Friday 12th March 2010
Still no word from Papers and Paints.
There’s a fabulously gloomy poem by Christina Rossetti, called ‘Up-hill’. It goes:
‘Does the road wind up-hill all the way?
Yes, to the very end.’
At lunchtime today the builders left. The utter, utter joy! I can breathe again. I haven’t been able to breathe for a week. Not at all.
Cruel, isn’t it? They don’t mean any harm.
One of my best breakfast cups got cracked. Matching set now reduced to five. Let’s pray there are never more than five for breakfast. They made off with all my paint scrapers (yes, I do a little DIY when no-one’s looking: it’s an excellent economy) and my carpet brush evap; the matches lifted by Lady Carmichael, the blond Multi’s mother, from La Pont de la Tour on Sunday – they got hold of those for their cigarettes. I saw one of the completely non-speaking ones (not even ‘hello’ or ‘goodbye’) in the street flourishing… I thought: ‘That logo looks familiar.’
The bath panel – well, I’ve told you all about it. ‘Small Gregor’, as he is known, was set to prising off all the mis-applied silicone – at my expense.
Oh, I was low. I got rather snappy with Miroslav, the head man, during the thirty-minute confab re: what to do about filling round the bath panel. You recall that it also sticks out at one end.
After that, I staggered upstairs without hope, quite frankly to lie down at ten in the morning and do a Sudoku.
But, on the top terrace, I’d forgotten all about it – the pointing. It’s been sitting there for nearly four years, looking like mud pie. Nothing to be done. No hope.
Well, you won’t believe it! God moves in mysterious etc. Transformed. Lovely, neat pointing out of nowhere.
I hope you know what pointing is.
Later, downstairs, another miracle. ‘Small Gregor’ somehow had managed to get the sticking-out bit of bath panel not sticking out. And the plan of filling the right-hand side (this is so interesting, I know) from the other direction – well, it’s yet to be sanded, but I think it might work. The remaining two sides will be filled later on. We’re putting off the dread moment. Maybe after a week’s rest, Small Gregor will be refreshed for the challenge.
So when I said the builders had left, it was not quite true.
For Poor Little Rich Gays they never do leave – not really.
Filling with Hope in my Downstairs Bathroom
Delicious Pointing Achieved After Four Years
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I am full of trepidation. New loft completed Friday. Upon inspection it’s apparent the previous owners were not keen on cleaning, or even staff. Christmas Tree detritus in the living room. I ask you, Is that normal? I am now interviewing decorators – of course the place is currently inhabitable – but am already stealing myself for blue placcy bags. All my parties are now derailed by weeks! How property tests PLRGs! P.S. The pointing looks excellent!
Dear Adrian Edge: I too greatly admire your pointing. It looks very tidy. However, I am never quite clear why re-pointed brickwork always looks like sandwiches with too much filling. Is there a “trade” explanation for this effect, or is the question too technical for gays to be concerned with it?
I think gays can be paradoxical and grasp (if only by guesswork) that it might depend on whether the old mortar is sufficiently loose to be easily ‘raked out’. Miroslav complained that the mud-pie mortar they put there before was rock-hard and they loomed with a machine to try and gouge it out – with only small success or ‘small successes, I believe me’ as Miroslav would himself say.
Moving! Now this is a drama. I’m sure you’ll have all vapours of straights (I’m assuming straights from the sound of things) driven out of that loft in no time. And the thrill of a new home! Do keep us posted, ideally with illustrations.