D.I.Y. and the Hogga family

Has it really been that long since I wrote an entry for my blog? The creeping apathy of my readership (who can no longer be relied on to prompt me in my writing) and my own complicated life (I have adopted a punishing schedule of commuting so as to avoid the hard work of renovating our house in Berkshire, cunningly leaving all the labour to my poor long-suffering wife) means that weeks and months slip by without any news of the Hogga household.

All in all, life proceeds. Our house is proving to be a bit of a DIY challenge (and sadly I am DIY-challenged at the best of times); luckily Marcela’s brother Gabi and some of his construction industry mates from London have been helping. Gabi went through the living room with a great deal of energy and a regrettably small hammer (we forgot to buy him a sledgehammer) and demolished the arches, faux stone cladding, quasi-Moorish plasterwork and just plain Artex stupidities and follies that a previous owner had inflicted on the house. Once his arms had stopped trembling and his ears had stopped ringing, he then supervised the Ukrainian and Polish plasterers as they went about their meticulous work downstairs and upstairs in the master bedroom. Here too a regrettable series of interior design choices by previous owners have had to be undone including the removal of a whole host of late Seventies built-in cupboards, cabinets, sliding mirror-door thingies and the like.

Lily is growing fast, speaking some words of Romanian and English and a whole lot of her own language which strangely seems to have a logic and syntax all of its own. I wonder if anyone has ever made a study of baby language? (apart from Chomsky of course). It is hilarious to get “told off” by her when she’s in a bit of a strop.

The weather has been atrocious and our next blog posting will contain pictures of the blizzard we experienced two weekends back. We’re now pretty much decided we need to live somewhere sunny – Marcela would prefer Italy (as being culturally close to her Roman ancestors) and frankly I don’t mind given that both Zimbabwe and South Africa are the basket cases us Afro-pessimists always suspected they’d become. Oz is just too, well, Australian to be frank – and not a lot in the way of culture (apart from the yoghurt), as well as having lethal ultraviolet and not much HR consulting for me to work in. New Zealand is too damp and too rural, France and Spain are full of English people and Cyprus is too dry. The Middle East is too darn hot and also not easy to buy a few acres in. Suggestions gratefully received – in the mean time we’re saving as best we can now that diesel is £1.22 a litre in the motorway service stations and a decent organic chicken costs over a tenner..