Dolphin Address 47
November 23th 2005
There is a lot of cold out there and one of them I caught, or should I say it caught me? I felt it coming and immediately organised my resources. Menthol cigarettes and pine&honey syrup for starters. Still in power I dragged the redundant furniture and stuff up to the collar beams and criss-crossed the top of the walls with as many lengths of timber as I could find. I reckon I pulled about one and a half tonnes up there, so finally I had the entire width of the shed at my disposal.
Then I bought a fold of 20 meter long and 4 meter wide thick grey plastic and stapled it under my to 2,5 meter lowered new ceiling to save the heat from my double earthenware flowerpot mounted burners and my 500 Watt halogen lamp. Yesterday I was getting a bit scared, after three days of chills running from shoulder to shoulder, while chilli red hot in the face.
As any tiny little bit helps, as said the skipper and blew into his sail, I even started recruiting two laptops. After I served some diluted milk in a cut off bottom of a seven-up bottle to the mother, she must have decided I would do the kitten no harm. She must have had a house before as she recognised the process of opening and dishing out a can of Whiskas. The kitten is some little savage, hissing fiercely when I come too close and initially ignoring the cat food.
But yester evening, when I left for the meadow it had installed itself on a commanding vantage point and remained there while I gave it a little good night speech, in Dutch. These little Celtic tigers are beyond language, as they tune into the intentional modulations of my voice.
Sleep was a horror. When you're cold inside and it's rekindled by the mere thought of having to go for an icy slash out there, no pile of duck-down upped sleeping bags can take it away. Add to that an insane craving for the bite of near frozen water in my clogged up throat and you have a solitary confinement wake through a scary, starry night. Any diver will tell you alcohol only opens the pores to more chill and last I needed was a hangover. So I poured my morning tea from the thermos into a coca cola bottle and spot warmed my shivers until first light.
Up early I enjoy the subtle pastels of the daybreak. Its purples and oranges skilfully brushed on a hard blue fond, framed by a determined horizon and gently reflected in calm waters. The fog is lifting and a new and bitter chill spreads as an unloving blanket. Here comes the sun, it's not yellow, it's chicken. Better hang a toilet roll around my neck as the drip off my nose will soon turn into deluge.
Today should be the turning point: if this doesn't chill me no more, it'll only make me stronger.
Jan Ploeg,
Meadow Fanore, November 23th 2005
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