Today is a public holiday here in Blighty, but not for me.
I am off to spend the day in the melancholy environment shown above, in a desperate attempt to finish work on the early 18th century wall-memorial you can just see on the left of the photo.
The church is much older than it appears, but all the gay, 14th century wall-paintings were scrubbed off during the Reformation and painted over by the Victorians, purely because they knew I was on my way and thought that I shouldn't have too good a time during my penance under it's roof.
It is a two hour drive to this church from here, so I have clocked up many miles since beginning the work, which only adds to the penance. The cold and windy weather, coupled with the mild ill-health and general malaise I have been experiencing since before Christmas, only compounds the melancholia, and I do not get paid until I finish - not that that is the only thing keeping me going.
You could say that I am lucky to have any work at all during the present economic climate, but I say that - when taking all the above into consideration - any one of the factors is reason enough for me not to have given up chocolate for Lent, not that I eat much of the stuff anyway.
As I stand on boards over the pews, fiddling about with precariously balanced bits of stone and painting extremely intricate lettering back in with my white fingers, muttering to myself and occasionally kicking away the ghosts that tug at my trouser-legs, I think to myself, why - at my age - am I not a consultant for this sort of work, like the rest of my late middle-aged contemporaries?
I heard someone say the other day, that it was not a case of his cup being half full or half empty, it was more that his cup just wasn't big enough.
My cup runneth over.
It's probably that your prices aren't high enough. There's nothing like high prices to make people pay more, which is an important step on the route to being an idly important consultant.
ReplyDeleteIf you're not careful with all that woe, hordes of female bloggers will descend on you with trays of cupcakes and it'll all be immeasurably worse. Not that I don't sympathise.
Mise is right. Never smile, and demand high prices; you'd be a consultant in no time!
ReplyDeleteBy the way; I'm now an art consultant. Consulting here... consulting there... But still no-one ever pays.
Happy chiselling, Cro.
I have no answer, but I love the image of ghosts pestering you as you work. And it's extremely fascinating work I think. I hope you take pictures of the finished product.
ReplyDeleteFemale bloggers tugging at my turn-ups with cup-cakes - now there's a thought.
ReplyDeleteI would have thought that £40 an hour would be more than enough to get me ignored, but I am so obviously out of touch, despite the revelations about all the other chiselers around right now, who charge even more than my car mechanic does to change a light-bulb.