Nothing Quite

Nothing quite matches the thrill of finding water dripping through the kitchen ceiling, especially when you’re trying to cook risotto. The first thought is “No, it can’t be,” followed by “Oh yes it is”, both of which rapidly give way to, “So where is it coming from?” A brief peek out of the window tells you that it is raining heavily (Here in England? Surely not.) and so, leaving the onions to carbonise on the hob, you schlep outside to investigate.

Nothing quite matches the thrill of climbing a soaking wet ladder in the pouring rain, especially when it is just not quite long enough to take you to where you need to be. Never mind, I could see enough to know that the water wasn’t coming through the extension roof, especially seeing as, having got back inside I noticed that the water was dripping through what has always been an inside section. Something had to be leaking upstairs. It’s odd how difficult it is to work out what is above what in a house that you have lived in for forty plus years, especially when you’re trying to remember where you last left the buckets, but I finally narrowed it down to a bathroom radiator or the toilet beside it.

Nothing quite matches the thrill of lowering your head down into the toilet bowl and shining a torch down the underside of the cistern in order to watch the water dripping out – nor the relief of noting that the leak is from the clean ‘in water’ rather than the outgoing variety.

There is, of course, no way that my wife would sanction visible pipework in the bathroom and, equally, no way that the bloke what boxed and tiled it in (me) would have had the foresight to realise that said pipes might one day leak, so a relay of frazzled runs up and down the stairs bearing hammers, screwdrivers, knives, chisels, anything that came to hand ensued, whilst another pan of finely diced onions turned to dust on the hob.

Chipping off tiles, unscrewing wooden framework – an additional sprint up and down to locate the Phillips screwdriver that appeared to be the only piece of equipment I failed to grab on my original swoop – squeezing a contorted wrist through to the isolator and turning it off took less than – I estimate – three gallons of water before peace was restored.

A brief glance around the bathroom revealed a post apocalyptic scene of broken tiles, fractured wood and blood covering every available white surface due to finger tips that look as if they might have been forcibly dragged across a cheese grater, but at least the drip, drip, drip had stopped, to be replaced downstairs by the spontaneous discolouration of every available painted surface. Clearly the slow filtration of clean water through floorboard, God-knows-what-between and plasterboard produces a brew that any barrista would be proud of, lending the white ceilings a colour resembling the grandchildren after an hour in the park, and the tenacity to resist all manner of overpainting. After twenty coats or so it begins to fade… I am told.

The plumber – God bless him – promised to come the following day, but then rang to apologise for not being able to make it as he had, in a day that had become freezing cold, a client without heating or hot water. He hoped we’d understand. We did: we have a second loo. We completely get it, he will come and sort out our former drip, drip, drip in a day or so and I will hope, meantime, that the murky ‘tide mark’ currently spreading across the kitchen ceiling like golden syrup across a pale cream Axminster will dry and fade sufficiently to allow itself to be painted over so that, after a few days spent honing my non-existent carpentry skills, re-boxing and re-tiling in the bathroom, you will never know that the water had ever descended.

And nothing quite matches the thrill of that…

Here Today…

Winter arrived overnight – early for us – but no doubt it will be gone by tomorrow…

Time Travel

Having made 780 posts over five years, by and large all about the same thing – me – it is little wonder that I inadvertently repeat myself every now and then. I fight against it, although I know that it creeps in, but what I have just discovered is the great pleasure that WordPress itself takes in highlighting it. A few days ago I published Guess Who? a fragrant little nosegay about the joys and otherwise of contact lens wearing and touching on my inability to recognise faces whatever I might have thrust into my eyeballs or balanced on my conk, and some clever little algorithm plonked a long forgotten little piece from over three years ago into the ‘More in Getting On’ slot at the bottom of the post called Social Contacts: a fragrant little nosegay about the joys and otherwise of contact lens wearing and touching on my inability to recognise faces etc etc blah blah blah. I had of course – it being well in excess of fifteen minutes ago – completely forgotten about it.

I decided to reacquaint myself and, thankfully, discovered that it was sufficiently different to the later post to mean that reading both is not, in itself, completely unbearable, but bafflingly, I also discovered that in the ‘More in Getting On’ section at the bottom of Social Contacts (published October 2020) is Guess Who? What kind of black magic is this? Some kind of time travel linked to the 60^th Anniversary editions of Dr Who which are currently dropping onto our screens?

I would love to be able to enjoy Dr Who like everybody else, but it blows my mind. “Oh look, there’s a Dalek. Weren’t they wiped out years ago? Oh, I see. (I don’t.) They were wiped out centuries before their evil inventor had actually invented them, after which they also had actually travelled back in time to prevent themselves from ever having been wiped out in the first place by someone who was quite unlike he/she currently is/was/will be, with a Sonic Screwdriver – a gadget that started life as a… well, as a screwdriver but now appears to be some kind of hi-tech Swiss Army Knife/Light Sabre hybrid – it was before they could get upstairs I think. And what do they do with the little sink plunger again?…”

Of course, I am of an age for whom there is only one true Who – Tom Baker, of course – in much the same way as there is only one Bond (Roger Moore), one Batman (Adam West), one Wonder Woman (Lynda Carter) and one Willy Wonka (Gene Wilder). It might be an age thing – although I would make a shout for Benedict Cumberbatch being the ultimate Holmes – but no-one will persuade me that there is any other Tarzan than Johnny Weissmuller. No amount of time travel would ever persuade ten year-old me that he was not the one and only, and don’t think for a second that anyone will ever take you seriously again if you believe that there is any other Robin Hood than Richard Greene.

There are certain things that bear repeat – none of them, unfortunately, written by me – but there is an ‘age’ for them all and whoever assumes the role when you yourself are of that age, will forever be the one and only – unless, of course they are George Lazenby…

On the Hoof

As I get older, I seldom write like this because, if I’m honest, I am neither bright enough nor reliable enough to make a success of it. My posts are often written ad hoc, but seldom last-minute. Blether they might be, but they are almost inevitably drivelled in advance.

You see, if I write for today, then I also write of today and, Lord knows, that gives me so little to write about. I’m not sure whether it’s ‘an age thing’, but so little happens to me – or even adjacent to me – these days. Today, for instance, I have patched up some ropey paintwork, replaced a dodgy light bulb, sealed a draughty door and shifted a plant pot with a weight somewhat in excess of a Chieftain Tank: nothing to make jokes about; little to say. If only I’d dropped it on my toe… I am The Marie Celeste of happenstance.

Now, I have said before that having nothing to say has seldom stopped me from saying it: it is, in as much as I have such a thing, my stock-in-trade. As much as I would like to believe that it is a treatise about the anti-ageing properties of positive thinking, I have the uneasy feeling that Getting On may well, in fact, be all about inertia. I would kind of like it to be about mountaineering, round-the-world yachting, sky-diving, yak-riding, off-piste skiing, all that malarkey, but what it is actually about is the fear of heights, the fear of water, the fear of falling, the fear of wild, hairy creatures, and the fear of making a tit of myself on a hillside – even if covered in so many layers that I am completely unidentifiable to all but those who know me… however vaguely. (I think that people would, by and large, be able to identify me from my gait, my mannerisms, and the fact that, placed on anything even vaguely slippery, I will inevitable end up on my arse.) Fear is the ultimate driver and, as you get older, getting older becomes the penultimate fear (we all know the ultimate one: a long weekend in a tiny Cleethorpes flat with David Icke). Most of us will do whatever it takes to stop feeling old. Most of us feel that we are nothing like as old as other people of our age.

One of life’s great pleasures is in encountering someone who appears to be very much older than yourself, only to discover that they are, in fact, younger. It never crosses the mind that they look old for their age, but simply that you look young for yours. Until – as happened to me very recently – the ancient-looking, wizened old homunculi turns to you and says “So we’re the same age huh? You must have had a very tough paper round!” Bloody Yoda thinks that I look old! Ridiculous! And then…

How do you gauge it? What looks old to whom? If I ask a loved one, “I don’t look that old, do I?” are they likely to say, “Well, as a matter of fact…” or would they lie? Platitudes become meaningless. “Of course you don’t” becomes a dagger to the soul. “I look like an old man to them, and they won’t even admit it! I’ll go and climb a mountain. That’ll show ‘em.” Actually, all it will show them is that I am losing my mind.

…And that’s another thing about getting older…

Haphazardly Poetical – The Reception

Photo by Trust “Tru” Katsande on Unsplash

I posted ‘The Wedding’ last week and mentioned that I also had this ‘poem’ prepared and, against all expectations, a few of you said that you would like to read it, so here goes…

The smoker’s bar at the Rat and Duck,
Was where they all went on.
The tables were all caked in muck
And so was Uncle Ron.
He’d tried, you see, to stand between
Aunt Daisy and Aunt May
And asked them not to cause a scene
Just let the matter lay.

It seemed to work – to some extent
They smiled with fond accord.
And this he took for good intent;
His optimism soared.
They acted like they’d always been
The very best of chums,
But poor old Ron had just not seen
The way that trouble comes.

It’s true, he felt a slight unease,
It seemed a little weird
That Aunty May fell to her knees
While Daisy stroked his beard.
“Is this all real?” Aunt Daisy quipped,
Her mouth fixed in a grin.
Then sudden fear, as both hands gripped
The growth upon his chin.

“Who do you think you are?” she cried
“To interfere like that.”
And then with all her strength applied
Her handbag round his hat.
Then gave a mighty push and heave
To where Aunt May was crawling.
Without the merest by-your-leave
They sent the poor man sprawling

Then when they had him on the floor
His two demonic foes
Both asked him if he ‘wanted more’
Whilst pounding on his nose.
And so he tried to run away
To leave them hell for leather
He would have done so, had not May
Tied both his shoes together.

He tried, but he could not escape,
Nor find a place to hide.
Salvation came in the awesome shape
Of a gently blushing bride.
“I’m doing the rounds of all the men
And you’re the next,” she said.
Before she latched on, there and then,
Like a plunger to his head.

Poor Uncle Ron, he tried to breathe;
He tried to pull away,
But Jane just wouldn’t let him leave
Until she’d had her way.
He tried, in vain, to shake her free
To get it over quick.
He really didn’t mean to be
So violently sick.

The bridegroom by this time had downed
A dozen beers or more
And, having fallen down, had found
He liked it on the floor.
He wouldn’t have to face his bride,
To breath her strange aroma,
Or feel her naked at his side
If he was in a coma.

He tried to stand, to order more,
His legs would not obey.
He fell again to the sticky floor
And there he thought he’d stay.
But burning thirst now ruled his head
“I think I’ll die quite soon,
If I don’t get a drink,” he said,
Whilst draining the spitoon.

The ‘breakfast*’ scoffed, the speeches made,
The wine (and guests) all drunk,
And from the plate where fruitcake laid
The DJ grabbed a chunk
“Now it’s time to spin the platters”
He looked around, askance –
They were all of them as mad as hatters –
It was time for the First Dance.

So Jane ran over to the bar
And hauled the groom upright.
The barman saw the door ajar
And attempted to take flight
As all assembled took their place,
The couple gently swayed
With all the elegance and grace
Of flies when sprayed with Raid.

Then all surrounding bundled in –
Aunt Fanny did the splits –
And Uncle Ronnie, tumbling in
Fell face-first in her décolletage.
Somehow he wound-up underneath,
His yells were heard afar:
The braces on his crooked teeth
Got hooked up on her bra.

The men hauled on his laces,
The women pulled her heels.
There were many reddened faces
And a multitude of squeals
As excess wind was broken
When the two were dragged apart
And Ronnie left a token –
A deadly, silent fart.

And so the evening ground along,
Aunt Daisy got quite merry,
Before they reached the final song
She’d swallowed all the sherry,
Some Cherry-B’s, a Babycham,
A snowball and a gin,
Been sick across a plate of ham
And three times in a bin.

The happy couple slid away
Before the night was through,
They’d really quite enjoyed the day,
And ‘the night’ was overdue:
The bridegroom couldn’t stay awake,
The bride was left frustrated,
She tried her best for goodness sake,
But left him half castrated.

His screams were heard across the town,
His voice was loud and high
As in her haste to ‘get them down’
She didn’t pull the fly,
But raked, instead, his wherewithal
With a thousand little teeth
‘Til the skin was barely there at all
Nor what was underneath.

An evening spent in A & E**
Their married life began.
A little stitch (or ninety three)
To ensure he stayed a man.
The honeymoon put back for weeks
To allow for partial mending
Another tale on which to peek
But for now we’ve reached the ending.

*Why the after-wedding meal is known as a breakfast, I have no idea.
**Accident & Emergency – the department at UK hospitals where you are taken to be ignored for several hours, if not days, before receiving treatment (a problem with the system and definitely not the wonderful, over-worked staff) for bodily damage and illness.

As I mentioned at the top of this piece, this ‘poem’ was ready to go – except that it wasn’t. I read it through to find that it didn’t always rhyme where it should and it didn’t always scan. Sorting these things out takes me forever – I cannot tell you how much I admire the likes of Obbverse who go through this pain regularly – each stanza is like a thorn under the fingernail and by the time I finish a poem, I really cannot stand it. I hope you are better disposed to this than I…

Guess Who?

I started a great many of the best years of my life by ramming shallow little bowls of glass into my eyes, most of which refused to come out at night – unless, of course, I didn’t want them to. Gas Permeable Lenses – invented, I believe, by the Marquis de Sade for when his nipple-clamps were on the blink – were what enabled me to do my job during the short periods when my eyes were not watering.

Despite the discomfort, there were a number of benefits to wearing these little saucers of glass rather than spectacles: I could walk into a swimming baths without actually falling into the pool (One of the worst aspects of having two daughters is that they, and their mother, always entered the baths through a different door and at a different time to me. Until the dawn of contact lenses, I could never see them. I had to stand near the hell-hole changing room exit, breathing in the heady aroma of sweat, Brut33 and footbath, watching the fuzzy animate mosaic of unfocused flesh and lycra costume swimming around until, eventually, one of them came to collect me.) I could play sport and, best of all, I could walk in the rain without viewing the world through a rain-splattered windscreen.

I’m very happy to say that vanity never played a part in the decision to start wearing contacts: in fact, when I look at photographs, I always appear more human in my specs. They add a little space between my piggy little eyes and distract attention, just a little, from a nose that belongs on a face that is quite a lot larger than my own. I started to wear lenses because my job required me to use an eyeglass for much of the time and the constant on-off of spectacles usually left them with arms that were more outstretched than Australia in the 1970’s (as long as you were white, of course). Besides, I’ve never laboured under the misapprehension that I was ‘owt to look at’. Taking glasses on or off of this face is never going to give George Clooney sleepless nights. I have great ‘friend’ potential: nobody really cares what I look like.

I have the kind of face that, for whatever reason, people tend to remember. Other people have, however, the dreadful habit of being totally unrecognisable to me. I wish they’d sort it out. I spend huge chunks of my life trying to work out who I have just bumped into: who it is that obviously recognises me. My facial recognition software (at best even less reliable than that of the Metropolitan Police) whirrs uselessly in the background, taking me back as far as schooldays without ever once alerting me to the fact that the other person is a) asking questions about my wife, b) wearing a Tesco’s name badge and c) my mother-in-law. I adopt the kind of vague approach to conversation that I realise makes me sound disinterested, simply because the only alternative I have is downright rude. The option of asking “I’m sorry, who are you?” is ever-present, but one I never take. I would prefer to be seen as socially inept (which I am) than bad-mannered, so the initial part of every conversation I ever have features me blindly groping around for some clue as to who I am talking to (or, should they be a former English Master, “to whom I am talking”.)

Unfortunately, ‘dawn’ usually breaks only after I have said something either horribly crass or downright insensitive, more often than not confusing my companion with someone that neither of us likes. I try so hard to maintain a checklist in my head – like a game of ‘Guess Who?’ – “does he have dark hair, does he wear glasses, does he have a moustache, is he more full of shit than Beckton*… is he Piers Morgan?”, that kind of thing, but it never works. Somehow I cannot recognise faces until long after I have grown to know the people behind them. And no amount of glass in the eye seems to alter that…

*The largest sewage farm in Europe.

My Best Post Ever

Photo by RODNAE Productions on Pexels.com

Last night I wrote the best post I have ever written. When I woke up, I couldn’t remember much of it, but it was ok because the parts that I did remember were very good indeed. Now, with a couple of coffees behind me and a bowl of porridge that could, otherwise, be used to fill potholes in the road, I do not remember a single word, but the recollection that it was a truly great passage of prose haunts me. It may be the best thing I have ever written and it almost certainly will never be read. (So, not entirely different to everything else I have ever written.)

I stumbled into the morning with steely resolve to recreate it, but it quickly dawned on me that I had no idea of what it was about. It was profound, I knew that, it was smart and funny and… the more I thought about it the more I realized that it must have been written by somebody else. Someone who writes while I sleep.

I’ve been writing this little blog for more than five years now and it’s amazing how often I stumble across an early piece and think “Did I really write that?” Well, of course I did. I live with zero fear of ever being accused of plagiarism because I know that if anyone was to ask Google to check out anything I had written, it would probably blow its logically ordered little cyber-mind. I feel fairly certain that should cyborg Arnie actually drop in from the future, all threat to the human race could be avoided by passing him a random selection of my posts and saying “Just try and make some sense out of those could you.” The smell of overheating micro-circuitry would be setting off smoke alarms worldwide. My grasp of logical pathways is similar to that of whomever oversaw the design of the human nervous system. Toothache is bad enough, but just wait until you discover that it is a symptom of heart attack.

I don’t think that it is any secret to anyone who reads me at all frequently, that it is almost certainly possible (I guess, I’ve never tried – life is far too short) to cut and paste paragraphs out of and into any of my other posts, at any point, without ever leaving a visible joint. At least, no more visible than anywhere else.

I seldom approach a blog post with a plan (and if I ever do, it never gets followed) because the end of each paragraph almost always coincides with something else bouncing into my head, so, instead, I have a starting point from which I stagger away and, in the end, I am as surprised as anyone else to discover the route I have taken – like my wife with a Road Atlas.

I may be the only person in the world who loves his satnav. It may have the habit of taking me through point Z on a simple A-B journey, but it doesn’t yell “I don’t know!” when I ask it, mid-roundabout, which exit we should be taking before the articulated lorry joins us through the rear windscreen. It never says, “Erh… you should have turned right back there… I think.” And I do derive great pleasure from totally ignoring Doris from time to time (oh come on, everyone names their GPS, don’t they?) and just plough on my own merry way. It doesn’t matter where I find myself in the middle, I will always reach the end… in the end. The joy is in finding myself somewhere I never expected to go, whilst knowing that I will, eventually, wind up exactly where I’m meant to be.

Mind you, it’s generally not a big deal to me because, if I’m honest, I always feel that wherever I am is where I am meant to be. I can only be in one place at any time. Except, of course, in my dreams. In dreams I can be in any number of places at once. And I can be anything I want to be: I can be a footballer, a rockstar, a filmstar or even a great writer…

Of course, when I wake up in the morning, it is to discover that I am none of the above and my midnight achievements, whatever they might be, are no more real than my best ever post…

…which, I feel certain, is yet to come…

Haphazardly Poetical – The Wedding

A few days off and nothing prepared, so another rifle through the archive. This ‘poem’ (I realise I am stretching a point here) has been in the file for blog posts since day one. I wrote it many years ago with the intention of reading it out in lieu of The Best Man’s speech at a wedding – hence the deliberately non-pc, ‘Carry On’ feel of the whole thing. Needless to say, I didn’t do it in the end – I am still talking to the groom, although not the bride, but then again, neither is he – but it only really works (really?) when read out aloud. Try it and see – but don’t blame me…

The story I relate today
Is of my uncle’s wedding day:
He married Jane, a last resort
From one to ten, a certain nought.

It was really quite a rushed affair
Some said he did it for a dare
Some said he was too young a lad
Some darkly hinted he was mad.

He hadn’t proposed and nor had she,
She’d just demanded “Marry me!”
And he accepted, voice quite calm
Despite the fact she’d broke his arm.

And he was not the greatest catch –
From athlete’s foot to thinning thatch –
A body that had missed its best
In nylon pants and grey string vest.

Still, time flew by, the church was booked
My brother thought “Well I’ll be blowed.
I never thought this day would come.”
And slyly drank a tot of rum.

As both the families settled down
All hats and frocks and coughs and frowns.
All hankies tucked down in the ruffles
To be brought out at the merest snuffle

And Aunty Jan gave Jim a boot
For laughing at the bridegroom’s suit.
Then all their eyes turned to the door
And Uncle slid down to the floor.

The organ played ‘Here Comes The Bride’
The groom had thoughts of suicide.
He turned to see his sweetheart, Jane,
And decided he was quite insane.

She shuffled gaily down the aisle
All bandy legs and grisly smile.
A flower in her matted hair –
The bridal gown from Mothercare.

The vicar looked down at his watch
And slyly took a slug of scotch
Whilst looking round the wooden pews
He hated what he had to do:

To tie with matrimonial knot
This woman and a stupid clot
Who looked as bright as a slurry pit
And smelled – he thought – of chicken manure.

“Dearly beloved” he began to say.
“We are gathered here today
To join in matrimonial bliss
This couple who will shortly kiss

To finalise their wedding vow:
A lifetime’s oath – at least for now –
To be co-joined for ever more.”
The vicar stared down at the floor.

And closed his eyes, the slightest pause
To let someone find rightful cause
Why they should never be permitted
To ever let their genes be knitted.

The congregation then all rose
And aunty May crushed Ivan’s toes.
So Ivan, in retaliation,
Ripped apart her pink carnation.

“You swine!” she yelled and kicked him hard
Where he would least like to be scarred
And falling down he screamed in pain
As she kicked him very hard again.

“Don’t scream at me,” she said. “Take that!”
And hit him with a prayer mat.
“Now let us pray,” the vicar said
As Aunty May kicked Ivan’s head.

“You make me sick,” Aunt Daisy spat.
“You shouldn’t hurt the man like that.”
Aunt May said “Just you keep it out.”
And hit her with a hefty clout.

Then Daisy cried out, “Well I never.”
And hit back with a rolled umbrella.
So Aunty May, with temper flared,
Ripped out a chunk of Daisy’s hair.

The vicar now was in a panic;
The going’s-on were quite satanic.
“Love your neighbours, please,” he cried
And turned in terror to the bride.

He quickly grabbed the couples’ hands
And asked them both if they would stand.
The preacher, frightened for his life,
Pronounced that they were man and wife.

The organist, in state of shock,
Played madly to the gathered flock.
The choir sang a verse or two
While hiding down behind a pew

And as the punches flew each side
The bridegroom leaned to kiss the bride
But tripped and ripped her wedding gown
And pulled her Marks & Spencer’s down.

The vicar, having taken oaths
Was shocked to see her without clothes.
The verger, made of sterner stuff
Stared at this vision in the buff.

The bridegroom saw what he was taking
And all at once he started shaking.
He looked at her in consternation
And dreaded the thought of consummation.

Still, that was that, his fate was sealed
As in the tower the church bells pealed.
They walked outside into the air
And a pigeon dropped one in his hair.

His face turned up towards the sky
And it dropped another in his eye.
“You wait!” he yelled, his voice was strained
As pigeons flapped and droppings rained.

The photographer, a redundant hosier
Had once been arrested for over-expos-i-er
But now he stood and shook his head
“Come on now boys and girls,” he said

And Uncle Jim gave his biggest smile,
Which baffled everyone for a while
‘Cos he’d put his teeth in back to front
He looked a sight, the silly fool.

The cameras flashed and so did Jane
And Uncle swallowed hard again.
Then all was done, confetti gone
The pigeon dropped another one.

The couple climbed into the car
And sped towards the local bar
Where the party raged in all its glory,
But that I’m afraid is another story…

…which I also have on file, so behave, or I may publish that as well!

Scrubbing the Doors

Today I started to scrub the kitchen cabinet doors. There are many of them and it is – and always has been – a brute of a job. It is, nonetheless, one I have carried out a thousand times, but today marked a new staging-post, because today I did not finish the scrub down in one go, today I gave in half way through. Tomorrow I will finish the scrubbing, providing my arms do not ache as much as they currently do and I can shake the pins-and-needles out of my feet. I feel as though I have bowed to age a little today – although I did also certainly tip my hat to abject boredom.

I struggle to actually complete anything these days if it can’t hold my attention – age has robbed me of my ‘coast’ button. It seems to be all or nothing now, with ‘nothing’ almost inevitably having the upper hand. If my brain is not fully engaged, it tends to turn the body off. (I hope that it will not yet adopt the same attitude to breathing.) It appears to slip into a mode not unlike a buffering TV – although with a lot less swearing. There was a time when I could have a perfectly productive day without once engaging the brain, there was so much I could do without conscious thought. These days, if I can’t bring the brain along, then I don’t go to the party – although, I have to be honest, I’m not certain that I am ever missed.

Like everybody else, I have ‘chores’ (by definition ‘tedious but necessary tasks’) that must be done, during which the physical effort of carrying them out is dwarfed by the mental strain of persuading the brain to remain, at least in some small degree, alert: sufficiently engaged to allow me to get things done, but not so bothered that it starts to think about strangling me. Take my ‘cleaning days’: these typically involve dusting, hoovering, mopping and all-surface washing, and are tedious beyond belief. Getting through usually involves wall-to-wall loud music, grandad dancing and heart-chilling quantities of chocolate. But they are long days and my brain takes leave for much of them: it is away on the beach whilst I am fluffing cushions. My wife has mastered the art of asking whether I have carried out specific tasks in the sure and certain knowledge that I won’t have a clue. I might have been there, but my mind wasn’t. It was somewhere far more exciting. It didn’t need a mop, it didn’t need a hoover, it didn’t need me.

My brain has far more fun than I do, so it now has a price to pay: I refuse to take part in all the dreary elements of life without it going through the torment as well. If I have got to be there, so has my brain. If I have to sit in the doctor’s waiting room, it has to concentrate on the nonsensical subtitles attached to the news; if I have to sit on the bus, it has to process the sights, sounds, smells and what passes for conversation; if I have to go shopping, it has to be ready to chat to the checkout operative at the end. I don’t ask it to do anything I haven’t done myself, I just insist that it stays awake for it.

So tomorrow I will finish scrubbing the kitchen unit doors and my brain will keep me company, although I can’t help but think that I am somewhat biting off my own nose (Is that even possible?) in order to spite my face, because if it is ‘present’, then so am I, and frankly I would rather not be…

Getting Things Done

I am no builder and I certainly do not seek to criticize what I do not understand – what I am about to describe may be the only proper way to do it – but today whilst ~~staring idly out of the office window~~ working at my laptop I have had the opportunity to watch a builder working on the house behind us. He had a fascinating and unchanging routine with a pleasing rhythm to it that lulled my senses and calmed my fractious spirit:
1. Take a single block off the pallet and place it close to where it was to be laid, at the opposite end of the building.
2. Leave trowel with block.
3. Walk whole length of new building to pick up bucket.
4. Walk back to block and pick up trowel.
5. Place trowel in bucket and walk to gobbo* hopper, at the original location of the bucket.
6. Remove trowel from bucket and place near hopper. Fill bucket with gobbo.
7. Cross building with bucket to previously placed block.
8. Return to hopper for trowel.
9. Lay block.
10. Search for spirit level – find it where trowel used to be.
11. Level block.
12. Look at block from distance.
13. Look at block from side of hopper. Leave spirit level there.
14. Consult mobile phone.
15. Start again.
Now, at no stage did he actually stop what he was doing (except for tea breaks and lunch obv) but neither did he vary it. He never, for instance, laid out a number of blocks at once, he never filled his bucket with more gobbo than was sufficient for a single block, he never left his trowel or spirit level where they were needed. The routine was so regimented, I figured that it must have been taught to him: this is the way that blocks had to be laid. I can’t argue, I have never laid a block in my life, but I do have a friend who is a bricklayer and he gets paid for the number of bricks he lays each day. I don’t see the above routine being particularly fruitful, salary-wise.

The impression is that he had been told ‘Look busy, but don’t do too much.’ Perhaps they didn’t want the house building until it had a buyer. It did also occur that it might be a ‘Health and Safety’ issue: don’t leave blocks laying about – trip hazard; don’t carry too much gobbo in the bucket – heavy lifting risk; don’t do more than one thing at once – brain overload threat, but the more I watched him, the more I became certain that it was just the way that he did things. (I also noticed that he was working, whilst I was drinking tea, dunking biscuits and staring out of the window, but that’s another story.) All over the site people were working in pairs – one laying and levelling, the other fetching and carrying – but he worked alone, presumably not tolerated by, or tolerant of, others. Throughout the day, more blocks and gobbo were delivered, but always left as far away from where he was working as possible.

I tried to see how old he (or she – it was hard to tell) was but so swaddled was he/she in various hi-viz layers, balaclava, hard hat, what might have been a beard, but also could have been a pet cat, that there was no way of telling. It could have been an old person working at maximum capacity or a young person doing just enough to avoid the sack (or, of course vice versa). One way or another, I couldn’t take my eyes off him/her (I even timed my own tea breaks to coincide with his** flask-visits, which meant that I also spent all afternoon having to stop for a pee.) which at least taught me one very valuable lesson: from tomorrow I am going to have to start writing with the blinds down, or else I’ll never get anything done…

*Builder’s mortar – I have no idea why.

**For ease – and to stop this blog hitting an all-time wasted pronoun count – I am going to settle on it being a ‘he’, if only because he appeared to have no friends.