed him the Smartcar.  He seemed to like it (especially the colour).

Last night we went to a performance of The Three Musketeers at the Festival Theatre in Stratford.  Gnomeo told me he'd never been to live theatre, so we took him along.

We'll be returning Gnomeo to his home in Rockwood soon so that another family can show him a good time.

I'm gonna miss that silly little gnome...