I engaged in more lawn mowing on Friday, more jungle clearance on Saturday and so another trip to the council recycling centre was required. In accordance with Marianna’s ‘one in/one out’ policy we exchanged six sacks of green waste for four pieces of exercise equipment. The things people choose to throw away rather than donate to charity is insane. During the jungle clearance I discovered a ten metre length of hose attached to a tap. It’s disappointing but characteristic that the tap doesn’t actually produce water.
Then we went across the road to visit the neighbours. My opening line was something like “Hello, we’ve just moved in across the road to the ugliest house on the street and noticed that you’ve had a lovely extension built. Can we have a look around?”. Of course, being middle class he said yes and in we went. This is despite the fact that he was building a wall and on a very hot day the wet cement would be dry before his wife had said “Tea? Choccy bickie?”. His name was Eddie and hers Mary and they couldn’t have been nicer. Nor could their extension, although, bless them, their house is smaller than ours. Their extension is joined on, inside and out, very subtly and swung me back towards the full two floor extension I’d swung away from two days previously. It's a sort of house renovators bipolar disorder. They didn’t know Basil but felt that the house had a curious aura. Marianna told them about the carpets and mirrors and encouraged them to come over for a tour.
On Sunday night I pulled the blind in the bathroom to hide my modesty when bathing and it came away in my hand. Broken. We’re bathing in darkness from now on.
On Monday Eddie came over as we put our two green bins, three red sacks and three red boxes on the pavement for refuse collection the next morning. He gave us the name and number of the architect he used. Marianna encouraged him to look around our house. He declined, declined again and then I think we kidnapped him. He was stunned by the house, as most people are. He was also a pessimistic sod saying it would take us years to finish all of the building and decorating work. I was hoping to be finished by Christmas. He has a good sense of humour; ‘Pull up this carpet and you’ll find more mirrors’ was a favourite witticism. Although he knew little about Basil he told us he had his own steam engine and although he didn’t permanently park it here he would drive up and down the road on it. Jones the steam and Hugh Hefner combined.
