Down To Earth With A Splash #part two - Let There Be Lights

The only image I have of the kitchen (2013)

It would be best to look at yesterday’s blog before reading this one.

When I got home from the Coven late Sunday evening the top of the cupboards had been wiped down and all the stuff put back in “very nearly the same place.”

Naturally neither Fester not Thunderthighs had thought to clean the tiles on the wall behind while up there; but of course I hadn’t left instructions about that and domestic initiative is entirely lacking.

The spotlight track was still sparking.

“Did your father use the hairdryer on it?”

“We both did, a couple of times” said Thunderthighs.

“How long for?”

There was no reply.

A little black patch appeared on the metal spotlight track along with the sparkles and, if the lights were on long enough, there would be an occasional CRACK and little puff of smoke.

“It’ll be fine” says Fester “it’s just drying out.”

The black patch kept creeping along the track and by Thursday morning, knowing I was going away to the Holy Island of Lindisfarne for the weekend, I could stand it no longer and emailed Will Fixit.

Hi Will

Last Thursday I had a lovely night out at LDNE and came home to find bath water pouring through the kitchen ceiling and Thunderthighs trying to brush it out of the back door.

I could write more but haven't the strength.

The cork floor tiles are coming up in the loo (helped by Ferretfingers aka Destructoboy)

And, despite Fester and Thunderthighs’ attempts to dry it out with a hairdryer while I was away this weekend, the light fitting in the kitchen keeps arcing, sparking and occasionally sending out a puff of smoke.

Could you advise on an electrician?

And a floorer?  The loo is a little but bloody awkward job, and I need the kitchen looking at too. 

I'm not expecting you to do it because of your hips etc, but you know more tradesmen than me.

Plodding on

Ben

Will phoned within minutes of reading the email and came around at lunchtime.

We turned on the kitchen lights and stood looking at them while the track sparkled, blackened and crackled.

“I thought I might be able to take it down and dry off the back” he said after one spectacularly loud arc “but we’ve got to face it: it’s knackered.”

“Well it was here when Phil and I moved in in April 1987 so it owes us nowt.”

“Let’s have a look at the Screwfix website and see if there’s anything suitable.”

There was, and I now have a Screwfix account as it was easier to have it sent to me as mine was the billing address.

I made sure that there would be someone in when it was delivered on Friday and told Fester Will would come on Saturday to Fixit.

“But what if I’m out with Ferretfingers…”

“Will Fixit has a key” I said between gritted teeth.

I left in time to reach the Causeway a good hour before the 12.30 end of safe crossing time.

Three nights and days on Holy Island in the good company of Pearl and female friends, Holy Communion and Compline in the ancient St Mary the Virgin church, long walks, the song of the seals and two sixty mile drives eventually brought me back to myself. 

The rage finally abated.

 

On Tuesday Ferretfingers and I spend the day at Ouseburn Farm. 

One of the volunteers there reminds me so much of a colleague from my first office job forty six years ago that I swear he could be his son (who would now be in his fifties).  We’ve developed much the same banter as George and I did.

George once paid me the highest compliment a Geordie male of his vintage could “Haway man-wumman-man, ye’r not a woman – ye’r a mate!” (workmate that is).

On the Tuesday after Holy Island George Jnr said to me 

“Well, you’re looking a lot better this week.  You’ve got your glow back.  I said to her at home last week ‘she was full o’ hell the day’”.

Then on Tuesday evening … 

see tomorrow’s blog.

 

Down To Earth With A Splash! - #part one

The only image I have of the kitchen (2013) 

Readers of yesterday’s blog (A Long Birthday) may remember how on 1^st October LD:NorthEast gave me a beautiful bouquet and poem to mark my birthday.  

I had the lovliest evening at the fundraising event and drove home will a full and happy heart.  As I got out of car I heard the gurgling of water and was content that all my boys were having their usual evening bath.

When I got into the house I felt a bit of a breeze blowing through and went into the kitchen to find the backdoor open, Thunderthighs in his pyjamas brushing water out of the door, an inadequately small bathmat in the middle of the floor and a heavy shower coming through the ceiling (fortunately wood panels).

“What happened?”

“Dad’s bath overflowed.”

I went upstairs and discovered that water had crept along the landing almost to the top of the stairs and was seeping underneath the cork tiles in the toilet. 

A bathsheet had been placed on top of the carpet.

When he saw me Fester said “If you stramp on that it will soak the water up”

AND PROCEEDED TO GET INTO THE BATH!!!           

The flooding was bad enough.

Realising he can’t be relied upon to mind the boys and house made it worse.

But the attitude of “now she’s back she can deal with it” put the tin hat on it.

I was enraged beyond speech, said nothing, went back downstairs and questioned Thunderthighs further, as gently as I could because too much pressure and he’d have clammed up.

“I had my bath, well shower actually, then I ran Ferretfingers’ bath and when he’d finished I told him to tell Dad I was running his bath.”

Which might just have worked in some households.

However Ferretfingers' autism is mainly a communication disorder, giving him a verbal message to pass on is as much use as carrying sand in a sieve.

I don’t really blame Thunderthighs, even though he should have known better.

Had his father been paying any attention then he might have noticed the toing and froing, heard the taps running and maybe gone and investigated before the overflow.

He is supposed to be my partner in caring for them.

Later, when I could control myself enough to enquire in a civilised manner why he’d got into the bath immediately on my return his reply was 

“Well I’d just spent three quarters of an hour sorting things out.”

Which ‘sorting out’ stopped as soon as the grown up entered the house.

The answer wasn’t meant to placate me, which was good, because it didn’t.

Anyhoo

Back in kitchen I suggested to Thunderthighs that he should take up and wring out the bathmat and put down newspaper.

He picked up a newspaper and proceeded to lay down single sheets in a fey manner that put me in mind of the Rite of Spring.

“Noooo Thund.  Put whole newspapers down.  We’ve plenty of them.  Leave them down overnight so they’ll catch all the drips.  You can take them up tomorrow morning and put them in the bin.”

I went up to bed and to start packing for my weekend with the Coven.

 

In the morning the floor was cleaner than it’s been in a long time.

The lights were working although the track was making spitting noises.

“While I’m away get the hairdryer onto that” I instructed Thunderthighs.

When I reached down my travel mug from the top of the cupboard the lid splashed cold water onto me.

“While I’m away” I said to Fester “get everything down off the top of the cupboards and dry them off.”

“Nothing up there will have got wet” he demurred.

Rather than ask him why he thought that, if there was water coming through the rest of the ceiling the foot and a bit over the cupboards would remain miraculously dry, I took down the other travel mug and flung the water that had gathered in its lid at him.

Some friends may believe he got off lightly not having a whole lot more flung at him.

“Everything needs to come off and get dried; and try to put everything back where it was" I instructed through gritted teeth "Get Thunderthighs to take everything down, wipe the shelf and put stuff back where he found it.  He’s got the height.  The last thing I need is you falling off the stool and breaking a hip. “

Mrs Eft arrived and off we went to Warwick where I had a lovely weekend with old friends.

More tomorrow

See also https://bentonbag.blogspot.com/2017/12/apres-mois-la-deluge.html

A Long Birthday

My Best Before Date birthday celebrations seem have gone on for a long time.

 

To be fair I started planning things back in February when I booked the week in TyCefn Tregib and afternoon tea at the Plough Rhosmaen, where I worked as a sweet waitress and barmaid when I was a student.

When I turned sixty Bigsister announced that I had to organise something for my birthday or she would.    

So I organised afternoon tea at the Grand Hotel in Whitley Bay for myself and Cousin Daisy, whose birthday is the day after mine albeit 22 years before.  

 

This time I decided that it would be easier for the siblings to get to Rhosmaen than Newcastle.  Bigbrother lives a couple of hours drive away and The Sisters are glad of any excuse to go ‘home’.  It also meant that Henffrind (we started infant school on the same day) and her daughter could come over from Newport.

When she heard I would be away on the day Pearl (a morris and folkie friend of very long standing) insisted on organising an afternoon tea in Northumberland on 19^th September.  It was at the Bywell Coffee Barn and was very nice.

Then there was a wonderful afternoon tea at the Plough Rhosemaen with the family and friends on the day itself (23^rd September).

LDNorthEast got in on the act.  There was a charity fundraiser on 1^st October where they presented me with a bunch of flowers and a lovely poem.

The next weekend I was off with the Coven in Warwick; there was cake and gin.

The day after I got back the WI committee presented me with a bunch of flowers and a wonderfully moist chocolate cake.

When I went to knit’n’natter on the following Friday there was a birthday banner made out of knitted squares, and a cake and other goodies.

Finally, yesterday I was treated to an afternoon tea by my lovely Woodlawn Coven; Mrs Bun, Mrs Lasagne, Mrs Bursar and Mrs Treasurer.

I have been utterly spoilt with countless cards (well I haven’t counted them) at least two bottles of gin and the same of Baileys, three bunches of flowers, gift-cards, a beanbag penguin, mug, toiletries and of course chocolates.

I am thankful for family and friends and all they’ve given me, and all the fun and laughter this six week celebration has brought. 

Of it all I think the best bit was being able to spend more time with Henffrind (aka OBF) than we have managed for many many years.

Sitting, drinking tea and talking until the golden moon rose over the farmland we roamed and played in when we were just little girls and had no idea what lives would lie before us.