Tomorrow and tomorrow

Some days were never meant to start; these are the days when nothing happens. You mean for something to happen for things to get done but they sort of don’t. While you are not watching all your good intentions stream out the door like the mist that pours downhill at daybreak in Devon. Beautiful to watch and impossible to stop.
So in a zombie like state the day begins and begins and begins until before you know it its lunchtime and all the morning has been frittered.
So you start yet again, a false start: then the phone rings, the newspaper beckons, the builders need tea, there’s a delivery, e-mails to answer, a sudoku to complete, and so the pots and pans languish in congealing water, the damp washing festers in a corner, and a miasma of frit flies hover over the empty wine glass beside the computer. The clean laundry drifts in piles waiting for collection, the clothes from the holiday remain tightly packed, the tent remains in the dining room table and I, well I just write about it all and remind myself that tomorrow is another day…

Boden Girl: Quality counts...

I’ve been given a back handed compliment, one as I sit here I am NOT enjoying – but are you ever meant to? No of course not. For you see I am being picked on this time because of my name and certain attributes are being applied to me regardless of their veracity.
I am a Boden-Blogger. A named Boden Blogger. Fair enough I like Boden. I like the clothes. I aspire to wear the clothes. Unfortunately I am far too ungainly, unsophisticated and fat for the clothes and frankly I cannot afford them. But hey! How many women who read Vogue can actually aspire to wear the clothes let alone look good in them?
I admit I have blogged about Boden. I admit I have envied those who wear Boden. But only in the case of a wistful longing to be as stylish, sophisticated, fashionable and well turned out as those who do. Doesn’t every woman yearn for those things from time to time?
I am being portrayed by the Times and in particular by columnist Kate Muir as a fluffy airhead wannabe who makes token gestures to the latest fashionable cause in the wake of the trend setters portrayed in the society columns of the really smart tabloids such as the Telegraph, the Times and Saturday’s How to Spend it magazines.
I am the excluded deluded middle class neither one thing nor the other. Considered a fool because of my innate sense of fair play, taken advantage of as I allow others their say first, derided for my “posh” accent and old-fashioned manners.
And I am deeply offended. My secret is out. I have NEVER worn Boden. How on earth will I hold my head up high when I get back on the school run?
Isn’t it bad enough that I cannot afford a new Land Rover? Actually I cannot afford a new car full stop. Bugger the carbon footprint the damn thing is still roadworthy ergo I drive it. A simple cost analysis reckoned that it would be cheaper for me to carry on driving the gas guzzling death trap for the next ten years than to buy the latest eco car and that even factored in diesel at £2 a litre!
As for travelling abroad – wot???!!! Have you seen our mortgage?!!! Yurt! Please – I have a lovely Kyham Classic XXL as recommended in Good Housekeeping. Saved a fortune at a friend’s Fortieth the other month.
And would you like to know what I am wearing now? A pair of rapidly disintegrating Wrangler jeans - boot cut 'cos Hell I have to try to balance out somethings in my life - a vintage (well it was bought in 1993) navy blue Benetton polo shirt with bird poo effect white paint splotches and the biggest secret of all – matching bra and panties from Rigby & Peller still going strong some three years on…quality counts you know.

Battle at bedtime

This is a typical transcript of an evening with The Boy. It spans a time frame of about three hours from 6.30 pm until 9.30 at night.
Me: Goodnight Darling! Sleep tight…
Him: I need a cuddle and a kiss
This is duly done…
Him: Mummy!
As I reach the door…and pause.
Him: Do you know what?
Me: No I don’t
Him: Knock knock
Me: Who’s there
Him: Me!!!!
Me: Goodnight Darling. Sleep tight now
Against pleas for a further cuddle and extra kisses and more jokes I close the door repeating the Night Night mantra.
I collapse after a hard day of virtually doing nothing or at least what seems like it as I am no further forward I the great ORGANISATION than before – in fact no further than I have ever been…I grab a glass of wine then hear thump thump thump from upstairs.
Me- shouting through the ceiling: Go to Bed!
Him: I need a wee!
Me: OK! Go now for a wee now Poppet.
This is duly done or at least I think so as I do not investigate this claim – not yet anyway. Perhaps he will go to bed shortly and I can get on with – whatever…I hear the door closing to his room and breathe a sigh of relief.
Five minutes later…and I feel a presence behind me, he has tripped down the stairs and is now watching TV over my shoulder – I hurriedly turn the TV off as I feel that the machinations of the Kings, Dingles and Sugdens are hardly ripe viewing for a four year old.
Him: I need some water!
Me: What now?
Him: Yes, I’m thirsty…
I get the water and hand it to him at the top of the stairs.
Me: OK - here you are. Go to bed now Darling.
All seems quiet for twenty minutes. Then…
Him – from the top of the stairs: I think I need to go for a poo now
Me: OK Darling just go and call when you need me
Him: Mummy! I need you.
Sometime later…
Him: My teddies are pushing me out of bed….
Later still…
Him: I need you!
Even later…
Him: I think I’ve found something…
Even later still…
Him: Mummy!!!!!
By this time I am in the office writing – he hunts me down…
Him: What are you doing?
Me: Go to Bed
Him: Can I do that?
Me: No Darling – it’s bedtime!
Him: You’re mean
Me getting exasperated: Bed, NOW!
Him: You are fat and ugly! You are fat and ugly when you are mean!
Me: GO TO BED NOW!!!!!!!!!
I thunder out of the office and he scampers to bed and dives in.
I close the door.
Me- seething but trying not to explode: Goodnight Darling.
There is silence. I wait at the door. He seems to be staying put. I retreat back to the office and carry on.
Five minutes later.
Him: I need a wee
And so on…

Making up for it

Every year when I was young and when we happened to be posted in England we went on holiday to Wales – I hated it.
There was no one to play with, it inevitably rained and I would land up fighting with my sister and longing for the trip to end.
Now a lifetime later I love going to Wales I love the fact that we own more cliff face than cliff top, that we have a mobile home rather than a five bedroom 1920s chalet, that it is so quiet, that I can see the sky at night and most of all I can hear the sea relentlessly pounding at the beach below.
As I sat on the veranda having breakfast tea with Mum looking out over the bay towards Newquay she suddenly piped up asking why I liked Wales now when I used to be so vehemently against it. And it got me thinking – had I really hated it that much as a child?
On reflection as I sipped my tea it came to me, I didn’t like the fact that my parents never seemed to have time for us when we were here. We never enjoyed ourselves. There was always tension.
And where did these tensions come from? Most emanated from my Nan, my mother’s mother. Nanna was a baggage, a spoilt baggage. But for all that she could be utterly charming, and in a good mood there was no one nicer. As we got older all of us -Nanna, Mum, me and Lex - could get the most frightful giggles down the lines of “I laughed so much I though my knickers would never dry!”. Dreadful phrase but oh so TRUE! But when she was being a baggage – she was awful.
Nanna being born beautiful, precious and an only one, was spoilt from the beginning by all around her. She was totally indulged and knew no real responsibility. She married but it did not work out and she returned with her daughter to live back in Lampeter. So Mum was brought up by her Grandparents – Tacca and Mangee.
Where they had gone wrong with Nanna they were determined not to go wrong with Mum – and by all accounts she had an idyllic childhood.
However for Nanna, living with her parents meant that she was never free and the frustrations she must have felt turned into a series of imagined or greatly exaggerated illnesses. When her parents died Nanna turned to Mum to provide her with comfort and through a series of illnesses real and imagined plus the manipulative use of financial largesse Mum was kept dancing to Nanna’s tune.
But Mum married an Englishman who swept her away to live in the further outreaches of the globe and it was only when in England that duty, guilt and all the complicated interwoven feelings and history brought Mum back and with her went both my sister and me.
The muttered incriminations, welsh whispered arguments and sheer weight of guilt meant that Wales could be, and most often was, dreaded. Dad, usually ‘persona non grata’ except when any manual labour was required, avoided it like the plague and whenever SHE was around would bugger off elsewhere where we could not follow.
The highlights of our stays were the rounds of visits to ragged relatives. Usually to dim dank houses shrouded in a miasma of dust where we were admonished not to touch anything, to sit quietly and make no noise. We were ghosts forever forced to peer from the darkened depths of rooms left over from an Edwardian era tantalised by the views through windows where the modern world was bright and full of sunshine and excitement.
Always in our best with patent sandals and matching clothes we would be petted and patted and then forgotten and what was worse they all spoke Welsh so we had no idea what was being said.
But there was always money to be handed out after these visits - then there would be new shoes, clothes and years later I learned that there were more substantial gifts were in the offing – for example a substantial down payment on the mortgage, a new car, school fees etc. Looking back Mum did try to make it right in the later years with riding holidays and a variety of treats and then we were big.
It wasn’t until I went down to Wales with friends to spend time in the Caravan that I began to enjoy it – God we were lucky and it was there that Dear Charlie woke up to the fact that he wanted to be more than just friends….
So there I am thoughtfully eating my breakfast remembering it all and I say nothing. She cupping the mug of tea in her hands stares across the bay and I feel awful But how can I tell her that the holidays would have been great if only they had been fun?
Later we all trip down the lane and onto the beach at Llanina and start wandering our way back up the beach to the hidden path.
The Boy strips off and is soon plunging into the sea screaming with delight and racing backwards and forwards and then so is Mum and Dad. The Boy begs Grandpa to look at what he’s got and: “Throw stones Grandpa! Throw stones!”
Grandpa expertly flicks a stone across the waves it skips across the top and plunges in to the depths with the dogs barking and racing after it.
“Me! Me! Show me!”
And Grandpa shows him and help him but soon it dissolves into throwing of stones and sopping wet sand and there are screams of laughter and giggles and gurgles.
Grandpa starts to make a sandcastle and The Boy joins in, Granny is on hand to be shown things that The Boy picks up off the shore and soon there is a little pile of treasure by her feet. Grandpa continues to make the sandcastle on his own - blissfully occupied and The Boy darts between them chattering and laughing and for the first time I see that my parents are having fun.
Later on the way up the hidden path to the Caravan The Boy asks: “Granny did your Granny take you to the beach when you were little?”
She stops and says no her Granny would look out for her from the garden then get tea ready for when she came back with her Grandfather and she looks at me and pauses before turning back to The Boy and carrying on the conversation and I think Mum is making it up to me in the best way she can: I love Wales….

When you’re old…

“When you’re old you get tired.”
I turn from the washing up and look down at The Boy; he looks at me frankly with his large brown eyes and repeats.
“When you’re old you get tired.”
“Well, yes…” I say not quite sure where this one is going. “You do get tired when your are old.”
“Are you old?”
“Well…”
“Are you as old as Granny?”
“No, I’m not as old as her, yet…”
“But you’re always tired, so you must be old.”
“Oh, um OK… yes I am old then. But not as old as Gra…”
“Granny is NEVER tired. You MUST be older than her!”
Thinking dreadful thoughts about how easy it is for Granny to be awake most of the day as she doesn’t have an insomniac baby who wants to play in the middle of the night, berating myself for NOT getting on with having children in my twenties then remembering that for most of my twenties Dear Charlie failed to notice me at all in that way despite the fact that I had been in love with him like FOREVER! My vanity is piqued. I try to explain about being kept awake by Daddy’s snoring and having to look after The Boy’s baby brother…
The Boy is singularly unimpressed.
“Granny doesn’t work.” He informs me
Great! He’s getting the idea – Mummy works, Mummy looks after everyone therefore Mummy gets tired…“Only grown ups work……….”

Initiation

Memories are made up of days of endless sunshine or at least that is so for me but however much you want to remember it as all sunshine ands roses the reality of it was that there was rain.
My childhood in Yorkshire on the surface was idyllic but looking back there were tensions ones I was aware of but failed to understand.
Our village was made up of several farms, farm worker cottages, a village shop on the corner where the bus stop was as well as several big houses built in a variety of materials depending on the status of the original occupier. Hence the Judge’s house was made of good stout Yorkshire stone, the headmaster’s home of decorated brick and the farm worker cottages of pitted red brick burnt with over firing or pale and crumbling because someone forgot to fire them at all!
Up the hill were a host of 1970s bungalows with names like Casa Blanca, Belle View and The Martins each with perfect manicured lawns, crackled pathways snaking their way to the never to be used front doors and stone squirrels perched jauntily on gateposts.
To get to Anna’s house I had to cycle to the village shop turn down the lane to the Elliot’s farm – the ‘poshest’ in the Village – then hang a right along a track between two paddocks to an old cinder packed farmyard.
Despite being built of golden stone the house was past its former glory. It had black cement tiles on the sagging roof, long and narrow, with a breeze block half wall separating the yard from the front lawn made up of bare patched grass protected by regiments of multicoloured snap dragons, scraggy roses, marigolds and giant nodding daisies.
The track leading to the house was cindered like the yard itself and rough stalks of grass, daisies and dandelions grew in the middle while along the edge between the track and the fence were the singed remains of nettles, sporadic thistles and burdock clumps - a haven for caterpillars, bees and butterflies.
The yard sloped to a modern asbestos clad barn, which as I remember was full of corn in great heaps, behind it stood a half hearted attempt of a wood but it had a dyke running through it – there were rope swings and tyres, bits of old bicycle, car parts, lost toys, stones, bits of shed and everything you needed to make a playground paradise for children.
It was here that I was initiated into the tribe for what else could you call it? Here was where we all met - behind the barn away from the grown ups. Anna brought me. I was a rare prize, as well as being new to the village, I was a curiosity because of my accent - that transatlantic twang picked up from years living in Canada.
As in all tribes there was a pecking order. The older kids at the top and the younger at the bottom but as a pet you scaled those dizzying heights. I was a pet almost immediately though I did not know it and being somewhat exotic and having no knowledge of the social mores much was forgiven which only increased my standing yet again for it seemed like I had no fear. Now an older child faced by a younger with no fear can do either of two things in order not to lose face. Squash it as a threatening rival or adopt it and make it a pet. It is braver to adopt than thump it but there has to be a willingness by the younger child to be made a pet in the first place. It is a split second decision a silent negotiation between the various parties. A contract, which over the following days and weeks will be modified to suit. In some cases it is cancelled.
By bringing me to the attention of the tribal leaders Anna gained much kudos and in turn so did they for the strange thing about tribes is that whatever goes on within also goes on without.
The standing of a tribe in the wider world is based on the abilities of its members as judged by those outside the tribe especially the leaders of other tribes. And where does all this inter tribal assessment take place? On the school bus.
In those days we all caught the school bus at the Village shop at 8.30 in the morning and here I helped my tribe immeasurably. For I was only six. The youngest on the bus was 11 – where were all the others? Where was Anna? They were at the Village School but my parents in their wisdom had me go to the local private primary in Barrowdale.
In my bright blue uniform I was like a peacock in among the dowdy brown peahens of the local comprehensive. My tribal leaders made it quite clear to whom I belonged. And my tribe was held in awe.
But was it my accent, my schooling, my seeming fearlessness that earned me that place? No entirely - it was Anna. It was her fierceness. For all that I was made a pet of by the leaders there was no doubt in anyone's mind whose I was in reality. And for me it was bliss.
Behind the barn we meet; a great gang of us and I am introduced.
“What does yer Dad do?”
“He’s in the Army.”
“Does he kill people?”
“No...” – I get a swift jab in the ribs – “Err yes…I mean sometimes..umm…”
“Have you ever seen it?”
I, by this time, am feeling seriously uncomfortable and just long to be at home. I want my Mum.
“No um he, he err….”
Anna swiftly takes over and being truly unafraid storms: “Don’t be daft he wouldn’t do it in their house yer know!”
As quickly the leader turns on her and says disbelievingly: “Have you been there then?”
Knowing Anna has just saved me it’s my turn to save her. Of course she hasn’t been to my house; I’ve only arrived myself in the Village not a day previously.
“Course she has and she’s seen My Dad’s guns and his sword!”
Surprised the leaders turn to me – I am challenged: “They don’t use swords in the army!”
“Yes they do!” I shout. I am inspired and I know I am right, I’ve seen my Dad’s dress sword – “Officers do.” I say proudly, grinning at Anna. “My Dad’s an officer sucks to you!”
Suddenly there is a barrage of questions all about the sword and Dad’s guns and the next thing I know we are all marching towards my house in a gaggle of over excited and eager children. We arrive at the gate and then everyone goes quiet and shy so Anna boldly steps forward to join me and I grab her hand and smile at her in triumph and together we march up the short drive to where my parents are watching bemused among a heap of packing cases, crates, newspapers and general chaos.
Loudly I say: “Dad you promised to show Anna your sword,” and before he can answer that he’s never seen Anna in his life before I swiftly turn to Mum. “He DID! Didn’t he Mom!”
Mum sees the pleading in my eyes she glances over my shoulder to the silent troupe waiting at the end of the drive. In the pause as she assess what is going on my whole life hangs by a thread as does Anna’s. “Tim, you mustn’t promise something and then forget to do it – come on Anna, you know the way indoors.”
Mum gently turns Anna in the direction of the back door and as she does so, she winks at Dad. Before I know it everyone is crowding in the Kitchen and Dad has his dress sword on the Kitchen table and explaining what he does with it. He has the grenade and loads of guns – some live but the majority from Wars long ago some even from Wars long forgotten or even unknown such as the Boer War, the Borneo Confrontation as well as from the First and Second World wars. Under strict supervision everyone is allowed to hold the guns and pretend to aim them. As if by magic there is orange squash and Jaffa Cakes and Anna and I, well ... we are TRIUMPHANT!

My green dream mowing machine....

It's all of 21 horsepower, green and has a bright yellow plastic seat - my green dream mowing machine!
For years we have stoutly and proudly said we will NEVER have a ride on lawn mower. But the arrogance of youth must surely give way to practical expediency.
Over the years the garden has increased - well not actually increased in terms of us buying more land just that we are clearing more of the land away and when it finally dawned on me that Dear Charlie spent the whole weekend mowing I realised that a push mower though great exercise wasn't very sociable.
So I have been holed up in my ivory tower toiling away to give us the extra cash to buy a ride on. It was delivered this morning.
I couldn't resist and have been making figure eights all over the place and racing the dogs up and down the garden. I have been riding in and out of the trees in the orchard and having a serious blast - better than the sports car! It cuts the lawn as well!!!!
Dear Charlie will have to fight me for it.
However, the work has still to be finished so blogging will be sporadic but oh how the summer is looking up!!!!!

Speaking Yorkshire

“Well tha's in Yorkshire now – d’tha kno’ how t’speak t’language?”
It was 1973 - the last dying days of the summer and I wouldn’t have known how to speak let alone understand half of what was going on but what I did know, was that I liked Jo.
Jo was the mother of Anna and Emma; Anna was six like me, and Emma a very grown up nine-year old. We had just moved. Dad had finally given in to Mum’s entreaties and at last we had a proper home not just a transient Army Quarter. In those days of eternal sunshine children roamed free to do as they pleased as long as they were home in time for tea.
I, of course called it supper but it was always tea in Yorkshire - never supper mind. Dinner, which I remembered as being a very grown up affair, now happened at lunch, sitting rooms were lounges or front rooms and dining rooms were unheard of!
I was blissfully confused; some forty years on as I write this, the memories crowd my mind and I am as confused now with remembering as I was then with understanding.
Suffice to say, in my roaming I found Anna and Anna found me. There was an instant bond and her betrayal eight years later still hurts. Despite everything that happened I have never had as true a friend as I had in her but I was naive and I grew up too slow.
So I return to that golden day, the end of a glorious golden day and I am with Anna and it is time for tea. I am lost and it is obvious and yet I am not scared. I suppose I was precocious and what Jo thought of me I have no idea, where she thought I came from with my Transatlantic twang and toplofty manners I do not know but I was welcomed that evening and brought into a large kitchen with brown and gold lino lozenged on the floor.
Then we turn and I am shown through a door into a sitting room of sorts and there is a dark oak dining table up abutting the pale cream anaglyptic wall. There are two chairs at either end, and two places laid for tea. The carpet is busy and everywhere is brown and I feel very comforted and comfortable. Jo laughing at my wonder takes my hand and asks where I come from gently putting the pieces together as her girls giggle and clamour to tell her before I can answer myself. They are as excited by their find as I am excited by mine.
I think she calls my Mum for I don’t remember getting home that night and I don’t remember being told off. The excitement, the joy of meeting Jo has never been marred.
How can I describe her? – She was quite simply beautiful. Junoesque my dears not like my Mum at all. Dark, tall, warm, soft with the most beautiful mane of cascading curls, like a gypsy. But Yorkshire, through and through. As they say up there she was a fine looking lass and Adrian was lucky to catch her - shame he drove her away.
Before I know it there is another place laid for me I don’t remember as such what we ate to begin with but I will never forget what we had for afters! Fruitcake and Wensleydale cheese.
I am sorry but Wallace and Grommit have nothing on me when it comes to Wensleydale!
It was then that Jo said: “Well tha's in Yorkshire now – d’tha kno’ how t’speak t’language?”
I glance at Anna, who covers her mouth to suppress her giggles and looks back at Jo.
“Dost kno’ what a lass is then?”
“No”
“Tis a girl and a Lad a boy.”
It was a riotous meal, a marvellous meal and I couldn’t tell you anything about what it tasted like, all I could say was that I had eyes for no one but Jo. In all my life no one had treated me like she did – an equal. It was a glorious secret from all grown-ups especially my parents.
“Nah then, lets see how well tha' learnin’: what does ‘Tin tin tin’ mean?”
There are more giggles from the girls and shouts of encouragement and hints and jokes and I am more baffled than before.
Jo just laughs and ruffles my hair.“Doan thee worry we’ll make a right Yurkshire lass of thee yet!”
And more than anything in the world at that moment do I want to belong, do I want to be a Yorkshire lass....

A thing of great entertainment...

A thing of great entertainment but of no practical use at all, my father said, is a gizmo. And we had a Gizmo. It was sold to my mother as a male Seal point Siamese in fact it was a female Chocolate point and a total runt.
It was only kept alive that Christmas because Granny let it sleep curled up on her neck and in years to come that was her favourite place - to be perched on someone’s shoulder just underneath a chin – a place she felt safe. Luckily for a Siamese even she was quite tiny.
Gizzie was possibly THE most annoying cat in history and as my father said no practical use at all. But she was entertaining.
Despite being virtually dead that Christmas Gizz did manage to create and inspire all kinds of legend. There was the episode with the Christmas Turkey, which even now some 22 years later is recounted as part of our family’s yuletide ritual.
Dad was on duty that year in York and so since we would be spending the day at HQ manning the phones it was decided that our Christmas meal would be done a day early. Mum - her of the like-it-and-lump-it school of cookery – had surpassed herself and for once the meal was quite edible and we were all looking forward to seconds - a huge cause for celebration. Dad got up and went to the kitchen to fetch the turkey to carve again. It had been placed on the dresser out of reach of Gypsy our Labrador and should have been perfectly safe. But we were now the proud owner of a cat.
In the middle of a lull in conversation we suddenly heard the most dreadful oaths emanating from the kitchen, a roar, then a crash, a clatter of toenails and further shouting and swearing.
Quite rightly we all shot out of our chairs and headed full tilt to see what had happened.
There was Dad manhandling the turkey, shaking it up and down – no mean feat when you realised it weighted about 20lbs without stuffing. I think I thought he had gone mad. Granny just said: “Timothy!”
Dad turned to us quite red in the face and still shaking the turkey. “The Effing cat is inside!”
We looked and sure enough you could see her tail sticking out the end, all fluffed up like a bottlebrush. She was not going to shift.
We heard the most dreadful muffled blood curdling yowling from inside coupled with chewing noises, gulping and the cracking of small bones. While still being shaken the damn cat was continuing to eat and if that were not enough telling Dad just what she thought of his dreadfully rude behaviour!
I loved that cat and we all miss her; in fact sometimes when I open the airing cupboard at home I expect to see her peering at me from the darkest depths of the top shelf where the spare linen is kept.
It used to be a rare treat to check out that cupboard when she was alive, you were never quite sure what you would find - a shrew, sometimes partially eaten sometimes still alive, a headless pigeon, sometimes just entrails dripping across the once pristine linen sheets. But you always got a welcome, a yowl and chattering and of course you had to reply saying yes you did agree it was far too wet to go outside and wasn’t in awfully cold. Sometimes that would be it audience over, at others she would deign to join you by jumping lightly from her elevated height onto your shoulder. – a privilege as always..

Lessons and learning

Seeing things with your own eyes and experiencing things for yourself is the ultimate learning experience. If that is true - why do I always fail to learn my lesson?
My demigod of a builder’s first job for us was in the spring of 2002 – in between finishing Piers’ house and starting on a 12-week build turning a garage into a desirable holiday home in Aldeburgh – one of Piers’ finer ideas.
It of course wasn’t meant to be like that but Piers promised that the Aldeburgh job would be done in a flash and in no way would upset our own plans – putting it that way we felt it would be churlish to argue.
So Justin came and quoted on the Big Barn roof, discussed how we would like it done and we duly spent every waking moment clearing it out in readiness. Then we got a call. Since Justin and his mate Mattie who would be doing all the work lived in Friston could they come and stay during the build?
Justin: “It would save money and mean the job could be done quicker.”
I spoke to Dear Charlie who was up for it. The boys would work Monday through Thursday from 8am to 7pm and would leave Thursday night and return again Monday morning.
Seemed perfectly fine to me. What I hadn’t calculated was one I would be feeding them, and two I would be sharing a bathroom with them. Now these guys are in no way effete – in fact Mattie and Justin managed to repair the barn roof, which in the end involved replacing all the major beams in the barn as well as new footplates without the aid of any mechanical gear at all – just sheer muscle power…
All started off fine. Until suppertime – it was a great big lasagne I recall. The one I was renowned for in London. A serious calorie-killing beast of a lasagne with goats’ cheese enhanced béchamel dribbling from the sides accompanied by a dark green salad and fresh French bread from the bakers. I was looking forward to leftovers.
But the only thing I got was: Where was the pudding? Determined not to be caught on the hop again I got up extra early the next morning and started on a proper fry up for the ravening beasts upstairs only to find that the buggers only had a cup of tea or a black coffee in the morning!
I was reprieved at lunchtime as they had pre-ordered prawn cocktail sandwiches from the Village Shop - the proprietors having previously run the post office in Snape and were old friends of both Justin and Mattie.
For supper that evening I had done one of Charlie’s favourite – steak and kidney only to find that neither liked kidney. All my culinary efforts fell short and it was with a huge sigh of relief when the end of the week rolled in. The following week the boys opted to eat out…
Initially the re-roofing of the Big Barn was meant to involve taking a few tiles off, replacing the guttering and fixing the doors. By the time the boys had been with me two weeks the only thing left standing was the outside walls everything else was gone including the built in dovecote!
I am still a bit hazy as to who actually sanctioned all the work – Charlie reliably informs me that I did and I do remember the words: ‘Necessary’, ‘Fall down’, ‘Death trap’, and ‘Now or never’, in various conversations.
Whenever I spoke up to protest or query anything I was reassured with a smile, a pat and “Now doan you start worryin’ girl, it’ll be fine. Just you leave it to us buoys.”
Words I would grow so familiar with over the next four years.
Now I am not considered stupid, a tad naive maybe, but not stupid and looking back there is nothing I can put a handle on to say that Justin ever did not do as he aught. Everything he said was true – things did need to be done – but perhaps not quite as many things as were done.
With the barn roof off and everything exposed to the elements Justin got called away without hardly a by your leave. When confronted by Charlie he pointed out the job was now far bigger than anticipated and that the job he had to go and do had been waiting for ages – he’d be back he promised, the thing is we didn’t know when…
When he finally showed up that September there weren’t two of them but four and all needed to stay over and be fed! Luckily the vegetable patch was in full production mode and game was on the menu – so cheap food all round. But newly pregnant I found it all too much as soon as I went anywhere near food I wanted to gag, the stench in particular of the game was unbearable.
But this is where Justin and Mattie rose to the occasion – realising I was pregnant they set about organising their own and even our food. They fetched and carried and basically mollycoddled me, took Charlie down the pub to give me some quiet time, always cleaned the bathroom and put the loo seat down. In fact when they left when the job was done I felt quite bereft…The barn stands magnificent, black clad and gorgeous like a proper Suffolk barn should. The flint walls pristine with new lime mortar, the barge boarding sweeping down from the brick red roof – only the dovecote yet to be put in and I am still waiting for it some five years later – I am assured it is in the work shop and all it will take is a few hours work…