Expect delays

I should have known better. Publicly stating a deadline for the Nereffid's Guide Awards was a guarantee that sudden obstacles would appear. The more I thought about what I'd put in this post to explain why I won't be getting the Awards done by the weekend, the more I realised that it would sound like something from a Laurel & Hardy short. You know: the gruff shouty man has summoned them to his office so they can explain why they've failed to accomplish some easy task he's set them. Ollie looks sheepish, nervously fingering the brim of the hat he's holding, and then Stan pipes up brightly, "Well, first the kitchen cabinet fell off the wall..."

Which is what happened. I kind of wish I'd been there to see it, although if I'd been in the kitchen at the time I probably wouldn't be writing this now. What seems to have happened is, at about 02:15, Wednesday morning, some plaster in the wall at the very end of the kitchen gave way, causing one double cabinet to fall, which then - because they were attached so well - pulled with it the fan unit from above the cooker, which then - because they too were attached so well - pulled down the next double cabinet, which pulled down the single cabinet beside it, by which stage there was only one cabinet left and the force had dissipated by then, so this cabinet clung on to the wall, albeit at a slight angle.

The weird thing is, they all managed to land upright on the floor. Possibly, the first one landed on some stuff on the countertop underneath it and then slid off, dragging the rest with it. So when I came downstairs to find out what the hell was that noise, I was met by an empty wall, an almost perfectly normal countertop, and a long row of cabinets sitting on the floor, their broken contents spilling out. My first reaction was, of course, OK, now I want to wake up please.

Once I got over the shock, I realised that, given the images that have been coming from Haiti, I actually wasn't going to be upset about this. Sometimes nice stuff falls off walls and breaks. We can move on.

But the frigging Nereffid's Guide Awards will probably have to wait a couple of days longer.