The supervisor

I am a very prosaic person. I don't do woo-woo stuff, and I firmly believe in what my younger sister calls the "compost theory of death".

And yet there are days in which I really feel R's presence. It is as though he is standing just behind me, watching everything I do. When I get stuck and don't know what to do next, if I ask him and listen hard enough for the answer, it will come.

Today was one of those days.

I needed to replace a section of the pig ark floor, as the previous occupants had gone right through it. I knew there was a sheet of OSB in the barn, and remembered that this is what he would have used.

I knew the best tool for the job was the jigsaw, and for once didn't have to turn the house upside down to find it. I have never used a jigsaw in my life before, but I could just picture R working with it, so it didn't seem at all daunting. I even managed not to remove any of my fingers as well!

Cutting the board was fine, then I needed to attach it to the base. Again, all the tools I needed were in the first place I looked. I'd like to think that he was proud of me doing this on my own, but if he was watching, then I suspect he was simply cringing at the sight of me breaking off two pilot drill bits and then thumping them into the wood with a large hammer. It wasn't an elegant solution, but at least it worked!

I'm hoping that one day I will be able to think about all the things I need to do this sort of job and get them together before starting, rather than running back and forth to the house every time to get the next tool. But let's not get ahead of ourselves. Just getting it done was enough for me today!

And tomorrow I can collect the new additions. I am ridiculously excited. R adored having pigs too, to the extent that they were the wallpaper on his laptop. It would be nice to think that he wanted to look at a picture of yours truly while he was away on his travels, but no, he preferred a pair of Gloucester Old Spots! I guess I can live with that though - they were rather adorable.

I hope he is watching tomorrow and smiling too.