Project shelved
(My new shelves: Glasgow, Scotland)
What a week. I’ve (as you might have guessed) had no time to update you at all. But wait – I have a range of excuses; I was narrating a portion of an audio book, ‘photoshopping’ a favour, went to two gigs, choir practice, volunteered for a short while in a charity shop (by accident), did some DIY, early Spring cleaning and clearout, got another illustration published online [here] and of course, through all this, I was held back by my hand injuries which you might have read about in the previous post.
To that then first; when you last heard from me, I had damaged myself yet again by falling over. In my eagerness to shift the damage from my hands, I performed a failed commando roll onto my back that resulted in all round injury. It is only when I do myself small injuries that I can (to an extent) appreciate how debilitating a more serious mishap might be. I discovered this week that amongst other things, I could not do the following at all, or very well:
Write or draw (manually with pens and pencils) so this prevented me working for a day or so. Daily Drawings were put on hold for a day as I recovered.
Wear gloves. This includes use of oven gloves (therefore could not remove hot items from the oven once cooked).
Shampoo or shower effectively without emitting sharp cries of pain as hot water stung my hands.
Touch water; I couldn’t wash dishes for a day or so. Yes, I could have bought gloves, but seriously.
Grip anything; knives, forks, chopsticks, mugs, teapots. You may notice that these are mostly food related. This is because this is very important to me.
Ride a bike.
Clap. Considering I went to two music gigs, this meant I had to stand and whoop instead. Or stamp.
Those were the main ones, but every day I encountered many tiny inconveniences, and was made thankful that it wasn’t worse. Upon reflection, I could have broken an arm. Or worse.
So to some of my other mini adventures – luckily, my recovery was tempered with a long owed favour to a friend, involving a few hours of computer work. I still had the ability to use a computer mouse so that allowed for a day of moderate rest while I clicked my way to repayment of a long overdue debt. Mind you, I’ve thoroughly cleaned the facia of the laptop as my wounds kept weeping slightly onto it. I like to paint a vivid picture for you. Even with ‘the hands’, I managed to do some DIY and I put up three shelves. Yes, I think that’s amazing as well. Every time I am in my bedroom, I pause to admire my handiwork, basic and shoddy though it may be. After the bathroom fiasco of last year, the pimp palace* is full of pieces of timber, a sink, tiles, floorboards that were never used, and so on. Being of a resourceful nature, I have used the floorboards as shelves. I managed to borrow a drill, buy the wall brackets and I even managed to convince two friends to cut the pieces for me. I’m almost competent at drilling, but even without the hand injuries, I am dangerous with a saw. Aside from the cutting, I managed the entire operation single handed (as it were) and I am rather pleased with the outcome. What was a bare, space wasting recess is now a neat little bijou storage corner for books, DVDs and silly (light) ephemera that has no other permanent home. The sharp eyes amongst you might spot Fish face the tiger from China [here].
I almost forgot! I also went to a tiny recording studio here in Glasgow and read the classic Scottish poem, Hamnavoe for a crowd sourced audiobook. This is very exciting and I hope to have a copy of the recording shortly (to email to my mum and ex drama teacher) and to have news on it’s future. I have no idea whether it will be available in shops or online, but it was fun to be selected. I sent in a recording of the requested audition poem A red, red rose by Rabbie Burns. I did it for fun but had completely forgotten about it. I even listened to the recording the day after sending it and regretted it immensely as I felt I had hammed it up far too much. More news as it comes!
* Windowless room / huge cupboard in my flat, mainly used as a storage facility and dumping ground.
– Today Rosie is going on another potentially dangerous walking trip with friends in the Glasgow area, Scotland –
[...] ** In case you wanted to know more about the first recording, there’s a brief lowdown on the experience at the very end of my DIY appraisal. [...]