The closest thing to perfect is catastrophe

This morning, the workiepeople came and fitted the new gate - the two new half-gates, indeed - to finish off my new railings, finally and at last. Apart from painting the gates to match the railings, that may be the last bit of work in this whole facelifting procedure, which has been going on for, ooh, more than six months now?

I jubilated quietly, and as soon as they were gone I slipped away - through my new gates, oh joy! - to the Lit & Phil, to spend a couple of hours grinding my way through another forty pages of revisions.

I may not be the only perfectionist on the planet after all.

When I came home again, one of my two new half-gates was gone again.

I suppose it's faintly possible that thieves came with power-tools and stole it, but I suspect not. My suspicion is that some supervisory person came with a clipboard, and said "No, that's not good enough, take it away and make it better." It happened before with the coping-stones on the wall, I'm sure it can happen with the ironwork also.

Sigh. Also aargh. Also how long, O lord, how long...?