Making things

Little Rabbit is a builder. A slightly thwarted builder because he doesn't have a builder's belt. Until now.

Today has been difficult. I think that would be the best way to describe it. The morning involved standing in the cold for three hours watching the Cat play soccer, and by the time I got home I was grumpy and nauseous. I read by the fire for as long as I felt I could get away with it, then ventured outside to see what the Rabbit and Ian were up to. Harvesting vegetables, it turned out. Lots of potatoes, some epic carrots and a fine zucchini. They had also cleared all the crap from the back porch, so we swept it out and rearranged the furniture and now we have a lovely wee sitting spot by the back door.

Rabbit, meanwhile, was hatching plans. "I want to climb a tree," he said. Ian rigged up some ropes and offered to be the tree, but that was no good. Rabbit decided that his main barrier to tree-climbing success was his lack of a builder's belt. The Cat has a builder's belt, which he got for Christmas and has never used, but the Cat wasn't sharing. The Cat was stubborn, the Rabbit was cross, the chores were mounting up. I ordered a glass of wine and decided it was time to sort this out.

Rabbit and I hunted through the dress-up box and found a belt and the bottoms of two trackpants. Why we had decided to keep the bottoms of two trackpants I do not know, but here they were, ready to be useful. I did some cutting, tried lining things up, made a rough plan. I got out my grandmother's Husqvarna and showed Rabbit how to thread it. It's a beautiful machine, as you can see, and it's still going well. On the slow speed it purrs like a cat, on the fast it revs up, then rattles along the cloth. Yes, there is a soccer book in our fruit bowl. No, that is not unusual.

I sewed the belt together and explained to the Rabbit that my abilities would not extend to flaps to close the pockets. Ian came to the rescue with some large clips. The Rabbit was finally pleased.

Later I was outside feeding the animals and found the Rabbit sorting things in his toolset. "What are you up to?" I asked. "Just getting organised for my tree climb," he said. "I need to find a tree now. I might need to have a look on someone else's property." I vetoed that, but now he is writing a to-do list for tomorrow. Guess what's at the top.