Hinges, Handles, Taps, Tiles & Blisters

WELL THE LAST DAYS are approaching, not in an apocalyptic sense, though it feels rather that way. We are tearing about like loons trying to get it all done. I am spending my days up in the attic animating, scrunched up into a crooked S shape, only knowing the weather changes by pattering or lack of it on the roof by my ear. Tui meanwhile has been rising at bird dawn to rush round to the dingy old garage and put all the final flourishes to his masterpiece of a truck-home. The cupboard doors are a marvel, and there are hinges and catches and little hinged shelf ledges. We have a fully plumbed in brass pump tap which makes the most interesting graunching noise as it delivers water, and all the gaps round the doors have been closed in with artistic knotted lintels and edges. I have taken the odd break from move-clicking my paper characters to make a curtain from an old pair of well-loved trousers and a brown-dyed decorators' dust cloth.

Today, by candlelight, I tiled the small area of wall behind the fire with terracotta floor tiles to stop the wood getting too hot when the fire is alight. Tui's hands are all a-blister from days and days with a screwdriver, and we are panicking about all the last minute things that need doing as a cold wet cloud creature sits plumply ontop of our village making all tasks much more difficult than we'd like. In our back pockets, we keep a golden nugget called Thrill Of Journey; it is warm and we peep at it sometimes in between stresses. We mustn't look at it too much just now, but we mustn't forget it either.