Genes - 23rd May

Since, uniquely, I didn't have any work i began tackling the garden on Tuesday and Wednesday. My strategy was to start at the back door and work outwards. The climbing plant that is suppsed to be wrapped around a pergola is actually in the lean-to and damaging its already delicate construction. So, i removed that and then began to tackle the outdoors. The (unknown) climber is meant to climb but it just hangs and makes it difficult to walk around/under so it was severely cut back and will be trained to climb around the frame in the future. I also gathered the many plantless pots which were randomly scattered and found a roll of cine film in one. No porn. I don't have a projector but it appears to be a cartoon.

Today i prioritised the garden again rather than start proper work. I paid the second-hand lawnmower man, who is half a mile up the road, a visit. He flatteringly said i looked young and fit enough to have a mower that i just pushed. No electricity, no petrol, just raw muscle power. I told him he was deluded and i wanted something with an engine the size of my car at the very least. He had a Mountfield for £100 which seemed a good deal so i nipped home and checked the internet and that model was £329 brand new. Bargain. Only a fool would turn it down but instead this fool went and bought it. Had i bought a new one someone might have helped me put it into the car but instead they watched and commented on how surprisingly roomy the Peugeot 206 is. I clutched at my back and drove home. I lifted it out of the car, left it in the garage and satnav'd my way to Homebase. I use the Satnav constantly. Having only been here two weeks i'd never find anwhere and never find my way home again without it.

There didn't seem to be any rhyme or reason to the organisation of the Homebase store. I wandered looking like a tool looking for a tool and then asked a little woman (employee) who, once she had found the first thing i wanted, i showed my list and she guided me around the store. Even there i need Satnav! So, i headed home with my trowel, loppers, rake etc and then set about mowing the lawn. The grass is long. It waves in the wind like a field of corn. Unsurprisingly, after only mowing three lengths (up, down, up again) the mower died. £100 for 15 minutes. Bargain!

I'm not a practical person. I try but the making, fixing, DIYing gene is not present in this body. So i rang my dad. He'd never encountered the problem i described but said i should try something which i did and it worked. I was Mowbile again. Now, that's a skill. My dad comes from a generation that makes things, fixes things, services his own car, that sort of thing. If he wanted a thingummajig he wouldn't go and buy one he'd buy some parts and make one. Life Coach Michael Neill tells a story about how, when he was a child, his father was able to fix all sorts of things and Michael felt inadequate and believed he'd never be so skilled. Now that he is the age his father was he has the skills dad had and his own son feels inadequate and lacking in skills. That hasn't happened to me. I have the same skill level i had when i was seven only now when DIY goes badly i can swear with a ferocity that is truly impressive.

I'm not truly without any skills though. I saw a client this week who told me he got someone to help him assemble an Ikea coffee table. How difficult could that be?? A top and four legs.

It must be seen to be believed - 19th May 2009

A visit from Marianna's colleagues, Hannah and Mel yesterday. They loved the house. People should visit regulalrly to stop me from just seeing it as a collection of light switches, wall sockets and toilets that don't work. It also clearly needs to be visited since Marianna had obviously described it but it clearly defies belief. Mel seemed to think we could ebay most of the fixtures and fittings.

Visits from architects have been arranged for next week.

Water Bed - 16th May 2009

I was very pleased with myself yesterday evening to have found the problem with the second floor toilet and returned it to working order. Well done me. Perhaps a new career in plumbing awaited me. Then we went to the theatre to see the rather disappointing ‘Dinner Ladies’. When we got home we discovered that the water from the cistern in the recently cured toilet had emptied itself through the floor onto the bed base in the room below. Another gift from Basil's daughters who must have been aware of the problems with it. The water was flowing down from the mirrored ceiling. Wouldn’t want that to be damaged. So, it’s like a hatrick with water flowing from the second floor into the first from the toilet and from the first to the ground floor from the shower. You have to laugh. Although I may not do so for several more years.

Today Marianna sorted out our clothes (in the dining room) and I destroyed the hundreds of shelves and worktops in the garage without unintentionally destroying the garage which I think is held up by the climbing plants that have gone a bit wild around it. We discovered the local council tip and made a couple of trips there with Marianna characteristically wanting to remove things from the skips. So, we have a new, slightly worn chair. This evening we are actually able to sit in the sitting room. And watch the tv. The aerial isn’t working but then neither are most of the lights or wall sockets so let’s not raise our hopes unrealistically.

Old Spice - 15th May 2009

Heavy rain in the night has revealed the religious significance of our garage roof. It’s very holy. We’ll need to change our plans about storing things in there.We’re sleeping in the loft conversion and are slightly disturbed by scratching noises above our heads. We’re hoping it’s birds in the chimney or guttering. Marianna describes the smell of the house as like an old people’s home; Bleach with an undercurrent of urine. Isn't that how they made 'Old Spice'?

Indoor Shower

I returned from the gym this morning to find Marianna making the first use of the shower in the house after over an hours worth of cleaning last night. But when we went downstairs we found that all of the water from the shower was not making its way down the street in a water pipe of some sort but was in the hallway, deeply soaked into the lush carpet. Buying a house neglected for decades seemed amusing a week ago but seems like a money pit at the moment. Still, there's no need to wash ourselves since we haven't located our clothes yet. Legendary former owner, Basil, didn't need clothes though. Perhaps we should embrace that spirit. I'm optimistic that the shower can be used so long as one of us is standing in the hall beneath the shower with a bucket.

It's a curious house; Why are the lights on the floor rather than the ceiling? Why are so many of the bulbs red? Why is the oven in the garage? Why does every cupboard and built-in wardrobe have a light bulb inside when some rooms don’t? Why are there four layers of curtain in the mirrored ceiling bedroom? Why does every shelf or window ledge have a perfectly cut sheet of glass on it? Why don’t the bathrooms have frosted glass? How long will it be before i think all of this is normal?

Of Sentimental Value

The sad thing about buying the house of someone recently deceased is how much of Basil and his personality is evident here. His daughters are clearly lovely people and chose to remove things of monetary value but leave behind anything of sentimental value. The Rolex in the kitchen cupboard doesn't count. Clearly Basil owned a very large furniture store in town. There are plans and designs for the latest of three stores in the garage. There are photographs of the different premises they occupied over the years, as well as designs for the letter heads and business cards. Today we found a box from Basil's time in the second world war containing hundreds of photographs of him and his friends in the regiment moving into Germany, his army pay book, letters from his school, him and his wife, Annie. I'd ask for nothing more than that when i go i'm treated with more respect than his daughters have treated him.

Swinging

Today i met Becky, the neighbour on the shared wall side. We met Martin from the other side before we'd even got the keys. Becky informed me that our house was, indeed, the centre for swinging, free love, wife swapping parties in the town in the sixties and seventies. Not a big surprise given the mirrored walls and ceilings and pink light bulbs. She said 'I'll tell you all about Basil when you've moved in and it's too late to escape back to your old house'. Is that the definition of ominous?

The Virgin Media engineer came on Tuesday. He wasn't the most socially skilled of people and he seemed particularly miserable but cheered up when he saw the carpets and that every toilet has a phone (or vice versa). He only found thirteen phone points. There are third world countries with less. He probably took his lifted mood and went off to give to charity. Or buy porn.