Freaky

Some days defy normal categorisation. Today started off with an hour long snow shower - not just a few flakes but a proper fall - and although it did not settle and was gone by mid morning, it gave testimony to the lie that March comes in like a lion and goes out like a lamb. Here we were, halfway through April, and there was definitely weather with teeth outside our front door. 

The pattern for the day was quite freakish - cold one minute, brilliant sunshine a little later, dark rolling clouds after that, then more sunshine followed icy winds. 

Today was the day I had been dreading anyway: the day of the bathroom … it was our wish and our design but there is nothing quite as traumatising as having an essential room stripped back to its bare bones and then rebuilt. We live in our homes but most of us don’t really know their secrets, the skull beneath the skin, the dark places that a veneer of civilisation conceals. A new bathroom means three weeks of seeing things you don’t want to see, of dust and strange odours as old damp corners are exposed. It is the complete opposite of “that new car smell” - that day when you realise that your house isn’t really solid at all but is held together by strange forces known only to freemasons and Polish builders.

Our fitters were called Damien (wasn’t he that boy in that film about - no surely not…) and Ryszard, although Damien called him Richard. Probably just as well. Can you imagine an ageing pop singer called Cliff Ryszard? There probably is one Poland.

I speak no Polish but Damien’s English is good. Richard’s English is pretty much confined to the words “coffee” and … well that’s it really. Actually he said I made good coffee so that’s two words. Damien by contrast didn’t drink tea or coffee. “I am plumber” he said “so drink only water”. Yeah right. I believe you.

Incredible work rate ‘though. Couldn’t believe what got done in a day. And very tidy, they even wiped down the rubber mats we laid in the hall to protect the wooden door when they finished.

The freakishness continued when we went bike hunting again for TSM. Halfords were polite and helpful but had no bikes in stock. We then went to another place tucked away on an industrial estate where man called Mohamed met us and took us into the bowels of a very strange building full of bright white corridors and numbered rooms. If you know where Jason Bourne was trained to kill without question you will get an idea of how sinister it felt. We then entered a cavernous room with a stack of boxes in the middle, which created a circuit effect. The bikes were all in another dark room, and Mohamed pulled out one called The Thunder which had very chunky tyres, a powerful motor and hydraulic brakes - not to mention a very sexy electronic display which worryingly went up to 45 mph (ebikes should be governed by law to a maximum of 15.5 mph). We both test rode it around the cardboard boxes and I have to say it felt very good although the strangeness of the business model made us faintly uneasy.

After that we went to Guildford, which was packed. This being the date for the serious easing of lockdown, most of the Uk had gone shopping for the day. Us included. I bought clothes, books and candles to try and stimulate the high street’s recovery from covid. The trousers I bought were significant in that they are trousers of aspiration - a size smaller than normal which I hope to get into when I lose bit more weight (although I haver been stuck on the same plateau for six days now according to my scales, which I actually think are gaslighting me). Everyone was delighted to be open again and there was a lovely atmosphere. We bought lunch in M&S and ate it sitting on some up cycled tombstones in the churchyard of St Mary’s church, which is very old (even before William the Conqueror, around 950 AD).

We came home and caught the tail end of day one of the bathroom project. Richard was banging so furiously upstairs that I looked at the Dizzle and said “what do I do if a Polish plumber falls through the ceiling?” To which his unhelpful reply was “catch him”.

We made Shepherds Pie for everyone as people had been working hard doing early shifts and needed some soul food. TSM doesn’t like gravy so went for something out of a jar to spice up her meal. She then pulled a sour face.

“This chutney is horrible” she said. I picked up the jar. “That’s because it’s orange whiskey marmalade” I said, which reduced everyone to hysterical laughter. 

“I hate marmalade” said TSM.

“So do I” I said “on shepherd’s pie”.

So a freakish day, in many senses.  TSM still doesn’t have a bike, we no longer have a bathroom but a space that looks like something out of Game Of Thrones, and the marmalade has mysteriously disappeared.

Been fun.