The nature of disability

Who knows what errands we were running yesterday but during them it occurred to us that we could call in on The Door Store which had been closed on two previous attempted visits. I was humbled by Paul, the owner of the store. He was in an electric wheelchair, clearly unable to use his legs, and his right arm and his left arm from the elbow down. And yet, singlehandedly, he was running his own business. He had what I can only describe as a prodder attached to his arm. It ran along his forearm and emerged near his fingers and, since he had movement in the top part of his arm, he was able to stab at his computer keyboard or his telephone. There was a plastic loop on the top of the telephone handset so he was able to hook it with his prodder and lift it to his ear. The Door Store sells doors and kitchens and windows and Paul couldn’t have been more helpful and outlined how if we had any ideas or designs that we couldn’t find in his catalogues then his carpenter would make them for us. I think this man should be the standard against which those applying for DLA should be compared.

As we left we spotted Nigel Heron’s kitchen and bathroom design store which was previously unknown to me. It remained unknown to me for most of the time we were in there. I have, and always have had, a bit of an issue with my hearing but only had it tested and confirmed a couple of years ago. The man who tested me said that most eighty year olds would be disappointed to have hearing as poor as mine. I was touched. Well, to be honest I was a little distressed. I’d always known I missed large amounts of conversations in certain situations but, since these are the only ears I’ve ever used, I didn’t know truly how poor my hearing was. After testing my hearing the man gave me a hearing aid smaller than a five pence piece that actually sat behind my ear with a little wire going into my ear. The difference was miraculous. Then he told me it would cost me £2500 to buy one for each ear and then there was a maintenance charge plus new batteries. You can guess what I said. It’s not that I’m deaf it’s that I have a very limited range and so struggle to pick out certain sounds when there’s a lot going on. In a pub there’s so much background noise that I’ve no chance of hearing what anyone says however close to me they might be. It takes so much concentration to follow what is being said I’ve no chance of actually joining in. It also confuses people, I think, that I have to give them ear contact rather than eye contact. Certain, strange, things might be in my range though. Last year we went to see a comedian and I could often hear a couple whispering to each other fifty metres away above the performer and his amplified voice. It was driving me nuts but no one else could hear them. I also have tinnitus. I didn’t know I had it for years. This is the only head I’ve ever been inside and I’d never chosen to discuss the constant whistling with anyone else. If I had they would have said ‘What whistling?’. I love music but possibly part of my need to always want some playing is that the whistling disappears. Anyway, in Nigel Heron’s store we had the combination of a quietly spoken assistant, background music and, with the door open, traffic noise. I didn’t have a chance. It may be that he’s the only actual designer we’ve met thus far. He seemed to have ideas of his own and said that kitchen units could be made to suite our precise requirements. We didn’t stay long but left with a forest’s worth of catalogues.

Every Little Helps

Didn’t the public house used to be centre of the local community? What is it now? Is it Tesco Express? When we first moved here there was a pub about a fifth of a mile up the road which, I think, closed a week or so later. Their picnic style tables and chairs were left outside after it had closed and Marianna and I gave a lot of thought to carrying one of them home. Then there was rumour that Tesco wanted to knock the pub down and build a lovely mini Tesco. Some minor protests from local businesses followed. The local planning department, who I have some experience of, tried to outwit Tesco by insisting that whatever happened on that land had to be done within the existing building, which looked an awful lot like a pub. So, Tesco very cleverly adapted the existing building and now it looks just like a Tesco Express. The problem with this is that within a few hundred yards of this new store are several mini-marts, a butcher’s, baker’s, off-licence and numerous other independents who were desperate for Tesco to fail in their bid to move into the area. How will their businesses survive? The store opened a couple of months ago and initially I did my best to boycott it and continue to buy milk from the little general store I’ve been going into for the past year. I still do but have been into Tesco once or twice. I’m weak. What can I say? My point is just that I went into my usual store yesterday morning for milk and the store was a little empty. I’m not sure if there were less customers, less stock on the shelves or if it was the smile and hello from the shopkeeper that was a little emptier. That’s all. I’ve nothing against Tesco and the opportunity to find food, washing machines, weight lifting equipment, children’s toys and DVD’s all under one roof and I don’t mind the way they’ve subtly taken over the entire country. But with these stores in the suburbs there’s a more personal, bullying element to their presence. That’s all.

Bang goes the Nobel Peace Prize

Did you call? Were you looking for me? It’s possible that I was in a kitchen or bathroom showroom. Last weekend we spent several hours in The Bathroom Store while bathrooms were designed from our plans and then we went to the bathroom section of Miles of Tiles and then BPS. I liked the selection of each store more than the previous one. Then Marianna pointed out that each store was more expensive than the previous one. Yesterday, we visited Magnet, Wickes and B&Q. Having spent an hour with her last Saturday yesterday we spent a further three hours with Liz. Yes, you read correctly, that’s three hours. My patience was wearing thinner than Sarah Ferguson’s excuses. The eventual price of the kitchen Liz designed was double the price I had in mind. I already knew we were heading there when Marianna told a little anecdote an hour earlier about an ex-display kitchen she’d seen at an exhibition and its extortionate price tag. Liz’s failure to express shock told me she thought it was a reasonable price and I was in trouble. I should point out that Liz didn’t really design the kitchen since all of the ideas were ours. She just knows how to use the computer designing programme but it was her that suggested the dozens of cupboards and drawers that ended up in it. Why do we need all of these when everything required to keep me satiated currently is in a four drawer filing cabinet? We came away with very little since until we pay a deposit we aren’t allowed to have a copy of the design. Giving a fine performance of imbecility Marianna asked Liz many questions and furiously made a note of all of the units and their dimensions and made a sketch. Liz’s face was a mass of indecision, watching the rules being bent but clearly unable to protest.

I was thoroughly fed up by the time we left. I know it sounds awful but I was really tiring of all of the chit chat and niceties. I don’t go to these places to make friends. I just want some nice, functional stuff to put in our house. I recently assessed a bank robber who has gained some little fame. Prior to robbery he had been involved in fraud. He found that he tired of all of the effort it took to con someone out of their money and it was much easier to just go into a bank with a big gun and a smattering of friends. I empathise.

Then we went into Moben to ask what had become of Danny since we’d heard nothing from him. A woman who seemed to have some sort of early onset dementia began looking through the diary to see when he met with us. I kept saying it was the 16th but she kept looking at different dates. She finally found our details on the 16th of May. She said someone would call us. Fifteen minutes later I got a phone call from the area/national/global chief of Moben kitchen designers. Danny had told them that he made a design for us and gave us a quote but we weren’t interested. Of course he did, he wanted to steal us to keep for himself but then didn’t bother for some reason. The global chief was very apologetic and said this was not the way they expect their designers to behave. As well as being global chief she was also a designer and if we sent her our plans she would do our design herself.

Then we drove to Coventry to Wickes. We wandered around their displays but the staff seemed indifferent to us and were busy chatting amongst themselves. The female staff, additionally, seemed to be holding an informal ‘Who can expose the most cleavage?’ competition. I didn’t know if I should announce a winner or just leave them all to it but Marianna gained the attention of Rachel and her tongue-piercing-induced-speech-impediment. She took our details and handed us over to Mark who I found instantly annoying. He conducted himself like a consultant neurologist about to save my life instead of someone about to arrange a cooker and some cabinets. His quick estimate was a quarter of the Magnet price. We made an appointment for 12th June so he could make a design and I could become irritable.

Then we went to B&Q. The quality of their kitchens seemed somewhat suspect when we went in and made the appointment last week. We spent two and half hours with Monica going through the same things we had with Liz. Even though we gave her the design it was the ‘what sort of …’ that took time. Their price was very close to the figure I’ve had in mind. So, we could go with B&Q but our best bet seems to bewww.usedkitchens.com and similar sites selling ex-display kitchens at a fraction of their real cost. The scratches and finger prints are free. We’d then have to find a clever carpenter/kitchen fitter to fit our bargain square peg ex-display kitchen units into our round hole kitchen.

Also, Martin has bought a new car. It’s a whole year newer than his old one. He now has three cars in his driveway, one of which has a For Sale sign on it. In our weaker moments we suspect he’s done this to fill the driveway so there isn’t room for scaffolding.

Kitchens & Caravans

I feel I should make it clear that we don’t have anything you would recognise as a kitchen in this house and never have had. Most of our utensils have never been unpacked, we don’t have an oven and all of our food and crockery is in a filing cabinet I used to use for work related papers. Over the past year we’ve eaten a lot of salads. So, with regards to the kitchen in the new version of this house we will be starting from scratch. It’s time that we had a plan for the kitchen so that Max’s team know where pipes and wires should emerge. It’s highly likely that that’s all they will do for some time because we’ll probably have run out of money by the time they leave and we’ll move back into a new version of the house that still doesn’t have a kitchen. We’ve wandered around the showrooms over recent months but it’s time to be more focused. There was no point in going to Mark Wilkinson’s showroom since their ex-display kitchens are around £29000 so we called into Moben and Magnet in Leamington. In Magnet yesterday we briefly spoke to Liz, who was wearing so much makeup it must have been years since her skin saw daylight, and made an appointment with her for next weekend.

In Moben we were able to get an appointment with the kitchen designer for this afternoon. Danny joined us a couple of hours ago loaded down with samples. When did kitchen designer become a proper job? Isn’t it like calling yourself a hair comber? Surely people can manage these tasks for themselves. When did people become unable to arrange a couple of cupboards, some drawers, a sink and an oven in a reasonable way? It’s not the Rubic’s cube. There can’t be millions of combinations. Is this a complex task? Well, apparently it is because he didn’t do any actual designing but took notes on our tastes and requirements. Marianna went through her collection of magazine cuttings which, apparently, is a mood board. My mood board would just be a blackboard with “IRRITABLE” chalked on it or a picture of the face of a cat getting out of a bath. Danny gave himself away quite early on by saying that he was an independent designer subcontracting for Moben and we didn’t have to use them to supply the kitchen. They clearly don’t know this is his strategy. He also said that cash payments would keep some costs down. I realised that his early enquiry about what we did for a living wasn’t about what we did but what we didn’t do, like work for the Inland Revenue.

I had a good look at him since I wouldn’t be required to comment until someone was asking me to choose between option A and B or wanting a cheque. He didn’t look like any sort of designer. I expect them to better turned out. I noticed how dirty his fingernails were, that he gave off an odour that was a curious mixture of tobacco and plasticine, that he was overweight but only from the hipbone up and that his shirt was unironed. It looked like he’d chosen it, not from the wardrobe, but from the bottom of the laundry basket. Perhaps it had been washed without detergent or he’d merely photographed the shirt and washed the photograph. It wasn’t really that it was dirty, just crumpled. Much like his face. The lines and bags beneath his eyes were a like roadmap leading you to a town called Debauchery. He was slightly camp but not in the same way that David Cameron is slightly oily (not so much a man, more a shiver looking for a spine to run up) but, and forgive the generalisation, his appearance would have been neater if he’d been gay so I wondered, given the sizeable wedding ring, if the campness was an affectation. Perhaps, like a doorman being macho or an English footballer being illiterate Kitchen designers have to be camp. Perhaps he was intentionally channelling Laurence Llewellyn Bowen when at work.

The discussion moved through colours, styles, cookers and hobs and reached extractor fans. Marianna’s attendance at exhibitions and consumption of magazines have helped her conclude that she wants a very expensive extractor fan that looks more like a chandelier than what it actually is. She told Danny, with regard to this, “I want a statement piece”. “Is the statement ‘I have more money than I know what to do with’?” I asked, clearly amusing only myself since the two of them united in giving me an old fashioned look. I’d declared how uncultured I was. Possibly until that point he thought I was the host or co-host of this party. But no, there I was with a glass of wine in one hand and a vaul-au-vent in the other, a definite guest. I don’t want to sound like something out of the ark but I recall when the main two things you needed in life cost the same amount. A 7” single = 65p. A cinema ticket = 65p. That’s my bench mark. The phrase most likely to fill my head in shops, regardless of what I’m buying, is “HOW MUCH!?!” and wanting to say “No no, my good man I wanted to purchase this single item not your shop and all of its stock”.

Danny left us promising to email some designs by Friday.

Max and his team should be starting within the month, possibly as early as the 24th, so we need to find somewhere else to live. We will need to embrace a new Kerouac existence. We have a few options; rent a house, rent a room in a shared house (I'm much too unsociable), rent student accommodation(you get a cleaner!), rent a static caravan on a holiday park or stay with friends for a few days at a time in the hope they don’t notice we’re homeless. I’m certainly not keen on student accommodation since this would be in Coventry and I have an allergy to Coventry. I’m also not keen on holiday parks since they’re out in the countryside. As much as I love to be in the middle of nowhere it would make getting to the train station and the gym (my only non-work activity) difficult. Marianna’s best idea is that we could buy a caravan or camper van. The logic being that rental money is lost whereas if we buy something we can live in it for a few months and then sell it when the house is finished at a minimal loss. I’ve never been in a caravan and never been on a caravanning holiday. I didn’t know it was something people did by choice. I thought it might be part of community service. And where would we park it? We’ve been living like squatters so a caravan must be the next step. What’s next? A park bench? Selling The Big Issue?

Signature

In my own mind, and there alone, apart from the world weariness and that my new spectacles are a little more Eric Morecambe than they appeared in the shop I was looking very catwalkesque in the finest tailoring M&S offer yesterday morning. Lately, I mostly exist in one of two states; late or tired. At that time I was both. My mind was busily wondering how it was that I was getting in the car fifteen minutes later than I’d planned to when Martin appeared. Unlike me he was sporting the fashion of a geography teacher in a rural comprehensive. When late and tired my social skills may not be all they could be. I think he’d begun talking before I’d registered that he was there. He was offering me an envelope which I assumed contained the party wall agreement. He was mid-sentence when I said “Is it signed?”. “I’ve put a little note in to clarify a few points. It may seem that we’re being a bit over particular about things but..”. “but you’ve signed it?”. “Yes”. “Thanks Martin” and I got in the car and headed off to Nottingham (In my mind the sun was temporarily eclipsed by the series of hats I threw in the air). When traffic lights or queuing traffic would allow I reviewed his two page list of conditions dependent upon which he had signed the PWA. He/They wanted more detailed drawings of the guttering, he only wants the scaffolding to be up for four weeks (unlikely), he wants to be able to access his garage at all times (not unreasonable), they want to be able to park on their drive at all times (unlikely), he will “reserve the right to ask for the scaffold to be removed at any time without undue delay” (ask as much as you like, it wont happen), he wants a copy of Max’s insurance and he will be taking photographs throughout the process (fill your boots. I’ll be happy to pose; evening wear, swimwear, topless). We’re living in a house that is one good sneeze away from total collapse and these are his worries. He clearly thinks we’ll turn the place into Guantanamo Bay and they’ll be prisoners in their home, surrounding by scaffolding and builders backsides peering through their windows and I don’t want to be the cause of their anxieties but I’ve run out of reasonableness. It is no longer my default state. Marianna wasn’t happy with the list of demands and thought we should go next door for more negotiations. I think not and while it’s tempting to shove his gutter so far up his arse he wears it as a nose ring I think we’ll do nothing at all. The thing is that it’s signed and that gives us carte blanche (this is not a Sara Lee dessert).

Wotashit

Martin rang my mobile at 8.15 this morning. I didn’t recognise the number and was busy so ignored the ringing. He left a message saying that after discussing it with Anne they didn’t want us to scaffold over or on their property. My heart sank and my temper rose quite considerably. At 9.15 Max and Jamie, the scaffolder, visited and looked at our house and Martin's. He explained how the scaffolding would sit in front of Martin’s garage and on his patio and not touch anything in between. As they arrived Marianna saw Anne come out of their back door and squat down on the other side of the fence supposedly weeding. My life has become a BBC sitcom. Not a proper, funny one but the sort that’ll be on at 7.30 on a Wednesday. I didn’t mention Martin’s phone message to Max and Jamie. My ‘Bay of Pigs’ strategy is that we’ll give him the letters and sketches and see if he’ll honour his handshake. What we do if he doesn’t I don’t know. Call on the party wall specialist? Go back to the absolute beginning of all of this and have a single storey extension? Live in it as it is? Now even Marianna, team leader and cheer leader of the project, has said that if we could get the same price we paid for the house she’d walk away.

It’s just a casual enquiry but I’m looking for people. The word ‘army’ or ‘revolutionary force’ or ‘hit squad’ may be going too far but if you know anyone or, you yourself, own a weapon, are able to break bones or have experience of kidnapping people and seeing this through to the delivery of a ransom or signature on a form then get in touch.

A Foul and Pestilent Congregation of Vapours

I didn’t imagine that Marianna was responsible. I couldn’t really picture her sitting by an open kitchen cupboard picking the label off a bottle of bleach but I thought it best to ask. So, when she had returned from spending Easter in Greece I opened the kitchen cupboard door and showed her the bottle of Bleach and asked if she was aware of it and could explain why it was now surrounded by it’s own shredded label. A visit from something verminous was the only conclusion and the purchase of a rat and mouse trap was the only solution.

On Saturday afternoon she spotted that Martin was performing some task at the front of his house so we went outside to see what he thought of Malcolm’s latest sketches. We had to go through some boring bullshit chit chat, mostly about our car and that he’d spotted the two hire cars during the week, before the subject of the gutter could be brought up. He said he’d been investigating different types of guttering at local suppliers and had made some detailed drawings of his own. He wanted us to get it right because Anne was having sleepless nights about the change in the guttering making their walls damp. I felt a little guilty that we’re causing them distress but equally I wanted to scream “Sign the fucking form” or suggest that it might be the stick up Anne’s arse that was keeping her awake. He wanted more time to research types of guttering but Marianna pointed out that it is only him and the lack of signature on the party wall agreement that is stopping us from starting work and he had two months to reply to our letter and that had now expired.

He called at 10.14 this morning. His drawings were very detailed and noticeably better than Malcolm’s sketches. His concern for the most extreme circumstances, such as several months worth of rain falling in several hours meant that he wanted an extra deep gutter. Why is he so concerned? It’s obvious to me that without a gutter water will come off his roof and straight onto our property. While he spoke and produced another Boy Scout drawing I looked around me at the house and the garden. It was like the Somme only with a greater negative impact on human life. It’s a wonder looking at the state of it all didn’t stop him in his tracks and shut him up. I was doing a sort of ‘thousand mile stare’ and calculating that if we’re meant to have 8 hours sleep each night in my last allocated 32 I’d been awake for twenty of them. I wanted to scream “Sign the fucking form”.
I don’t want to moan. I have no right to moan. I have a good life. But…..I’ve become very tired. These notes usually detail what has happened to us and our house and I throw in a smattering of jokes. Writing them is a nice distraction from work and the less pleasant end of the continuum of the human race I deal with and the reality of the house. But I’ve run out of jokes. I’m working ridiculous hours. Taking on huge amounts of work seems unavoidable and the only way to cover the expense that will soon be upon us. I’m constantly within minutes of or actually failing to meet deadlines and I hate that. I’ll soon be afraid to answer the phone. That’s not true, I’m already there. My strategy for making my deadlines over the past week or so has been working when I should be sleeping. It’s amazing how little sleep you can survive on and keep functioning but it’s not good for your mood or optimism. I notice that it also impacts on your bladder and bowel but you probably don’t want to know that. It feels like I’m bailing out a water filled boat with a colander. It isn’t as if I work on the checkout at Tescos though and being exhausted doesn’t matter. I’m not driving a bus full of school children but I am making decisions about someone going to prison or not, being released or not, how likely it is that this person will rape or kill someone.
I have of late, but wherefore I know not, lost all my mirth, forgone all custom of exercises; and indeed, it goes so heavily with my disposition that this goodly frame, the earth, seems to me a sterile promontory.