One's in Focus

Finished painting the gate today, it was still too hot, but I just kept adding thinner, determined to finish it. Not perfect, but then, it's hardly the style here. In fact, feel like rubbing it down a bit, too shiny. And that's one of the pillars that Elliott painted.

Mike has soldiered on with the roof, he's finished soldering the steel frame (carefully wetting the ground beforehand for the fire risk) and building up the walls where needed. This entails a thin layer of grit over everything here below, which I keep removing.

Am reading a weird book that I found in the telephone box library in Reguengos, translated from the Portuguese, about an Azorean family whose eleven children leave their island during the Salazar dictatorship, to various places; some good insights, though, so am persevering - Happy People in Tears, by João de Melo.

Gratefuls:
- getting the gate finished, it's been irritating seeing it half done
- the almost full moon rising in a pink and orange sky
- eyes, glasses, books and literacy, enabling me to enter other worlds