Next thing I procrastinated for a week on the next task. Mudding! I did my homework on youtube. One has to love the wealth of information on the end of ones fingertips.  One of my contracting friends wished me good luck on getting this job done on my own, he said how fussy mudding is and how it looks awful if not done right. More friends had similar trepidations to add so that when one other saying how easy it was and ‘oh, I did lots of that when staying at the ashram’ didn’t get through to me at all. I kind of dreaded it to be as awful as working with ‘Bondo’.

Saturdays motivation is a given, I’m going out to ‘Kalina’ with my friend Rahman who is taking a pottery class in the vicinity. So Indi and I set out for a walk and then I start working while he pottered.

Ending avoidance and dedicating my full attention to the task of applying the dreaded first coat of mud. One and a half hour later the job was done with my declaring with elation ‘that was a piece of cake’! The second coat went on well also although I confess I did not have the patience to wait for the first to be properly dry. Some two weeks on I’m still waiting for complete dryness to apply the third and hopefully last coat of mud.

Geoff recently asked me what animals most resonated with me. The foremost one definitely is the raven, the fun loving trickster. There hasn't been a day I've been working on my little house, Kalina, without the presence of ravens, if not seen I can always hear them up in the tree canapés.

Indigo my fun loving K9 although not considering herself to be a friend of ravens however is in league with them in reminding me to have fun. If I throw a ball for her once she will drop it at my feet a hundred times, tail wagging, tongue lolling and a smiling, expectant expression on her face. So far Indi and the ravens have been the sole injections of fun into this project I must confess. And I'm happy realization dawning on me that with tackling the dry walling that has finally changed.

My first dealing with drywall ouch was not so fun at all. I cut the first board lengthways and while figuring out how to snap that large surface failed to notice my poor foot being left without protection in a vulnerable position. So the board naps, folds in half in on itself and gravity doing its job brings down the full weight of it all onto the arch of my foot.

Probably my only saving grace was at least I'm always making sure to wear my sturdy hiking boots on the job. After the initial ouch and choice swearword I was surprised how little it hurt and as everything still moved the way It’s meant to, I continued the job cracking on and feeling good about the progress. Rahman turned up later to give me a hand and we got a lot done that day.

What was fun was to see the drywall coming together, I was able to simply work my way through each challenge and get on with it so that at the end of the day I felt satisfied with how the job went and within myself. And a welcome change it was to all the preceding frustration and feelings of the universe conspiring against me.

Coming home after that first day my foot started talking of its ordeal of the midmorning hour.  And by the time I went to bed I was unable to place any weight onto it. Copious administrations of ‘Dit Da Jow’, a Chinese liniment we got introduced to by our acupuncturist a few years back, and some icing and elevated rest performed literally wonders. It could possibly be said my nonresistance to the sensation and willingness to experience and be present with it, may also be attributed to have aided an extremely speedy recovery. For in the very early morning hours I could walk on my own two feet rather than hopping on just one, as the evening before. And by the afternoon went for a dog walk along the beach.