It's the pits.

They have started building next-door. It was a lovely copse of silver-birch, but now looks like a battered corpse (ooh, did you see what I did there?). It took one man a day-and-a-half to cut down all the trees and turn them into wood-chip. The heavy plant moved in the next day and has started digging out the basement. I am a little concerned as it looks ENORMOUS. I am going to guess it is 6-bedrooms, based on my extensive architectural knowledge (ie several episodes of Grand Designs. I will take to standing next to the plot and sighing into the middle-distance "I can't help thinking that..."). Almost had a falling out with the owner who decided to check up on progress by popping round at six o'clock on Saturday morning, standing on what will ultimately be our shared drive and telling his wife authoritatively (loudly) "And that is where the toilet will be". Naturally, I didn't say anything, being both English and in Minnesota, so just tutted and closed the window IN A FORCEFUL MANNER. That'll show 'im.

We have had to cave in to social mores and purchase our first net-curtains. It will give us something to twitch.

Interestingly they were not allowed to start earlier, as there is a city rule that heavy plant must be kept off the roads for a certain time after the last snows melt. Damn' - said the S word, and I'd promised myself I wouldn't.

I don't normally watch Reality TV, as it is a bit of a Voyeuristic Indulgence - particularly the program the other day about hoarders. Ten minutes into it, I decided to do out the garage, and then moved onto the guest-room. I even dropped the nine garbage bags, two chairs and a blanket off at the thrift store, it moved me so much.

Bean has made her first kill. We're very proud, but it's the person in charge of kitty litter (ie me) who has to dispose of the mangled remains.

We went to play crazy golf last weekend. It is an amazing place. The guy makes random pieces of sculpture and each year seems to add another hole (he is up to 13). It's wonderfully eccentric.

Just. Too. Hot.

Forty degrees today. I know. I'm never satisfied. T's ice-skating started up again this evening, and most of the town had turned up to watch, it seemed, sitting on the frigid bleachers in shorts and vests. Her classroom was so warm at school, that they had to have lessons in the cafeteria. Alas, like in Australian schools, there seems to be very little air-conditioning for what, when it's not minus forty, is plus.

I overheard this at the ice-rink: Child reading Malory Towers: "Mommy, what's a 'blazer'?". Mommy: "It's a kinda snow-mobile, honey".

I've been doing more running. One of my favourite tracks is to run along the railway-line, which is a common evening walk for a lot of people around here (the rails have a utility vehicle track along side, so are quite wide). The consensus is that it is 'most likely illegal', but the drivers wave to you, and the police just drive on by. For a state which seems to have quite a loose definition of 'gun-control', they probably think "Well, if you're daft enough to be walking along a track when a 120-carriage freight train is rolling-along, is there really anything we can do or say to help you?". And, yes, they are really 120 carriages long - this means (quick mental calculation) with each one 20m long, it can sometimes straddle several railway crossings at once; effectively cutting one side of the town from the other. I tried to run along side of one the other day as it was waiting for its green-light, but gave up and ate chocolate instead.

I have a problem, otherwise, on where to run. Memorial Day was last week (white heels - hurrah!), which means that everyone (else) has opened up their cabins, and cracked open the Glad-Wrap on their boats. As the roads here can be quite narrow, the boat-trailers quite wide and the road-kill plentiful, it means there's sometimes very little space for me (pavements are non-existent....everywhere requires a car, and today I treated myself both to the drive-through chemists, and the drive-through post-box).

And I'm not able to run cross-country at the moment because of the ticks. The ones you can see are OK...it's the ones the size of poppy-seeds which are the ones to scream hysterically at.

I took an executive decision last week (i..e spent a Lancashire man's money without asking him first), and bought some furniture for the 3-season porch. In the last house we were always being nibbled at by the voracious mosquitoes, but here, luckily, there is a balcony enclosed with screens - pretty handy on a swamp. It also has a ceiling fan and speakers for piped music, if only we could be bothered with trying to figure out how it works. Once or twice we have found ourselves sitted in there, Conversing.

Bridgjo had a good day's kayaking on the river, which is very high, due, of course, to the snow. He took T out on the lake, but she sat in the back, with her friend in front, and let her do all the work. Chip off the old block.