Canvas Bags

Over recent months, just before lights are turned out, Marianna forces me to look through Ideal Home type magazines. You’d be surprised how many different ones there are. Even though she assures me that we’re just doing this to get ideas and we won’t be buying any of these incredibly expensive kitchens or bathrooms my eyes glaze over and I just visualise the bank balance disappearing over the horizon. Despite this, as a little surprise for her on the 11th I took her to Grand Designs Live at the NEC. She was slightly unsure, as we approached the venue, if her surprise was to visit the Horse of the Year show or The Wedding Show since Grand Designs was more subtly signposted. As people wandered into the NEC it was fairly easy to spot who was going to which show. People holding hands were going to The Wedding Show, people in wellington boots and Barbour coats were going to see some horses and the stressed, prematurely aged people covered in brick dust were going to be joining us. So, over the next six hours we toured the huge venue and chatted to the stall holders about different types of windows and their benefits, different types of insulation, roof coverings and bathrooms and kitchens. I don’t know why you would need a television in your shower or one that rises out of your kitchen worktop. Does my life need a tap that produces filtered water or instant boiling water? Should our window frames be made from wood, aluminium, upvc or even bronze? Should we have solar panels? Windows that keep heat out in the Summer and keep it in in the Winter? It was all very interesting, although a little tiring on the legs, and not overly stressful. I’d been to the Motor Show at the NEC about twenty years earlier and my only memory of it was scantily clad women lying across cars and handing out brochures. Unfortunately, Grand Designs Live was completely sans bikini. A main activity was collecting free canvas bags from stalls to put all of the leaflets and brochures in. They’ll come in very handy at the checkout for the groceries. As well as wandering around and chatting to stallholders there were some talks given by big names in the world of interior design and building or, rather, big names with regard to doing these things on television. We missed Kevin McCloud’s talk but Marianna queued to get his signature on a copy of his book and I joined her just as she got to the front. He seemed to have left his personality on a building site somewhere. Later, we watched George Clarke’s talk in which he guided us through the transformation of his own house with many photographs. He was well over six feet tall when he looks to be far from that on tv. I've had to re-think my opinion of Danny DeVito. I was very impressed with George and his enthusiasm and how he’d used lots of interior windows and glass floors and ceilings to keep natural light flowing through the house. It made me wonder what use we could make with the dozens of mirrors we inherited from Basil. His next project is to dig out a basement beneath the house. I guess fame is still very new to George but I was impressed that 45 minutes after he’d finished his talk he was still signing autographs, shaking hands and kissing young women. It was a Grand day out.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EVh15aUt8-c