A sonnet for TLOML

Lines on The Love of My Life, inspired by our first ten days in Fox Corner

When a wardrobe rail needs to be hung

Or a shelving unit to be built,

When a lampshade is ready to be strung,

He deserves to be praised to the hilt.

He battles with walls that demand a masonry bit,

And faffs with cables to traverse the bedroom floor,

And fixes things in my wake, like that plank I split,

Or that key that I broke by forcing it in the door.

I suppose I could do these jobs myself,

But the frustration of getting screws into wood can make me cry.

Nothing I put up is straight: not a hook, not a mirror, not a shelf.

Frankly, I’m bad at home improvement and just hate DIY.

TLOML is all man and that’s no platitude

For his handyman ways, I feel a deep gratitude.

Our first aid cabinet (courtesy of the closure of Borders, West Hollywood), which TLOML drilled through some kind of granite in order to mount

My hooks have never been hung so beautifully level before. (It's just my photo that is wonky).

He took a bare bulb and made this happen.

And a dodgy 80s spotlight became this pendant of great Skandiwegian beauty.

More perfectly level stuff hung up on a fiddly wall.

Meanwhile, I put the books in order...