spent the weekend redecorating the office-cum-bedroom. moved all bedroom stuff into lounge (living room for us yanks), all office stuff into old bedroom, then peeled wallpaper, scraped, filled, and de-moulded walls. painted, re-hung radiator (still no hot water - oops), cleaned carpets, moved stuff around, flopped. so that was my three-day weekend. beck did a great job prepping and cutting in, as i can’t see well enough to do it anymore. bean opened the valve on the radiator and let about a gallon of water out onto the carpet, and scared herself more than i did when i came in and yelled WHAT ARE YOU DOING. yeesh. i really gotta start thinking a little before i speak, sometimes.

three days on top of each other and i think we could all use a break. we’ll get the house sorted over the rest of this week and hopefully just go down to the beach this weekend and fly a kite or something.

found out that my brother mike was once again the target of some heartless fuck trying to grift him for 30k. she worked at the bank where his account was and she actually had the balls to withdraw the money and tell the bank it was a “personal loan”.

it hurts that i can’t be there to help him. but he doesn’t want my help. i’m just glad that, this time, someone was there to help him, and that he spoke up when something wasn’t right. i miss him terribly. but every time i call him he’s dead drunk and further off his rocker than the last time. i don’t know what i should’ve, or could’ve done. not only do i feel like i’ve failed him, but i’ve failed my father and myself. but how do you get someone to accept your help if they don’t want it? i guess you don’t get them to. i just feel really powerless and like accepting that there’s little i can do is just an excuse to do little.

can’t win this one. sigh.

have been pooping in my garden. i think one might be camped out under the summer house in the back. seeing as that’s where most of the poop is. becky put some milk and bread out for it the other night, but i am not sure if that’s what they like to eat. it’s eating something, though, judging from the piles of poo all over the place.

i hate electric lawn mowers. i always pitied anyone i saw using one in the US, as it was almost always some old lady with varicose veins, white socks, and green PF flyers who would actually stoop to using one. but it’s de rigueur here in the UK. i have a flymo. it’s supposed to hover. what it actually does is, like, wobble and scrape the squidgy lawn vegetables that pass for turf. and hedgehog poop. anyway.

to dump my previous site incarnation and turn rocheleau.co.uk into a blog.  it’s about time. the business side of things is now handled over at junkdesign.co.uk, so if that’s what you’re looking for, go there.

otherwise, this is the place for all things rocheleau in the UK.  and waukesha, wisconsin, if my brother jim wants to get off his butt and start writing too : )