In ancient times priests would gut an animal and fiddle with its insides in some vain attempt to divine future events. I've sometimes wondered what on earth they thought they were at. What desperate turn of events or tortuous course of history could drive an intelligent rational mind to think that fondling a sheep's stinky bits could help tell the future? Of course those lads were building pyramids. I'm merly building an extension and I must confess I've been eying the spare rooster with a degree of mystic curiosity. See the thing is this. It's not just building an extension. The extension itself is simple. walls here, insulation there, a roof and some windows would be nice. but the thing is..........timing.

We have a baby coming soon, I'm really looking forward to his / her arrival. I't's not like first time around where you don't know what the hell you're getting into. We both know exactly what hell we're getting into, insomnia hell and strange smells hell. but it's a baby and that's a beautiful, wonderful, squirmy, noisy, smelly thing. but the timing, the timing is like when you're playing football and running for the ball, there's an open net, you sense a defender closing in on the right and you just don't know for sure but it might, just might be possible that you'll get to that ball before he does and if you keep your cool and don't fuck it up the goal is yours for the taking. And everything is slowed down and you can't know, won't know until you reach that ball if you're going to succeed. that's how I feel right now. If the weather keeps right, if steel arrives on time, is materials and labor show up when they are supposed to, if I don't pull any more ligaments, if help arrives when I need it and a baby doesn't come early then I just might get the worst of this build finished before baby arrives, and that would be great. on the other hand If things don't work out we could be introducing the child to the world through the vehicle of a house with no walls, filled with masonry dust and ringing with the screech of some very nasty power tools.

A coward would call a halt right now and say, we'll keep our walls intact and stop the build for another 6 mounts. A fool would plough ahead recklessly and with wild abandon. I find myself torn between two mentors. I plan ahead, I chase down suppliers, I refine quotes and seek diagrammatic explanations. I also find myself looking up at the sky, sniffing the air and wondering if it's going to rain. I scene I should plough ahead, at least a little bit, I sense that it will all be great, not just OK but great, but I can't be sure and the consequences of failure are pretty bad and I can't know any more than I know now, can't plan any more than I've planned so I just have to run for the ball and see what happens. And it's the not knowing and not being able to know that drives you crazy so in desperation, in desperation you start to think well what way can I resolve this situation, what way can I get to a point where I have some sign some indication of how this will pan out, and it's at that point where you reach the limit of the rational when you begin to wonder well, maybe if I cut open a chicken?