How much can I take before I lose it totally? I think I’ll soon either be totally white haired or bald at this rate.

Why you may ask?

Well, I’ve had a sick mother all summer. And I’m lucky. I actually have one of those rare nice mothers who aren’t so annoying (or as infuriating) as so many others. And she’s getting better, again, fingers crossed.

But she’s been insisting that she return to Athens, to her own home, NOW, cause she’s sick of being isolated in my place on Paros, being a burden on me, etc etc. So, I began to organise her trip, someone to take her to a seat on the ferry by wheelchair. Someone to pick up her suitcases and put them on the ferry. Someone to meet her on the other end and take her home and carry her bags in and help her settle in…

But then the guy I’d organised for the other side get sick and ended up in hospital.

So here I am, on the ferry with mom, taking her to Athens myself, carrying bags, lending an elbow, trying to keep track of our luggage, carrying Vincent.

I couldn’t let her go alone.

A few days in Athens won’t kill me.

But they just might.

Cause its not just mom… its aunt #1s house too. The old tenants finally vacated 2 weeks after they were meant to. And I have spoken to two plumbers so far about locating and fixing a leak which has been causing trouble on both sides of the wall between my aunt’s house and where mom lives. Mould and all kinds of lovely things.

The previous tenant was an old lady with dementia with her carer, and her son would not let us in there to locate and fix the problem while she was there, cause he didn’t want to cause her confusion… so we now have a small window (getting smaller every day) to get someone in to fix the problem.

Cause of course, all this time (about 3 years now) I’ve been insisting that the issue is in THAT wall, but no one believes me. We’ve had pipes fixed on the outside of our wall. Someone else went into the light well to fix the issue in there… but the problem is not fixed. Cause I’ve been right along. We need to fix it on my AUNT’s side of the wall. And I need to do it ASAP before the next tenants go in.

And of course NO ONE returns my calls, or messages or anything.

Oh, and I have to see what the previous tenants left in the house. I told them to leave only the bookcase and wardrobe which belonged to my aunt and have stayed with the house till now, but now I’m learning that apparently they’ve left 3 beds which I ‘can do what I want with’… Which means they are now my problem…

I am so over this crap.

And all this time I’ve been trying to organise the plumber(s) and organise someone with keys to let him in, all over the phone, chasing things up 2nd and 3rd hand.

You’d think it could be done, but no. It can’t. I have to BE there. Like as if, if I’m there, I’ll be able to grab some random plumber by the collar and drag him to the house to fix the problem.

sigh.

But that’s not all, either.

I finally have some kind of paperwork I’d been waiting months for, for the upstairs apartment which we split into 2 apartments, renovated one and rented it out, leaving one to be renovated… In order to get power and water to the 2nd half I needed this paper. Now, I have to take it to some place in Athens (in person, cause if I try to do it online it might never get done!), and run around various agencies to apply for new connections yada yada yada.

Only then can I begin to renovate the 2nd apartment (with money I will miraculously conjur up)…

Between the paperwork necessary for everything, chasing up people who never call back, jobs that don’t get done, struggling to pay bills, borrowing from Peter to pay Paul, etc, I’m kinda over this whole thing. I just wanna hide in my house and never come out.

Of course, I really really want my studio. My space. Space around me.

This was 2 weeks ago at our building site:

And this is now – the framework for the columns is still up, to be removed soon, but the roof is ready.

Sometimes I wish I’d never started anything. That I was content to live in a small one bedroom apartment with my small dog, and knit while watching TV and not have any desire to remake furniture, play with power tools, work on large canvases or paint on any surface I can think of, or play with any other forms of art.

In fact, living in Tasmania, without any family nearby, was really nice…

z