The Night Watch

BLOOM 5


It's 3.45am and I should be tucked up in my beddy-byes, but instead I've given up pretending that I'm going to go back to sleep anytime soon, I've thrown on my dressing gown and I'm sitting in the kitchen.
It's very warm in the kitchen, the fire is still glowing in the stove, but the Models, after an initially enthusiastic welcome have retired to their beds and SuperModel is groaning periodically - the canine equivalent of: 'Turn that light off! Some of us are trying to sleep here!'
Sleep? What is that?
A fable from some far-off land.
I'm having breakfast.

My poor, fevered brain keeps returning (unbidden, I might add) to the knotty problem of the mural.
There is a mural in my Bloom garden.
When I say it's causing me sleepless nights, I'm not exaggerating.
I'm not as concerned about the front of the mural as I am about the back, which must sound odd, I know.
The front of the mural is in Nik's tender hands, and as there are no better hands in which it could be, I have happily excised about 90% of anxiety on that score.
It's the fixing of the mural that is bugging me.

It was my contractor who first flagged it up. We spent a long time talking about the where's and whyfor's a couple of weeks ago and I thought we had - basically - sorted it.
Then I discussed it with Nik (who is inconsiderate enough to be wintering in France, enjoying himself) and he seemed happy enough with the overall plan. He pointed me in the direction of an engineer he knows.
So yesterday - no, the day before - I spent a profitable hour or so discussing it with this enterprising individual. When I asked whether he'd consider Sponsoring the required edifice, he looked at me speculatively and said it wasn't up to him, but he'd enquire.
I came home and triumphantly announced to the In-Charge that the mural was - at least in theory - sorted.

However, today - yesterday, I mean - I went to see the other engineer I've had in my sights.
He was fairly short and sharp and immediately pointed out several flaws in my newly hatched Grand Plan.
He also whacked a pretty hefty price tag on the whole operation, and when I asked if he'd Sponsor it for the greater good of the world and mankind - Yeats and Sligo in particular - he gave me a somewhat old fashioned look and said No. He then re-considered and said he'd throw in the cost of the labour.
It was a morsel, for which I was suitably grateful.

I'm not quite so grateful to find myself - at some ungodly hour of the morning - back at the design drawing board, having not passed GO and definitely not having collected 200.
The whole mural clock has, it seems, been turned back a month, with more questions now than I had at the outset.

I don't like lying in bed listening to the high-pitched squeal of my brain in overdrive.
It is not a restful way to pass the night watch, nor has it even provided any engineering solutions.
But at least I did pause to notice how beautiful my daffodils are while the kettle boiled. I picked them without even looking yesterday.
So the night is not entirely wasted.
And thank goodness the poor Models have managed to snatch a bit of kip, despite all.
That's something to be grateful for.