The Gods work in mysterious ways…

I have a lot of things to do and, like everyone else, not much time to do them. I travel at speed but that can be my undoing.

Today it cost me £80.

Luckily that was all.

It was a hectic morning sorting out stuff, the paraphernalia of life builders, painters, plumbers, children, dogs, visitors, piano practise and of course taking the boys to their crash course at the local swimming pool affectionately known as the “Sink or swim” programme. It works, trust me or rather the bods that came up with the idea.

Anyway life being what life is I realise that I am going to be late I am cruising through all the stuff I have to do to the extent that I am not actually thinking. I have passports tickets money as I like to say which in this case meant boys swim things, my blog book and my handbag. I am ready to rock and roll.

I get the boys in the car tout-de-suite, the CD is on and booming, the car revving and I am off in a flurry of gravel with minutes to spare.

Ten yards on I come to a grinding halt with the car nose in the air and I am not going anywhere – fast.

In my mad dash to get where I was meant to be going ten minutes ago I failed to notice that the HozeLock reel was out, the really really expensive one that weighs a ton but winds up the hose in a trice. I have driven straight over it and am now on top of it with both front wheels four inches off the ground. This being a front wheel drive means that I am stuck and I cannot even rock the car off it. God how I hate modern vehicles sometimes!

Luckily the builder, painters, plumbers and gardeners who are here on the final push to finish making my house a home were on hand to physically lift the poor old car off the Hozelock and I was safe to carry on my journey.

Safe in more ways than one. The shock of running over the hose was slightly more profound than I had anticipated. For up until that point I was buzzing, almost high on adrenalin and quite obviously not thinking let alone looking at all. What if it had been one of the dogs? What if it had been one of the builders? Or a child? What if I had gone out and hurt someone.

I was a very chastened driver as I drove sedately down the drive and yes my children were late to their swimming lesson but as they say better late than never….I think the Gods were watching over me.

PS. Was very impressed with Hozelock, I mean the reel did break but by 'eck it took some doing!

Too clever by half...

The Boys are on holiday, I am working and I’ve got the builders in (when do I not have the builders in!), it means I am distracted to say the least. Anyway, sometimes I think I can do it all and I get too clever by half.

This morning I had one of those moments. Working hard and calling people on the telephone, trying to make deadline to actually keep my job requires a lot of juggling especially when I am also trying to manage builders, plumbers, painters, gardeners, and odd job men – please I do nothing by halves at this place – just adds to the frisson of excitement that makes up my usual workaday life. Add to that the vagaries of keeping two little boys amused and you might understand why I might just might get a tad confused.

I had been trying to keep the boys entertained without resorting to the TV as that would make me a “Bad Mommy” and we all have standards/guilt to accommodate, I was failing. So I sent them outside. For a while there was blissful silence but then I heard squeaking and name calling and “I’m going to tell on you!” right in the middle of an interview which I was trying to listen to with a semblance of professionalism, so I closed my office door effectively blocking out my boys. I heard them stomp upstairs, huff outside my door and retreat. I did not hear them go back downstairs. There were more squeaks and squeals emanating at intervals during the interview so after it had finished I went off in search of the trouble makers. I stalked down the corridor, there was an ominous silence. I heard scuffling in the upstairs bathroom and I noted a strong stench of cleaning fluid and a lonesome loo roll weaving along the corridor.

Got the little blighter I thought with satisfaction, he’ll not be doing this again and bellowed in stentorian accents as I approached the bathroom: “YOU CAN JUST STOP WHAT YOU ARE BLOODY DOING RIGHT NOW YOUNG MAN!!!!”

There was pause as the guilty party thought about the problem then a voice, about several octaves blow that of my youngest, said:

“Ummm I was just cleaning the loo so I could sort it out as you asked me….”

It was the plumber….!!!!!!

I hate men. I do! I do! Ido!

I hate men, I do I do I do. They never clear up after themselves and they are so uselessly impractical. Really they are. God in heaven why aren’t women in charge. Life would be so much simpler really it would.

I know not ALL men are like this and yes I know there are exceptions but in a general way men drive me to distraction and I have to deal with three of them in my personal life and God knows how many outside that, I gave up counting years ago. I mean Men are everywhere aren’t they?

Ooooooooohhhhhh!!!!!!!

OK I had better put you in the picture. Today was meant to be a perfect day. I got up at 6am. I sorted the laundry and laid the table, the dogs were let out and fed and I beat the cat to her new morning ritual of peeing on the table cloth by a) not laying the table the night before and b) forcing her into her litter tray to get reacquainted with it this morning (the cat is going senile and we are learning to live with it; just please bear with the smell of cat pee until May when she will be able to go outside for her ablutions). I was feeling pretty good, the boys were up and I even managed a cooked breakfast.

We bundled ourselves into the car and trugged off to school but all was not well. There was a soft whumping sound and the car was slightly off kilter: a puncture.

My thoughts directed themselves at the builders and the fact that they had been playing about with nails and work saws and the like outside the back door where I park my car. They had obviously failed to clear up after themselves!

I whumped home: furious as the morning started to unravel.

Boys placed in front of the TV, I surveyed the problem. I needed to change the tyre. So I looked for the Jack but no there is no Jack in this car because of course the system one is meant to use requires no Jacks. All you have to do is squirt some foam into the tyre and pump it up with a nifty cigarette lighter powered pump. In theory it all works great that is until you realise that you totally destroy the tyre in doing so which can be costly.

Ever looking to save money I had bought a proper spare tyre from the garage that sold the car to me but the blokes there had failed to give me a Jack or even the spanner so I could undo the nuts. That is of course if I could shift the nuts in the first place as they were machined on. Obviously MEN don’t get punctures!

I think the word I issued was F**K and I repeated this quite a few times with the words F*****G MEN attached to it. Luckily the boys were oblivious as they watched Dick & Dom’s Wild Adventure. I scowled at the TV. “I’ll give you wild mate!”

Of course the end of this tale has to be resolved by a man but I won’t go into details. The tyre has been changed, new ones ordered and life is back to normal….though my tail is still twitching….

Siamese cats, builders, pantries and tax returns...

A relaxed siamese cat before teh builders arrived...

It’s Monday 31^st January 2011, I have only a few hours in which to complete my self-inflicted tax return for last year, there is dust everywhere and there are strange noises coming from the vicinity of the Kitchen.

I am ordered to produce two white, one with one and the other with two, a black and a white coffee and a glass of water before the dust settles; also please could I remove the dogs and what do I want to do with the Agatha the siamese cat?

I hope that question is not because she’s died of a heart attack with all the noise that has rudely intruded on her domain. I think she was busy in her cat litter tray that was against the wall which is due to be removed and they did some exploratory drilling. I think I too may have had a heart attack at that!

Apparently she is now sitting on top of the Alpha Cooker (a kind of Aga) hissing at everyone and not allowing them near her; I don’t blame her.

I am trying to do the same incarcerated in my office but without the baring of teeth and spitting accompanied by mad swings with my claws, the builders don’t seem to be showing me the same respect.

The dogs just roll their eyes and flop in their baskets as if this is an everyday occurrence, I admire their sang froid.

So I distract myself to keep myself calm as more banging thumping and crashing from downstairs ensues and comfort myself that at the end of it all I’ll have a utility room where I don’t have to strangle myself on electric wires as I load and unload; a downstairs loo and a pantry, a real live pantry! Heaven!

It’s getting way too HOT round here…

Everywhere I look there are tanned fit male bodies; it makes it a little difficult to concentrate. For as much as I try to avert my gaze I find it nigh on impossible. They are just flaunting themselves. I know they don’t mean to and that it is just because it is so hot but I do wish they’d consider the feelings of the poor old forty something woman who is employing them. You see I am old enough to know better but still young enough to remember those glorious days of freedom pre-children, pre-husband and well basically pre-sagginess.
So it’s not as if I could indulge in a bit of flirtation. I mean if I tried, apart from dazzling them with the whiteness of my skin and not in a good Twilight sort of way, more of a blancmange one, I think I would be had up for harassment and then I’d never get anything done around here!
On the plus side it’s not as if any of these men are young. In fact they are all older than me, but they are fit. I mean really fit and tanned. I suppose that is a good thing; there is hope for the over forty men out there, especially if they work with their hands….sorry outside. And there is another thing about these older men: they exude confidence in what they do and I am a sucker for a man who knows what he is doing. After eight years of builders, I promise it is a thrill to see a man able to handle lime mortar in the way it should be handled. The deft quick movements of the trowel, the synchronicity of laying each hand made brick perfectly with the care and precision of a true perfectionist. Each movement is spare and lithe and one is drawn to gaze at the play of muscles across shoulders and backs. The skin on their arms is oiled and tanned contrasting against the peculiar vulnerability of the strangely youthful flesh revealed once shirt and t-shirts are removed. I can understand why artists and sculptors were so enthralled by the male form for it is hauntingly beautiful and way too distracting!
I mean I am a married woman thoughts like these should not intrude upon my daily life. I blame it on the heat! It’s way too hot round here…

House Hunting: Moving moments

We moved into our fnal resting place in 2001 on Halloween to be precise, six years later as I contemplated calling the builders in  for Phase II of the R£NOVATION, I spent my time day dreaming especially about those little ways and means of making the budget stretch just that little bit further....

"I swear the chimney creaked today. So I have been eyeing all day. As the winds howl round it and sleet slaps into it horizontally, I swear it must be moving - I actually want it to fall down! I long for it to fall down.

Just think of the damage a nine-foot chimney could do. Not those tall skinny ones on the more modern house such as a Georgian or Victorian one but a good old Tudor/Jacobean one, which houses an inglenook the size of a highly desirable London bed-sit.

Bearing in mind the Westerly gale, it should fall down the eastern part of the roof smashing through the attic, crashing across the small room, hopefully catching Charlie’s bedroom window on the way down. Wrecking the render perhaps? A good honest bit of damage. Roughly, what? Say £30,000 - £40,000.

I almost feel like walking along the roof ridge to give it a bit of a nudge. However, after some 450 years of being up there, my hopes are hardly likely to come true – I’ll just have to resort to the Lottery again.

Oh, how happy and naïve we were when we heard that the house was ours. The euphoria carried us for weeks and then the business of moving again cast a cloud over my existence. This would be the third move in two years – I suddenly realised just what my poor mother had to put up with following my father round the world with increasing regularity.

Whereas the move from London had been organised and slick, the move to Rookyard from rented accommodation was anything but. There was no Charlie to help; he was too tired of an evening to pack everything away. So it was left to me. I tried to put everything back in the right boxes but this time instead of knowing where everything was I didn’t and I didn’t know where I it was going either!

The pressure was increased when our landlord kindly informed us that he had already let the house we were renting to the underbidders – the family that had gone on holiday.

F**k!!

So, there I was, frantically packing and cleaning and longing to get out of there before the Underbidders turned up. They were due to come round the house on the day we moved out. With luck we shouldn’t meet.

Luck’s not like that.

In the middle of slapping post it notes on the boxes, scrubbing the banisters, stuffing the cats into their basket, the Jack Russels go off in paroxysms of barking.

And there she is getting out of her gleaming brand new navy blue Volvo – the wife of the Underbidder.

As she stalks her way to the door she barks: “Well we made you pay for it!”

She enters: “Well, you haven’t done much with this place have you?”

She stomps upstairs: “Well, we’ll have to get them to make this room up, I’m not paying all this rent for that.”

I haven’t uttered a word, my mind has atrophied with shock and all the things I should be saying just don’t.

Me: “Well, umm, would you like some tea?”

To my horror she says yes and then as I heroically scramble about and search for the kettle among all the newspapers, cardboard boxes, crates and suitcases, the removal men turn up and it’s all systems go, but she’s still there. Still wanting tea. Running from Kitchen to drawing room I manage to oversee a semblance of packing and at the same time carry out teatime inanities.

It is such a relief when she leaves I don’t notice that the removal men have completed the packing without me and suddenly the house is empty - everything is gone.
The relief is huge – then I remember that they don’t have a key for Rookyard and where the hell are the cats? Packed!

Competition ( or why I'm going to have to take the long term view when he retires...)

The Lucky B*****d – or at least that’s the phrase I’ve  heard most over the last six months - because my husband has had a year that many only ever dream of – and no it has very little to do with the abundant and obvious charms of his wife.

He has for this one glorious summer, been paid to do nothing. He strolled into work in May and told them he had a new job. They thought about it and said: “How’s about staying here?” He thought about it and said he had really enjoyed working for them but the time was ripe to move on. They said: “OK.” He then said that he’d like to start at the new job ASAP. To with they replied: “Shucks, sorry, but you can clear your desk and have a great summer!”

I thought that was really cool until it dawned on me he wouldn’t be going away, he would be with me – all summer long. Do you know how long the summer lasts? However, ever resourceful I set about drawing up a list of things that needed to be done. Half an hour and five reams of paper later I had Charlie’s summer sorted.

It has been interesting having Charlie at home and one which The Boy and Bog Boy have taken to with whole hearted abandon. I mean cooked breakfasts each and every day, builders, paint, puppies, diggers, dumpers...Well,  a boys paradise really!

I just seemed to do a lot of clearing up.

And making coffee.

In fact when I think about it this has been the summer of men and as the sole girl I really feel that perhaps I should have been feted somewhat more than I was – maybe I would have been once, but now I had competition. From my husband.

Not in that way. But in the: “Who’s the Top Dog?” sort of way. Where once I would have stopped to chat and crack jokes with the boys on the building site that was once my garden, he was in that position. Where once I would have been the first port of call for the boys after school, he was the one doing the pick up. Where once those that dropped by would have been lumped with me now there was a choice, one that had no other deadlines than his own. Charlie took to being a man of means with little responsibility like a duck to water and I hope enjoyed every bit of it.

I on the other hand, don’t take kindly to being relegated to the side lines but when faced with the inevitable, it is wise to take a long term view of things. Now some six months later with all back to normal, I am the proud possessor of a stunning new driveway, an immaculate set of painted barns, a landscaped vegetable plot and a husband with an extremely pert behind – I mean who could ask for more?