Late arrivals at the PoMo ball.

The Zoo

This place becomes more and more bizarre as time passes - and that if you recall happens moment by moment. In all the fuss and furore around the leave taking of Inge the artist we completely forgot to tell you (well, those who have been monopolizing this blog of late forgot to tell you) that Frambot's mad brother turned up. Do not ask when. Do not ask how. Do not even ask where he came in from. We simply do not know.

Were I a fan of Startrek I would suggest that he must have tele-ported in. Unfortunately, I am not mentally defective and so his sudden, or rather his gradual, appearance (I shall explain that odd observation momentarily) is more of a mystery than is his personality. Eddie is a really great guy but his centres of rationality and verbal reasoning defy comprehension. Eddie is clearly a law unto himself and he does not seem too ready to explain or justify anything. Almost a primary force in fact. Eddie just is.

And Eddie just appeared here. No fore-warning. No itinerary. Zip. The guv'nor didn't have to collect him from the airport - we do not even know whether he in fact flew here. When I say he just turned up that understates the very oddness of his arrival: nobody saw him arrive; nobody yet knows when he arrived; he was just around; and not suddenly. Personally, I first saw him yesterday and initially I suspected that I was seeing things. I went to check on Frambot's progress with the painting of the potting shed and as I turned past the foot of the stairs to the winter sun terrace I saw not one but two sets of the familiar, signature, red overalls! Four inch brush in hand, he was applying the 100% acrylic paint with a gusto that exceeded even that of the Frambot. No wonder it all got done so quickly.

Shaun apparently spotted him on Wednesday evening but thought so little of it that he didn't think to mention it to anyone else. Farmboy seems to have been the first to notice his presence (I'd so like to use "arrival" but it would be inaccurate and inappropriate) but says he cannot recall when that was. Who knows when he turned up; or how? We have a general agreement that we shall draw a veil over the how of Eddie for the time being and just learn to live with him for now. Since when did primal forces need explaining?

He has fitted in so well this younger, more attractive, stronger, version of Frambot that it's almost spooky. We hardly know he's here. If it weren't for the fact that everything around the farm is getting done in half the usual time we'd scarcely register him. It's only when you see them together, and that's most of the times you see them, that you genuinely apprehend the magnitude of the strange appearance of Eddie.

This afternoon he and the Farmboy spent spreading 3 cubic metres of pea gravel an inch or two thick over the area in front of the carage in preparation for winter. The idea is to mitigate the mud bath that usually accretes there over the wet months. To see the two sets of red overalls dipping and swivelling in unison as they dragged their rakes across this immense heap of gravel was to witness the nobility of labour! They expect to finish tomorrow and if there is enough left over they'll resurface the path to the girls' kennel and fill in some gulleys. And after that there's the front door to paint and another coat of acrylic for the potting shed and then ... Well the list is growing and energy levels are high so we shall see.

As if this blog place were not nutty enough we have picked up another foreign correspondent in the last couple of days. As you all already know we get the odd missive from our northern correspondent, the well respected, Finn McEskimo. Well, the Guv'nor has now taken on a nonagenarian curmudgeon and soak - probably to help out with the moaning and carping. He seems like a nice old geezer (I have to read all his stuff, naturally) and at least it's easier work for me, and more entertaining than screening Eddie the Idiot's stuff used to be. This guy can string English together into real sentences with subjects, object, verbs - the whole schmeer. He comes from a different stratum of society than we do but that shouldn't prejudice us - or you - and he also has a healthy disrespect for authority so that's a few brownie points right there. In his last piece he was going on about these DIY plans that his wife has landed on him that seem to involve re-modelling a mansion and repurposing about six different rooms. So no lack of ambition there then. I think he forgets that he's old - really old, older than the Guv'nor even! Tales of hammering screws and scraping wallpaper (and plaster) gave me a laugh and I hope to edit something up in the next few days (I just realised it's the weekend tomorrow perhaps I'll have something for you by Monday! If not never mind.