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On Sunday morning we made our first visit to the local car boot sale. Well, technically not our first visit. We went there a couple of weeks ago but they’d already called it a day and closed when we arrived at midday. We were several hours earlier this time. I’m certainly not adverse to an early start to the day but I don’t understand why the buying and selling of junk has to begin at 6am. Marianna loves the car booting / charity shopping experience. We have very different approaches to the acquisition of possessions. She likes to. I don’t. In the end all that stuff ends up owning you more than you own it. There are five levels of stuff you don’t want; Ebay (good enough to get some money for), Charity shop donations (still good enough to use), the recycling shop at the council tip (okay, if you’re desperate), your wheely bin (it’s rubbish) and finally Car Boot sales. Having said that Marianna is an expert rummager, bargain hunter and a ruthless negotiator. We bought a very nice but neglected over-mantel for £9 which is only bemusing because we don’t have any mantels for it to hang above. There was also a woodworm infested chest of drawers (£1) because it had nice handles. We’ve stored it in the Wendy house which is probably now full of woodworm and about to collapse.
We went home, unloaded and then loaded things from the front bathroom into the car for the recycling centre. This included the urine-soaked carpet which was now very damp with rain water which had come through the garage roof. This had seriously turned up the volume of the urine smell. The smell filled the car and didn’t leave when all of the windows were opened. Marianna leaned out of the window like a Labrador, desperate for fresher air. We are always amazed at the things people choose to throw away. When Marianna spotted that the people in the parking bay next to us at the recycling centre were unloading a perfectly pleasant chest of drawers her eyes lit up like Madonna’s in a Malawian orphanage. I tried to avoid eye contact as she sought permission to dive into the skip and retrieve what parts of it had already been dumped. As one drawer was thrown deep into the skip and smashed her chance was lost.
And lastly a visit to Homebase. We bought lawn fertiliser to make the lawn a bit less brown and viewed the selection of garden hoses and deliberated over the length of our garden. Marianna figured her strides were a metre long and, like a demented Basil Fawlty, was striding the length of the aisles to estimate the length of our garden. It is possible that measuring it with a tape measure before we left home would have been easier but this proved to be surprisingly accurate when we got home. We also bought a product to clear all of the algae out of the pond. It hasn’t. And finally, since the garden always seems to be full of birds we also bought a bird feeder. However, it has proved to be as popular as Susan Boyle at a swingers party and the garden has been devoid of birds since the thing was hung.
On Monday evening whilst writing a report on a man who killed his neighbour with a hammer I was listening to Chris Evans’ show on Radio2. He said “Tonight’s show is dedicated to anyone who’s carpeted things other than the floor of their home”. I listened as people texted and emailed in with stories of things they’d carpeted such as tool boxes, fridges, vans and wondered if I should contact the show and spread the fame of the carpeted beds and the fluffy bathroom even thought they didn’t quite meet his criteria. I emailed him some photos of the more carpety areas of the house but he didn’t respond. Maybe photographs of my bathroom aren’t what’s required for Sony award winning radio.
On Tuesday evening our fourth architect, Michael, visited. He was a small, rotund, grey, Arthur Lowe lookalike. I spotted him arrive, park opposite and then walk along the road away from us. I’m concerned that it took him so long to realise that all the even numbers were on that side. Was he thinking; “128, 126, 124. Where could 129 be? And 127 and 125 for that matter.” More generously, Marianna thought he might be trying to get a look at our house from a distance. He pointed out that the boiler, which is in the garage, was wrongly fitted and if it weren’t for all of the holes in the garage roof fumes would be killing us. He showed no interest in the pornier aspects of the house but was fascinated by Basil’s DIY re-wiring and plumbing and the sight of a make of bidet very popular in the ‘50’s and ‘60’s (can you Ebay a bidet?). Within a few minutes of arriving he’d made it clear that a first floor extension wasn’t financially viable. “Why didn’t you buy a bigger house if this isn’t enough space for you?” he wondered. Oh. But he did it in a very convincing way and he thought that it was all of the Basilness that made us think we needed to create more space whereas we only needed to clear out and rearrange. We also discussed moving the first floor to second floor stairs. A quick measure and he decided that wasn’t viable since we’d be left with a landing and opening to the front bedroom door that was only a foot square. Tricky to get a human in, impossible to get furniture in. He sold me the notion of doing a smaller project really well instead of something bigger and it bankrupting us and not looking great. So, to summarise, Roland didn’t refer to planning laws and that little of what we wanted was actually achievable, Martin seemed great but after two weeks is yet to send a quote and Garbinder said that all of our housing dreams were possible which is partly true but he didn’t mention that it was financially insane. This must be the end of ‘Architect Idol’ and we need to select someone to actually make some drawings. Michael is top of the pile for me since he actually displayed some imagination. The others only seem to be good at drawing and I knew children at primary school who were described in such terms and that was only because there was nothing else positive to say about them.
