Two more weeks of thirty-something

... indeed.  In a fortnight I shall be forty years old, which, although I am trying not to care, does bother me immensely.  Not so much that I mind being forty (although I haven't tried it yet) - more that it marks the passing of time.  I remember, as a child, trying to imagine October 2011; it always seemed so comfortably long away.  And now it's nearly upon us.  CG, never one to over-emotionalise a situation, or even emotionalise it, blithely pointed out this morning that after his next birthday (44) both of us will be the same age as our shoe size.  A reassuring if somewhat irrelevant thought.

But let's get back to the daily grind of the sawmill in Bovinia; the whine of the chain saw, the chorus of lawn mowers, and the swallows gathering on electricity lines wondering if it's cold enough to head back South yet.  We have now been here for an entire year, and the whole cycle, duly noted in this very blog-book, is about to start again.  Except it won't be as strange this time.  I won't nearly fall off my bike when I see a fat man in leather shorts, and I'll know to turn my head away from potential early morning skinny-dippers at the local lake.  I'll stop feeling sorry for the cows, as they really don't look too unhappy with their lot.  I shall pretend to look forward to the snow coming, and I will not, most definitely not, go to the wine festival at the fire station this year.  However much they plead.  In fact, festivals of any kind are best avoided, unless you are part of the band or the mayor.  I have bought myself a dirndl - admittedly a bargain second-hand one, but I just couldn't resist - and one day, I may even wear it.  I've been wanting to dress up like Heidi ever since I was six, when my cousin got the alpine maid fancy dress costume while I got the nurse.  And here, at nearly forty, is my chance.  First though, it's back to the dressmaker down the road for some essential alterations (in case you were wondering, she did eventually return the other items).

I shall try to write more soon.  A fun-packed week awaits, with three parents' evenings and two and a half days at the unfriendly company where I am now employed.  Turns out that certain people there had been wanting someone else to get the position, which would explain, but not justify, their icy treatment of me.  Shame, because irrational behaviour like that cannot be reasoned with.  I just might keep reading those situations vacant.   The coffin-bearer job is seeming quite attractive right now.