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The bulk of last week was spent amidst billowing dust and the teeth crunching sound of saws. The first caused sneezing but more importantly the second precluded one from watching any meaningful daytime TV under volume notch 1000. Which is a health hazard and may cause burst ear drums when the sawing suddenly stops. yes, we had the carpenter in to remedy the sorry excuse for shells that we call cupboards.
The services of the carpenter were stolen off the back of the work that this Polish crew did for a friend of mine. So this one giant 7ft something man arrived each morning at 7am with his car full of cut up MDF and all his tools. Cheery fellow alright but language was a huge problem between us and a lot of our explanations had to be drawn on paper and vocalized slowly and indicated with pointing. But plied with black, sugar laden coffee he was happy to go with the flow and make changes where serious misinterpretation had taken place.
The sawing, hammering and violent application of adhesive meant that the stuff from our cupboards had to be draped across the living room furniture, packed into our 3 Samsonites, piled on beds in both rooms and covered with bedcovers. This rendered us fit for living room camping – a sport that both of us love – with me on the day bed and V on a single mattress being tortured (just me) by late night cricket watching.
In 3 short days he had put up shelves and inserted sparkling white drawers to replace the sorry MDF chests of drawers that V had slaved over and stuck onto the floor of the shells. The chests of drawers that V so diligently made have been relegated to living under the windows of the second room, storage for summer visitors. And in their place we have floor to ceiling shelves and drawers, much desired.
With the man and his materials duly paid off we spent all of Friday dusting, wiping down cupboards, vacuuming, wiping floors and doors. Then it was time to roll back the bedcovers and sort things out (read: neatly fold instead of crumple into small balls) before putting them back in SHELVES in categories. The one good thing that came from the exercise was a huge de-cluttering and 4 giant bags of clothes for the charity shop. Sadly this included jackets that I have been holding on to for too many years out of sentimental reasons and if I’m not careful might pull out of the bags (if V is not watching me like a hawk). There was a whole bag of bags that are worn to the thin, comfortable but oh-so unattractive. I also put aside a whole bunch of clothes and junk that I am sure my mother will adopt. It also turns out that V has no clothes while I own too many to any longer use the sentence “but I have nothing to wear!?” effectively to gain sympathy.
So there’s now a place for everything and everything is in its place. The floor is relatively clean and dust free. Our camping days are over.
But before I go you should torture you with what I have been tortured with all week: V’s favourite joke of the moment: “We have carpenters working in our house this week”. To which some unsuspecting person from the public or friends (who might disown us on this basis) will say “Really? What are they doing?” To which witty V will reply, “I don’t know. We don’t even have a car!” And then burst into giggles. Pliss to laugh.
The services of the carpenter were stolen off the back of the work that this Polish crew did for a friend of mine. So this one giant 7ft something man arrived each morning at 7am with his car full of cut up MDF and all his tools. Cheery fellow alright but language was a huge problem between us and a lot of our explanations had to be drawn on paper and vocalized slowly and indicated with pointing. But plied with black, sugar laden coffee he was happy to go with the flow and make changes where serious misinterpretation had taken place.
The sawing, hammering and violent application of adhesive meant that the stuff from our cupboards had to be draped across the living room furniture, packed into our 3 Samsonites, piled on beds in both rooms and covered with bedcovers. This rendered us fit for living room camping – a sport that both of us love – with me on the day bed and V on a single mattress being tortured (just me) by late night cricket watching.
In 3 short days he had put up shelves and inserted sparkling white drawers to replace the sorry MDF chests of drawers that V had slaved over and stuck onto the floor of the shells. The chests of drawers that V so diligently made have been relegated to living under the windows of the second room, storage for summer visitors. And in their place we have floor to ceiling shelves and drawers, much desired.
With the man and his materials duly paid off we spent all of Friday dusting, wiping down cupboards, vacuuming, wiping floors and doors. Then it was time to roll back the bedcovers and sort things out (read: neatly fold instead of crumple into small balls) before putting them back in SHELVES in categories. The one good thing that came from the exercise was a huge de-cluttering and 4 giant bags of clothes for the charity shop. Sadly this included jackets that I have been holding on to for too many years out of sentimental reasons and if I’m not careful might pull out of the bags (if V is not watching me like a hawk). There was a whole bag of bags that are worn to the thin, comfortable but oh-so unattractive. I also put aside a whole bunch of clothes and junk that I am sure my mother will adopt. It also turns out that V has no clothes while I own too many to any longer use the sentence “but I have nothing to wear!?” effectively to gain sympathy.
So there’s now a place for everything and everything is in its place. The floor is relatively clean and dust free. Our camping days are over.
But before I go you should torture you with what I have been tortured with all week: V’s favourite joke of the moment: “We have carpenters working in our house this week”. To which some unsuspecting person from the public or friends (who might disown us on this basis) will say “Really? What are they doing?” To which witty V will reply, “I don’t know. We don’t even have a car!” And then burst into giggles. Pliss to laugh.
Ouch to all the noise, yay for the finished cupboards... but OWWWW for that joke! Misery loves company, I take it, which is why it's been inflicted on your unsuspecting readers! :)
ReplyDeletehee hee, it's so bad, it's funny.
ReplyDeleteA has no clothes either, a fact I routinely discover when I'm doing a clean out.