What is it about June? This time last year things started to head downhill, and the pattern seems to be repeating itself.

There have been a couple of health issues (not mine, but they affect people I'm close to). Everyone's OK-ish, but planning is a bit difficult at the moment. (In the interests of balance, I should report that there were also a couple of positive bits of health news this month. So easy to glide over the good, and focus on the bad.)

No, the reason for the big stomp is that I am indescribably over the constant renovation we're being forced to put up with... Two renovators have now finished. The people in charge of the larger one were incredibly decent about keeping us up to date with what was going on, and respecting working hours. The other one was mercifully brief; by the time we'd got back from Sibu last month, it was pretty much over. But the third renovation lingers like the wakeful dead. On and on. Now into its fourth month. You can never, ever be sure that your day will not AGAIN be disrupted by someone's hammer-hammer-hammering over your head.

Now, I know these are challenges that most of the world would give their eye teeth to substitute for their own much more onerous problems. I know. Proportion, proportion, proportion...

Nevertheless, much as my lack of resilience might not redound to my credit, it is no exaggeration to say that the constant and unpredictable racket is wearing me down. I love this flat, its airiness, its spaciousness, its birdsong-filled environment. It's perfect for us. But we've hardly had a single undisturbed day since we moved in... The disruption means that I'm incredibly behind with almost everything. Can't even keep up with little things, let alone focus on big projects.

I'm hoping we can get away for a bit soon. Yes, I know -- that's more disruption. But I think a bit of a reset would be really good at this point, just to stop the irritation ratcheting up too much. So, even though logistics are currently somewhat tricky, I'm crossing my fingers for a bit of a breakout in the near future.

There have, however, also been some really nice things this month. Kuching's walking-and-eating possibilities never fail to please. And there's a preciousness to our everyday, unnoteworthy, unblogworthy pursuits that I really don't want to underestimate.



We also enjoyed revisiting the temples next door, and our expeditions with friends to Serikin and Telaga Air were really fun.



There has also been some great reading (a lot of it completed in cafes, I have to add). A Book notes post, mostly on politics, took me back to my former field of study. And two other, essentially political, novels -- The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, by Junot Diaz, and The Committed, by Viet Thanh Nguyen -- were informative (if not necessarily always enjoyable reading for the squeamish). I guess the diasporic themes of Cutting for Stone, by Abraham Verghese, fit in there too (only in this case the squeamishness is triggered by his insistence on describing the literally gory details of medical procedures).



Another (unplanned) thread was the First World War. This is the critical elephant in the room in two novels by Virginia Woolf: Jacob's Room (tough to get into, but rewards your effort); and Mrs Dalloway (which I read in a day, in company with the online book group run by Henry Eliot, and appreciated way more than I did when I first read it almost 50 years ago). A Month in the Country, by J.L. Carr, which is also set in the aftermath of that first truly global conflagration, was poignant on so many levels: As a reflection on memory and the passing of time, and a meditation on loss and healing. Even The Mysterious Affair at Styles, Agatha Christie's first novel, and Hercule Poirot's first outing, fits into this category, since it was written and is set during WWI, and draws on Christie's own wartime Red Cross experience.

That one also offers an easy segue to the final category: The spooky. Probably not a good idea to tackle Frankenstein (Mary Shelley), The Turn of the Screw (Henry James), and Carmilla (Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu) in the same month, especially when we live on Ghost Hill Road... All good reads in their own way, though, and all much discussed and highly influential.

Not really fitting in anywhere, but enjoyable in its own right, was an audio-adaptation of David Copperfield, which I listened to primarily as prep for Barbara Kingsolver's Demon Copperhead (still in progress).

So, that's half the year that's disappeared down some drain...

Here's to July. I'm hoping it brings better things, with the world mopped clean, and a nice purple view of things...