It’s not news to those who know me to say that I can be a bit avoidant. Tell me on the 1st of January that I need to do something by 1st of June and I’ll most likely do it on May 31st. In fact I once submitted something online at two minutes to midnight on deadline day. It’s sometimes that I genuinely am busy, sometimes I’m completely indifferent to the issue and at other times I’m just being avoidant and putting things off until they just can’t be avoided any more. That’s just paperwork. If it’s something interpersonal I’m much much worse. I tend not to speak up and say what’s on my mind. If someone says ‘Hey, lets get together some time’ I tend to think that I’d rather not and if we do get together it’s because I avoided or failed to say no. For me emails and text messaging are the perfect way of staying in touch. In my work I’m the complete opposite. With clients in front of me I never avoid issues and always tackle those tricky subjects because that’s where the real heart of issues tends to be. It must be the suit and tie and role I’m in that makes it so easy. It’s a character flaw but its not necrophilia or writing for The Daily Mail so I sleep at night just fine thank you. So……….that’s why thirteen days passed between Malcolm’s visit and me going next door to see Martin.
I knocked on his door last night armed with a set of plans, a letter for him and a letter which he would have to sign and return to us. I wasn’t at all anxious. I think I said “Hello Martin, fumfeddy, banammy, foibidy Party Wall Act”. He looked a bit confused and ushered me in and I joined him and Anne at their kitchen table. I gave him the paperwork and asked for a copy of the written agreement he had with Basil which gave him permission to build over our roof. While he searched it out Julie asked how the plans with the house were progressing. She then asked if they could do some work on the side of their garage when ours was knocked down. Of course. Not a problem. The agreement between Basil and Martin was very informal and not drawn up by a solicitor as I’d imagined. I’m not sure how much difference it makes but he can’t produce this agreement like a trump card when we’re discussing how to move his guttering. I was wearing a normal amount of clothing for our heatless house (t-shirt, long sleeved t-shirt and sweatshirt) but found that I was unusually warm in their heated house and was well aware that I began to glow and sweat and could feel the sweat slowly soak through my first two layers. I felt that they were checking me out a bit, asking if we planned to stay in the house when all of the work was completed but we chatted in a very laid back, jovial manner for an hour about all sorts of things and the elephant in the room (that they made a formal objection to our plans) was never mentioned. I felt very aware of the elephant though and stumbled over my words quite a bit, wanting to start all sentences, regardless of the subject under discussion, with the words “Well, even though you formally objected to our plans……”.
“Well, even though you formally objected to our plans ‘New Moon on Monday’ was a weak single for Duran Duran”.
“Well, because you formally objected to our plans John Terry may draw the line at shagging your wife”.
We parted with smiles, high fives and hugs and even some gangster rapper style handshakes and with an expectation of another objection from them in my mind.
I then paid a much briefer to Becky at 131. She took the papers from me, said she’d take a look and visit in a few days to discuss them with us.
