Deadlines.

 

The late Douglas Adams once announced that he loved deadlines;  he said he liked the whooshing sound they make as they fly by.   I didn't really didn't really have a complete appreciation for the depth of that statement until today, when I too came to love that sound.  

For weeks I've been desperately trying to complete a couple of little projects, just a pair of simple chairs for the littlest of our brood.   I've built a few of these before and it really should have been simple but with two more sleeps until our four month hiatus, there was just a little pressure creeping in to the job.

I'd describe the whole process as a comedy of errors had it not dragged on so long that anything resembling comedy had long since left the building.   I think I may very well have had more difficulty with these things with the total of everything I have ever built before.  At every turn a new problem that simply should not have been, would appear from nowhere.

We reached some sort of new peak of angst and frustration mid afternoon.  It was the kind of peak that makes one want to fling stuff and scream profanities at inanimate objects.  With one more sleep till we depart there were other things that needed doing before we boarded the aeroplane (like packing, and perhaps tidying things up a little).  Then it happened, that glorious whoosh as the deadline passed.  

I stopped, walked quietly to the wall and switched off the dust extractor and the saw, packed away the router, and listened to that glorious silence, the sound of calm washing over the whole garage, and those within it, like some sort of essential balm.   

Jude and Millie will just have to put up with their chins banging on the table while they battle with their grown-ups chairs for a few more months.  It's disappointing, but worth it in a way, just to feel the relief in the wake of that whoosh.