Another day on the farm! We spent the morning hoein' up weeds (thanks, Valkyrie, for this particular down-home stylistic conceit :) down by the waterin' hole, er, swimming pool, er, square-ish plaster-concrete-tile basin that at some point in the future will be painted and sealed and filled with water to make a swimming pool. The brush pile down there is thick and heavy with weeds and bits of wood, enough to make an enormous bonfire in the dry summer heat of the Valencian countryside - but such fires are Strictly Prohibited this time of year for fear that the surrounding forests will go up in smoke, so such treacherous and illicit acts are best performed at dawn...out of sight of the authorities and well before the rising sun stirs up temperature gradients to make a windswept mess of the area. But we are still digging up weeds here, so the bonfire will have to wait...
Once that is done, we beat a hasty retreat from the sun into the house and begin laying down a first coat of paint on one of the smaller bedrooms. This is tedious yet simple work; the one roller we have is giant and not exactly amenable to uniform paint distribution, so that it takes some time to get used to its idiosyncracies. To compound matters, the walls have recently been reworked so that there is a sizeable patch of exposed concrete by one corner. The paint must be rolled thickly and forcefully over this patch to cover over every last bit of grey - and there is no paper to cover the floor, causing us to spray round drips across the bare surface that will have to be scraped up later...but none of these setbacks matter! Painting is good fun, one of those rare sorts of work in which the result is both immediate and tangible. You can stand back at any time, survey the encroachment of your brush upon the previously barren walls. You can feel the press of the roller and brush against the drywall and concrete and boarding, sensing the texture of each. You become covered in the work, paint droplets splattering your clothes from head to toe and coating your skin. Or maybe this is all some romantic pastoral bullshit; after all, we're just painting a room, fairly mundane work for a couple used to high-flying thought-intensive Creative Class employment...but it provides time to think, to talk, to sip local bodega wine from metal cups as we work away at hiding the imperfect surfaces with bright white paint.
Afterwards we relax. The pace here is relaxed, something we are not used to after the hectic dash over the last month. We constantly ask for work; Bill tells us to relax, calm down, take a breather, maybe bike into town or read or something of equivalent productive laziness...so we do so, losing ourselves in the philosophical overtures of Milan Kundera and the wry paranoiac futures of Philip K. Dick for hours, pausing only to eat, set up the tent, and enjoy the stars...