Sail Away, Raymond

It seemed that I was involved in two comedy sketches today. The first is a classic, only not for those involved. I was about to wash my hands after using the toilet at Derby Railway Station when I was attacked by a particularly aggressive tap. I casually pressed the top of it and it sprayed water more viciously than a cannon or cherry tomato across my chest, towards my knees and, of course, over the crotch area. Fortunately my train was parked just outside the lavatory and I quickly entered it, found a seat and adopted a sitting position which would optimise the drying of clothing. I was en route to a court appearance. All dried off by the time I arrived I made myself known to the usher and sat down with my book. The waiting area was filled with life’s rich tapestry as usual. Seated several rows away from me was a young man in a wheelchair. One of two young women seated near him asked “What happened to your leg?”. And thus began the second comedy sketch. He didn’t say what had happened to it but said “I can’t lift it” and proceeded to do just that and straighten it out in front of him. He added “There’s a lot of pressure if I lift it, so I don’t” as the second leg joined it floating in the air. This was clearly a horrific disability. Then he lowered his legs and lifted his trouser leg up, clearly to reveal a scar. The scar was hidden to me but the girl’s faces weren’t and they showed a look of horror as if they’d caught their grandparents at it on the kitchen worktop or had just heard the words “You’ve won a holiday in Bridlington”. Then he stood, lowered himself onto a chair and rested his legs up on his wheelchair. I carried on waiting but kept an eye out for banana skins.


I largely dislike court appearances. I shouldn’t since I’m largely being paid for sitting in the waiting area and reading but I don’t, it’s just too boring. I do love a bit of verbal sparring though when I get to give evidence. One of the barristers today was good, very good. It caught me off guard initially like a boxer who, a few seconds into round one, has realised his opponent is much younger and quicker than him. However, she had a couple of tells and would play with her spectacles and blush slightly when she felt she was on dodgy ground so I always knew how I was scoring on points. The other barrister couldn’t draw the short straw in a clutching at straws competition so was no competition at all. There was no “You can’t handle the truth!!” moment. The defendant, who I’d assessed some months previously, stared at me with a particularly unimpressed expression the whole time. I took this as a sign of a job well done. Earlier in the year a defendant mouthed variations on “You fucking wanker” to me throughout my evidence. I’ve removed him from the Christmas card list. Unless they’re mouthing my home address I’m indifferent.

I walked into the train station at 13.13 and caught the 13.18 train heading homeward. These days I celebrate timing like that like a lottery win. When I got to Derby again I called Pete the plumber. The last time I met Pete his trouser zip was undone. Don’t think poorly of me but I didn’t mention it to him. I wasn’t sure how to; “I happened to be looking at your genitals and couldn’t help but notice…….” or “Calvin Klein?? Me too”. I hadn’t been able to call him previously because I was in ‘The Quiet Zone’ and I like to respect the idea of it being free from mobile phones, games, laptops, conversation, laughter…..Not everyone does but personally I couldn’t stand the festival of silent hatred that would surround me if I made or took a telephone call. I needed to call Pete because Marianna and I visited the house at the weekend and discovered that our boiler had been fitted and the heating was now working, drying the plaster and warping the skirting and architrave. Of course, if you’ve read these missives from an inconsequential life before then the words…..the boiler wasn’t fixed to the wall we’d asked it to be fixed to….won’t surprise you. It was disappointing to say the least. It could have been tucked behind a door but now renders a section of wall useless. The other issue was the amount of pipes which surrounded it. It looked like an Escher drawing; pipes from the left and right, above and below, twisting and turning. There was also what looked like two gas tanks. The whole collection looked like something James Bond might need to defuse at the end of the movie. I asked Pete why it was there. He said no one had ever told him that it should go anywhere else. We did, it was one of the meetings I was actually present at. It was also an opportunity to ask why they had hidden the pipes for the radiators in all but two rooms. That was because we hadn’t ever told him exactly where we wanted them. We did, it was one of the meetings I was actually present at. I also asked why the pipes had been fixed at one distance and were then bent at an angle to meet the radiators. The measuring should have been easy since the radiators were delivered before the pipes were put into the walls. He said they were only bent by a matter of millimetres. I disagreed. It was becoming a rather awkward conversation. He said he was happy to go and complete the work but some things hadn’t been supplied and some decisions hadn’t been made…..”by your wife”. I took it as a very bad sign that he had intentionally chosen not to use Marianna’s name. He was becoming increasingly oppositional and suggested we meet.
After the visit to the house on Saturday we had a few house related errands to run. Amongst these was ordering the internal doors. Marianna was in charge of the negotiations. I forget the exact prices but the conversation went pretty much like this

Salesman: “Those doors are £100 each including VAT”

Marianna: “I’ve seen them online for £85” (This was a lie. The best price she found was over £100)

Salesman: “Where was this?”

Marianna: “Building and Plumbing Supplies Ltd” (Remember, this is not true)

Salesman: “I can do those for £81”. (Thank you and goodnight. Bow, accept applause and exit stage left.)

They’ll be delivered on Wednesday. I think we all know that if I did the negotiations it would have gone like this:

Salesman: “Those doors are £100 each including VAT”

Patrick: “Lovely. Do you take Visa Debit card?”

Last Thursday we had a meeting with Max. The aim of this was to challenge him over part of his latest invoice since he’s trying to charge us an additional £800 for the box gutter that was constructed between our house and Martin’s. The problem is that when we showed all of the builders around the house at the start of the year when we wanted quotes we detailed everything we wanted doing. Max failed to quote for some of the things we detailed. That’s his fault. We failed to spot that he had done this. That’ll be our fault. We pointed this out to him and he acknowledged this but his negotiation technique is incredible and seems to largely involve pretending we haven’t said what we have or just re-stating his position endlessly. He must have been trained by the SAS since he doesn’t give an inch. I’d like to remind you that Marianna and I are capable people. I’ve talked people into confessions and into disclosing things to me they were adamant they wouldn’t but Max is immune to these techniques. He is Kryptonite to me. That’ll be a cheque for £800 then. At least the house is nearing completion. We should move back in on the 4th of December. The kitchen will be fitted six weeks later but that’ll be fine.

Marianna and I, like the Royal family, travelled separately to this meeting. She went by car and I cycled after exercising in the rain on Newbold Comyn. As I arrived Martin was just leaving our house. He blanked me. He had wanted the telephone number of the roofer from Max. To torture him Marianna was particularly cheery in greeting him. He had delivered a letter to us a couple of weeks ago detailing all of the things he’s still unhappy with and photographs of the things he’s unhappy with. One of Anne's sizeable arse wasn’t included. Marianna has written an acidic response to him but I’d really rather not engage with them anymore. One more conversation, discussion or negotiation session and I’ll lose all interest in going back to live there.

I walked back to Vikki’s from the Railway Station along the canal towpath. Thankfully, it was warmer than the minus three it was when I left in the morning but with the increasingly autumnal weather the towpath doesn’t make for an easy walking surface and it’s much like a game of hopscotch around the puddles. I saw a sign on one of the barges; “FOR SALE. OFFERS AROUND £9500. NEEDS A LOT OF WORK. NO, REALLY I MEAN A LOT OF WORK. CALL ME AND COME AND HAVE A LOOK AROUND”. I’m tempted to call. Our house must be worth about £9500 at the minute. The barge owner and I could just swap.

Sail away, Raymond, sail away.

A Pirate Looks at Forty

We are on holiday in Cornwall. More precisely, we are on a free holiday in Cornwall. It’s actually our builders who have sent us here. And this is how they did it; Marianna visits the house almost daily and whilst waiting for a rep one day she thumbed through a copy of The Sun that was next to a flask and lunchbox in our dining room. In it there was an offer for a holiday or mini-break that could be yours so long as you collected a certain number of tokens which would be printed in the paper over the following weeks. So, each day when she went to our house she reached into the skip in the driveway and removed the previous day’s copy of The Sun and collected a coupon. When she had enough they were sent off and we had to select our date and venue and, depending on how many days we wanted to go away for, a very small amount of money had to be parted with. We selected Cornwall and then I ensured that the expense of travelling would also be covered by others by booking assessments in Bristol and Weston-Super-Mare for Thursday and Friday as we made our way west.

To keep the focus on work until we actually entered Cornwall we also made a five mile detour into Exeter so that I could visit one of the solicitors who owed me money. I noticed a month or so ago that their website and phone line were out of action and assumed that they had shut down. Indeed, when we got to the address there wasn’t an OPEN sign, just a huge FOR SALE sign. I called the estate agents who would only tell me that the company had been wound up. I had, foolishly, hoped that there had been some mistake with the website and phones and the offices would be open and whoever I spoke to would be overwhelmed by my assertive manliness and would handover a cheque or carrier bag of crisp twenties.



We are in a static caravan just outside of Newquay. Newquay is not a new experience for me. I was here in 1981 and 1983 with my family. However, being in a static caravan is a new experience for me. Ours was built in 1873 and was last decorated in 1938 and has a very distinct charm. Sorry, that should be distinct smell. I think Marianna is trying to prepare me for another holiday which involves staying in hostels. I wanted to bathe in bleach after the last one. Our caravan was clearly meant to be inhabited during June, July and August and is far from airtight. The whole structure seems as stable as a Sugababes line-up. This, you’ll be aware, is November and it is distinctly chilly in here. Fortunately, we bought our own electric heater with us. However, I’ve really been feeling the cold in general over the past week. Is this how it happens? One minute you’re 39 and wandering around in your shirtsleeves whatever the weather and then you’re 40 and hide yourself under a weight of M&S pullovers. Next, neighbours will be keeping an eye on me in case I have a fall.

Also, and I know this may not sound great, and I’m not opposed to The Sun and the exposure of perfectly formed breasts or an insightful bit of football coverage, but every other resident here actually is a Sun reader. Every fifteen feet around the site there are signs telling people not to park near their caravan but to use the car park. There are two hundred caravans here and only six cars in the car park. That’s my definition of anarchy. I was surprised by how many facilities there are at the holiday park; a shop, laundrette, surfing supplies shop, amusement arcade, burger bar, indoor pool, outdoor pool, adventure playground and cafeteria. The spirit of Butlins is alive and well. There is also entertainment. On Friday night there was ‘comedy and song with the fantastic James and Murphy’, on Saturday there was ‘quick fire comedy and non-stop laughter with the one and only James Laister’ and on Sunday there was Bingo and a quiz. The problem was that none of these started until 10pm and we’ve been very busy lately and had retired, wrapped around the electric heater, long before the entertainment began.

Anyway, we arrived late on Friday afternoon and after checking in had a lovely wander around the town centre. Given that over a quarter of a century has passed since I was here and my memory is as reliable as a Lib-Dem manifesto promise almost nothing in the town was familiar to me. Had I been able to buy a Slush Puppy in Woolworths some memories might have been triggered but alas not. It was clear though, even with the shops shut, that this is a town dominated by dudes. While we were thinking how cold it was we kept spotting people wearing flip flops and shorts. The weekend visitors were easy to spot because they were wearing woolly hats and gloves. The make-up of the town is 35% ‘Fat Face’ and ‘White Stuff’ style clothes shops for the surfers, 45% surfing supply shops, 10% Cornish pasty shops, 9% niteclubs and 1% useful stuff for any non-dudes that may live here.

Saturday began with a shower. The shower cubicle fitted me like a glove which meant that whenever I bent forward to adjust the controls, which were strangely at knee height, my backside opened the door. We ventured out for another wander around the town so Marianna could visit the charity shops and we had an extended wander on Fistral and Newquay beaches so I could try and take one photograph I was happy with. Marianna chatted to a surfer, making his usual weekend visit from Luton, who recommended we visit Padstow, home of the famous Rick Stein’s famous fish restaurant. That is that the restaurant is famous, not that they only cook famous fish. It turned out that Mr Stein also has a shop, B&B, patisserie and bakery, delicatessen, fish and chip shop and ‘seafood school’. He owns the town! Like ‘It’s a Wonderful Life’ one day they’ll rename it Steinville or Padstein. It’s the kind of town where everyone seems to shop at Joules and Boden for their clothes. After a very pleasant wander and more photography we went to Mr Stein’s fish and chip shop. I must say they were very good. Then, fully satiated we returned to our caravan to sit with our coats and shoes still on while the heaters defrosted us and our surroundings.

It began to rain during Saturday night and we slept to the sound of raindrops beating a tattoo on the roof. The rain cleared and it was a chilly but beautifully clear skied Autumnal day. We went to Truro for a wander and to view the Remembrance Day service at the cathedral. Following the recommendations of the Luton surfer from the previous day we then went to St. Agnes (although he pronounced it ‘Stagness’). We had a wander on the beach for more attempts at photographing surfers and wet dogs and then a walk on the cliffs. We bought some weighty newspapers and then retired to a pub to review them before returning to the fridge-like caravan. The electric heaters can warm the main room but opening a door to another is like stepping into Narnia.



On Monday we returned to Stagness to walk the cliffs and countryside around the village again. It was wonderfully refreshing. I love the less populated outer extremes of the Britain and always have. I love that the place names are unfamiliar. I like to feel that there’s distance from the urbanised and familiar, to get outdoors and get some fresh air. I’d love a life in which the only footwear I own is walking boots and flip flops. My impression of the tiny handful of places we’ve visited is that it’s a little bit less likely you’ll be in Samesville as in the centre of England. At the extremities you may find a genuine family business or local trader. However, in almost every town and village we’ve visited in Cornwall we’ve found a Boots and a Barclays Bank. Somehow, at some point in the past, Boots managed to sweep aside all competition. The local pharmacist must have sold much the same produce but Boots came into town armed with a points card and a chiller containing finger sized slices of carrot and lemon drizzle cake and the battle was won. Barclays are able to dominate the area because their clear thinking brought us ‘Hole in the wall’ which cleared up that ATM/ Cash Machine confusion which swept the country a few years ago. We noticed that the opening hours at the bank in St. Agnes were 10am till 2pm. There’s a nice, relaxed working day. We stopped by a tea room and enjoyed the conversation of our septuagenarian neighbours. The tea room was open from 12 till 2pm. I’d love to work those hours. When we return from our three day break to our rented spare room and await the completion of our house I’ll work on my dude-like qualities. PARTY ON.

Of Mice and Men

I visited the for the first time in well over a week today. I really have underestimated how much work this is for Marianna. I mean no great disrespect to our building team but most of them are remarkably disorganised and persistently lacking in common sense. The plasterers are the exception and are a brilliant team of three and seem very efficient. They keep Marianna informed of what they’re doing and how they intend to go about it and make sure they understand her wishes before going ahead. Their work has certainly transformed the house and it looks increasingly finished. We had a lengthy discussion with Max who wants the radiators fitted so that the heating can be switched on which will help the plaster dry. Then he wants to work from the top floor down adding skirting, architraves and doors. He’s eager to get it all finished.


Then we had a major row with John the plumbing partner of Pete the Plumber. There’s more than a slight hint of a George and Lennie element to their partnership and it’s much easier to deal with Pete. They’re not so much ‘& Son’ as ‘& Dad’. John had noticed that the shower we bought for the top floor will deposit the water slightly outside of the tray and yet had begun fitting it. We questioned why on earth he would begin to do so rather than call us. It wasn’t his job he told us. We bought it and he was there to fit it. We discussed swapping the second floor shower fittings with the first floor shower but unfortunately the pipes for these were different and were hidden by plaster and tiles. Taking the shower back to the suppliers may seem an obvious solution but Dave had opened the box and spread it out flat like a beach towel to kneel on. Somehow he had also managed to scratch part of the shower. Marianna also noticed marks on a sink and a toilet he had fitted. John doesn’t do discussion or negotiation or acceptance of responsibility but seems to do stropping and then walking out. The damage on the basin and toilet wasn’t his responsibility. They were ours. They weren’t marked when they were delivered we said. But that still wasn’t his responsibility; “I’m not like you, I don’t go over things with a fine toothed comb when I buy them”. Mmm, and that’s why it isn’t ‘& Son’ mate. So I rang Pete who is a sweet and lovely man. He said that if toilets and basins were damaged they’d be replaced. If the shower was damaged he’d try to use it with another customer for us. And if we wanted to remove the tiles and plaster and swap the two showers we could. But obviously we won’t, we’ll buy a shower that fits the tray.

There has also been some drama with the bi-fold doors which were fitted two weeks ago. The fitters were due to arrive at eight. They didn’t arrive and didn’t make contact until 10.40 when they said they wouldn’t be able to make it that day but would come the next. Marianna met with them in the morning, gave them her number and asked that they would call when they thought they were half an hour from finishing so she could go to the house from work for an inspection and instruction on how they opened, closed and locked. When she returned at 4.20 they had gone. We now have a bent set of keys, damaged by one of the builders because, it turns out, once you’ve unlocked the door you have to remove the keys before trying to open the doors. We’ve also noticed thirty two different marks, scratches and blemishes on them. Perhaps that’s why they didn’t hang around at the end of their day. We’ve only paid 50% of the cost at present. That may be all we end up paying.

On a similar subject of daftness after the Velux windows were fitted the roofers passed tiles and equipment through them when they were still working on the roof. So the white frames of the windows have some nice marks and scratches.

These are the frustrations that Marianna is experiencing on a daily basis and she’s really tiring of how dismissive a lot of Max’s team can be. She tells them how she would like something done, they laugh and say it’s not possible and she has to produce the magazine or brochure where she saw that design or idea. It’s true that she thinks almost every word used in this country is derived from the Greek language and that the ancient Greeks invented everything worthwhile except for Wii and those cushioned trays that help you eat and watch tv but she’d hadn’t previously believed herself to be a huge intellect. And yet our builders are forcing this belief upon her. She walks around the house with the electrician/plumber/carpenter telling them what she wants and where she wants it and returns the next day to find that the wrong type has been fitted or it’s in the wrong place. They always acknowledge the error but make her seem unreasonably fussy when she wants it altered. It’s also unreasonable that she refuses to pay for the alteration. Recently, despite there being pipes coming from the wall, the shape of a radiator drawn on the wall and the word ‘Radiator’ written in the shape the electrician still tried to fit a wall socket there. It just defies belief. It’s like those people who press the button at the pedestrian crossing even though there are already a dozen people standing and waiting for the flashing green man to tell them to cross; “Thank God you came along mate. We’ve all been standing here for hours. It didn’t occur to us to press the button”. What can I say? Some people get to sit on the intellectual carnival float and others, flag in hand, watch it go by.

Goin' Back

Treasure every moment you hear music. I bought three CD’s today; ‘Let There Be Rock’ and ‘Highway to Hell’ by AC/DC and ‘The Best of The Carpenters’. All from the bargain bin in the supermarket. I felt that I deserved a treat after a largely wasted morning. A large percentage of the time that a court appearance is pencilled into my diary it is cancelled before that date arrives or is cancelled when I’m half way there. Often I’ll go to the court, sit and read a novel in the waiting area and then be sent home because I’m surplus to requirements. Occasionally, I get to shine and actually give evidence. Today was a sitting with a novel in the waiting area day. After a two and half hour drive to Lincoln I sat in the waiting area with the lumpen and my John Irving novel and was then called for a five minute consultation with the barristers and solicitors. And then I was sent on my way. I stopped on the outskirts of Lincoln for diesel and it was whilst paying that the CD’s called to me, wanting to be rescued. The cashier eyed my choices and me carefully. She was clearly thinking that an error had occurred and someone who loved the guitar riffs of Angus Young couldn’t possibly love the voice of Karen Carpenter. In the same way that Attitude and FHM magazines don’t appear in the same shopping basket or custard and roast lamb don’t go together. I played my new CD’s on the drive home and sang along joyously to all of them.

I love music. You may know this about me. I own a lot of CD’s but, because of my age, I own an awful lot of records. Those who have been unfortunate enough to live me know I have an anecdote for each one, perhaps about the band or where I bought the particular LP or the weather on the day I bought it. For your own safety, don’t get trapped in a room with me when I’m playing records. If I know you particularly well I may tell you how I went into Andy’s records in Kings Lynn in 1985 and asked for the twelve inch version of ‘Bring it Down’ by The Foreskins when it was actually a recording by The Redskins I was hoping to purchase that day. I was thirty nine when I got over the humiliation. My record and CD collection is varied. There’s a lot of Beatles and ex-Beatles, pop, metal, Bach, Rockabilly, Nat King Cole, Country, AC/DC, Musicals and even 50Cent. It is possible to appreciate the beauty in all of these. I like to discover new artists and re-discover old ones; perhaps those whose music I didn’t buy at the time but heard coming through the wall from my brothers’ bedroom in my childhood. I didn’t buy a CD player until 1993 and throughout the 90’s still bought vinyl records as much as I bought CD’s. I was often buying those my brothers had bought a decade or so previously but were no longer available to me since we were no longer in the same house. I liked to go into what I called ‘the sad record shop’ in Kings Lynn and flick through the records. And occasionally buy one or two.

I don’t believe in ‘Guilty Pleasures’, the idea that we should be embarrassed by some of our likes and preferences, that there might be some items in our CD/record collection which we would wish to hide and others we may wish to boast about. It’s a nonsense to rave about the Black Eyed Peas CD you bought last week to a visiting friend, hoping they don’t notice you have the entire Steps back catalogue. It might impress you to know that the first single I bought was ‘Oliver’s Army’ by Elvis Costello. You may be less impressed to know that my second purchase was ‘Honey I’m Lost’ by The Dooley’s (the Steps of their day). There is nothing within the nature of either that makes one better than the other. It’s all a matter of personal taste. I worry about the future of such variety given the cynicism of The X-Factor. Some do believe in that elitism. A few years ago I sold a few LP’s and singles that I rarely played. The man who bought them from me was happy to mock me for ever buying ‘Reg Strikes Back’ by Elton John but was overjoyed at the opportunity to buy my copy of ‘Have Twangy Guitar Will Travel’ by Duane Eddy. However, I’d only played the Duane Eddy once whereas, although I was happy to part with it then, Elton John had been played many times when first purchased.
Music can take you somewhere. It may be in the emotions the voice evokes, it might be the words, the arrangements, the chord choices and progressions or it might be what you know of the story behind the lyrics, who the songwriter had in mind when writing. It might remind you of something and open a door to the past. In my early twenties, when I had my own little house, I was in the habit of drifting off to sleep listening to Radio 1 (I got off that bus a long while ago). As I was drifting somewhere between consciousness and sleep one night a song was played on the radio that suddenly took me to the front room of the home my family lived in until I was 5 and ¾‘s. I would have struggled to describe that room if you’d asked me to but the chords and lyrics of this song took me there. As the song played I could see the room and I could feel the simplicity of life when I was that young. I knew the song must have been by one of the artists whose records my mum loved to play; Crystal Gayle, Johnny Mathis, The Carpenters etc. The next day I called my brother and sang/mumbled the song to him and he identified it as ‘Wichita Lineman’ by Glen Campbell. Of course, I bought a Glen Campbell LP as soon as I could. It felt like a connection to the past. It’s for that same reason that I bought The Carpenters today. Great music and a door into the past.

When I was young the radio played just for me. It saved me.

Ooh, new shoes Jeremy?

I don’t know why getting a haircut isn’t a more simple process. Take, for instance, ordering a sandwich at Subway. If you order a veggie patty on Honey Oat and then indicate that you want some lettuce, tomato, cucumber and a squirt of Mayo. You will almost definitely get a veggie patty on Honey Oat with lettuce, tomato, cucumber and Mayo. Also, if you are at the train station and buy a ticket to Barnsley you will almost definitely have a small piece of card that gives you the opportunity to travel as far as Barnsley provided you’re bright enough to get on the right train. However, for many years I have sat in the hairdresser’s/barber’s chair described exactly the same haircut/style and left each time with a completely different style (none of which have ever pleased me). So, when I sat in the chair on Saturday morning and the architect of disappointment asked “What are we doing with you today?” I wanted to say “Humiliating and disappointing me?” since that’s the way it normally works out. Alternatively, I could have said, “Just like this, only with five weeks less hair, since that’s when you last did it”. One thing was for sure, I didn’t want it like his. Red and spiky this time, blonde and floppy last time. Last time he didn’t cut it as I wanted but there I was again. My thinking of late is that I’ll make appointments and go to the same place regularly to avoid the occasional hair disaster that comes from going in anyoldplace in anyoldtown when I’m working and find myself with some time to kill. The main problem I have is that whatever is done to my hair I’ll say “That’s great, thanks”, probably leave a tip and certainly make another appointment. All this may make me sound like I’m overly fussy. I’m not. I’m largely indifferent to how my hair looks. Perhaps it’s just frustrations associated with the “I’d like this” – “I’ll be giving you something completely different” interaction and that I feel something better should come out of staring at myself in the mirror for twenty minutes whilst making chitchat with the young man disappointing me. This was our third meeting and I know all I could want to about him. I’ve assessed and formulated him and even offered some therapy.

This excitement came at the end of a week working away from home which had been intense and draining. It’s a way of maximising profits and my time. Rather than drive one hundred miles up the motorway and doing it again, largely in a similar direction, a few days later I’ll stay over in cheap hotels and squeeze in as many clients and assessments as I can. In the evenings I can begin to type up the person I’ve seen that day. By the end of the week they’ve all merged into one seriously messed up, dangerous person. Since this is work I end up in the type of hotel that only gives you the terrestrial tv channels rather than dozens of satellite ones and gives you a complimentary bar of soap the thickness of a postage stamp rather than some complimentary bottles of shower gel. I can’t pretend it was all work though since I got stood up twice. This can be very frustrating but is worse for the client since judges tend to frown on failure to attend for psychological assessment.

Since this left me with several hours to kill until the next appointment or the time when I could check into the hotel I went to the cinema. I’m sure I could have shopped, gone to a museum or sat in my car and read a book but once the solicitor and I had realised their client had committed a major error I was out searching for the town’s cinema. I had little choice but to watch the next film starting. On Thursday this policy yielded ‘The Town’ which I loved, although it was about criminals and psychopaths doing dreadful things to nice people so was just like work. Since I was wearing my suit and carrying a briefcase I felt obliged to explain to the girl who sold me my ticket that I’d been stood up by a client and was killing time in case she thought I was one of those wears-a-suit-to-the-cinema-in-the-daytime-perverts. The next day when I was stood up the next film showing after my arrival was ‘The Other Guys’. It was a dog of a film and howled from beginning to end. Again, I explained to the girl who sold the ticket what I was doing. She probably thought I was one of those weirdly-tells-me-his-life-story-like-I-give-a-shit-perverts. I returned to Vikki’s late Friday evening.

On Saturday morning Marianna and I went to in-toto to finalise the kitchen design and requirements. Somehow Marianna had negotiated the supermodel kitchen at an Airfix model price she’s wanted for the last few months. Then there was a visit to the house so I could review the week’s work. Of course there was post there. We haven’t had a door or letter box for months and there’s been a redirection to a PO Box in place and yet at least once a week the postman will hand post to a builder or rest it next to a newly built wall. We ring and complain but they’re completely indifferent to this.

Then I went to the hairdresser’s; “What are we doing with you today?”

The Oath

I visited the house for the first time in eight days yesterday. Things are really moving forward. There is an extension that is joined to the rest of the house, there are new windows everywhere (although we did ask for frosting in the bathroom), velux windows are in, sun pipes fitted, the electrician is ripping out all of the old wiring and starting to rewire, the plasterer has done a Tyrolian finish on the outside of the house and so much more. Marianna visits at least once a day because she is the project manager, as well as all the other things she has to do, and meets with the electrician, decorator, plasterer and Max regularly. There have been a few recurring themes. One is Max having forgotten about various things we originally told him we wanted doing as part of the refurbishment. Marianna will go to the house and ask him about something like the plastering or altering the skirting and architraves and he responds as if it’s never been mentioned before. She gives me the impression that he’ll only approach her with a whip and a chair and thinks she’s troublesome but when I’ve met him I think it’s more that he thinks men in white coats should be chasing her with a butterfly net. I guess the average customer just accepts the light switch, radiator or whatever that is offered but Marianna has done her homework. She’s had a little falling out with Dave the plumber. Or Max has. Almost two months ago Dave insisted that we buy all of the showers, toilets, baths and sinks and then he had them all delivered. They’ve been in the rear bedroom all this time with window fitters and electricians having to work around them. As Marianna points out the money could have stayed in the bank all this time too. The other recurring theme is Martin and Anne completely blanking her.
I don’t visit so often. I’m more inclined to let them get on with it, if I visited Max would talk me into agreeing to anything and also I feel that I look quite out of place on a building site, regardless of what I’m wearing. Imagine you’re at Glastonbury. I don’t look like someone ready to go wild at a festival, more like someone in a corduroy jacket who’s left a Volvo nearby with the hazards on and is there to collect someone. Also, I’ve been on a report writing marathon (five in the last seven days). I’ve pretty much been asleep at the wheel of my own life. Marianna pops her head over the laptop screen periodically and asks ‘wood or aluminium’, ‘red or white’ or shows me a catalogue where she’s a narrowed a choice of 300 down to two and I give an opinion. She has noticed that my entire brain capacity is focused on work so if she asked the same questions the next day she’d get different answers.
Apart from writing the reports occasionally I have to go to court or parole boards and convince people of how right I was when I wrote the report. It was far from a highlight but I had a trip to Milton Keynes last Tuesday to give evidence in Court. It’s never my favourite thing but it was okay this time. It’s all a game, an opportunity for barristers to use you as the vessel through which they present their case; “You would agree, Mr Bodger, would you not that my client……blah blaaah blaaaaaah”. On Tuesday my policy was just to keep requesting that the defence barrister actually ask me a question rather than just making statements and letting him know that when he did I’d happily answer it. His first questions were about my professional qualifications and experience which gave away the fact that he had nothing better to hit me with. The only problem was that after the examination and cross examination, second and third goes and a couple of questions from the judge I’d been standing in the witness box for almost two hours. I don’t know if it’s just me but increasingly two hours standing is like five minutes kneeling; when I have to move my legs again I feel as if I’m about 63 feet tall and using someone else’s legs. The challenge is just to get back out of the court room without wobbling, staggering or having to hold onto something.

Under Ether

It feels like there isn’t much to report and little has happened but that isn’t really the case. It’s just that since we aren’t living in the house I feel particularly detached from it all and more than slightly disinterested. Lots has happened; Pete has lifted the floorboards and removed all of the existing pipes for the central heating, removed the heatless radiators, removed the baths, sinks and all but one toilet and laid new pipes beneath the boards and got to a point where he was up to date and several weeks ahead of everyone else; the dormer roof on the second floor was removed, rebuilt and new windows installed; the porch that housed our lovely sliding door entrance was knocked down and a temporary chipboard door was erected just inside the hallway and then a new (bigger than it should have been) hole for the door was built; the scaffolding was erected and hovered above Martin’s roof and the left hand side of the extension was built; then the framework for the roof was built. There were times when Marianna visited that there might be as many as ten men working on different aspects of the re-build. She’s gone there much more often than me, having the luxury of the car and a more inquisitive nature. I was there last week when Max and Matthew discovered that a support beam couldn’t be positioned as Malcolm, the architect, had directed. As a psychologist I felt that I had no part to play in the discussion but Marianna joined in. I’m not sure how her boys view her but all indications are that it is with great affection. When we visited last Friday she went to talk to Tom, the bricklayer, and I stood back and looked at the house to do some sighing and frowning when Max appeared alongside me. “Hello, Patrick. How are you?” and then “Oh, you’ve not come alone” when he spotted her. I’m pretty sure it was a joke. I would guess most customers are less actively interested and involved and gregarious than her and don’t always visit with a list of queries. There have been many discussions centred around the slow realisation that we aren’t building what Malcolm designed, just something fairly similar to it. I recall him spending a several hours measuring the house but it seems that often he’s miscalculated and so the pitches of three roofs have changed and so has the ceiling height in the kitchen.

If I have previously reported that we were stressed in these notes then I was wrong. That wasn’t stress, this is. Who knows what I’ll type in a months time. We stagger around like a couple of boxers in the final round; arms down, no defence, just taking punches. Marianna has become overwhelmed with the pressure of sourcing kitchens, doors, baths and showers etc etc. If it were me I would just visit the local shop and choose one of the three whatevers that they had in stock but she wants to go beyond the local shops to other towns, cities and counties. And the internet. And Ebay. It seems that the choices this presents are overwhelming her. That and cost constraints push her ever onwards in search of Rolls Royce quality at Ford Escort prices and make her indecisive. She has other sources of stress too as well as studying for a Phd. I’m mostly worrying about the expense of the project and, since discoveries made along the way have expanded the budget, trying to earn at the same pace as we spend. Last Friday morning, just before we were going to visit the storage and then the house, I discovered that a firm of solicitors have gone bust owing me a very considerable sum of money. Working so many hours at something you dislike is bad enough but doing it for free is quite intolerable. We were having a little wallow in our collective misery on the way to Montague Storage. After collecting some things from the storage unit we got into the car and Marianna reversed out of the space which brought us behind another car. I noticed their reversing lights come on and while Marianna changed gear to move us forward I leaned over and sounded the horn. And again. And with more force. But still the car came back and hit us. I took a deep breath and undid my seatbelt. Marianna gave me a look that might have said “Stay calm” or “Don’t leave any visible bruising”. The driver of the other car got out saying “Sorry. My fault, my fault. I heard the horn but looked to the left and the right and couldn’t see where it was coming from”. I couldn’t not say “You were going backwards. Why the fuck didn’t you look behind you?”. He announced that he was an insurance engineer; someone who inspects the damage done to cars after accidents. That must explain why he was so casual about reversing into our car, exchanging details and buggering off. We could only laugh.

The builders have discovered a few more of Basil’s things; hair dye, postcard from Swanage, a box of ‘Bailey’s The Furniture People’ matches and a book issued in November 1944 to Basil and his fellow soldiers telling them about the German people and how to interact with them as they entered the country.