Big Seymour Rocks!

Big Seymour has returned to his day job. The sky is grey, and the tarpaulin is flappin’ over our partially covered, near-derelict abode.

On the up side, in eighteen days, he has managed to almost completely erect the frame of our new house and make it 80% watertight, install two Velux skylights and not fall off and break himself. Jolly good going, I say!

Yes, the EIGHTEEN DAYS have been and gone and there are mixed emotions. It was lovely having Big Seymour at home for that time (mainly because I didn’t have to make him the packed lunches he’s so bloody particular about), and he is very pleased with what’s been achieved. The weather was eerily kind – almost as if the heavens themselves were doing their bit to help us. It only began to rain on the last weekend, when, by and large, the roof structure was up, and the danger of slipping off the rafters was largely behind us.

The Four Little Seymours have adapted well to living in The Shed, and as long as they go to bed in staggered formation, then we don’t have too much of a war going on, up on the shelf where they sleep. Although, the more comfortable they become, the more the novelty is wearing off, and I envisage real problems getting them to retire as the evenings become lighter and the weather gets warmer – it can get really hot up there…
The other night, Boy Seymour was forcibly removed from his eyrie and placed in a small sun tent outside in the garden for a time – just to remind him not to smash Mini Seymour’s head against the shed wall simply because she got too close to his bed. And the clothes storage is a problem that may never be resolved during this period of Romany existence. I have been wearing the same things now for four and a half weeks. But I am trying not to twitch about it.

As for the Funny Little Bungalow – it’s still there. Just. This new structure can hardly be described as little, and a new name for our home may be required at some point. (Humungalow? Ginungalow? Hogwarts?) Indeed, from the back, the whole thing looks decidedly enormous, and somewhat out of place. I hope it softens as the tiles go on and it becomes a less alien view. There are still familiar parts, though. Bar the dust and rubble, the old kitchen is very much the same. There are the lovely old radiators and of course, that fireplace, which all remind me that the Funny Little Bungalow hasn’t been destroyed completely.

But we must embrace the new, improved version. It is going to be fabulous! It’s being built by Big Seymour, just for us. Especially for us. He has crafted each and every joist and strut with his own hands (with the help of a few power tools and a couple of friends here and there), measuring every step of the way, and painstakingly creating something wonderful. His brain must be far more methodical than mine – and less inclined to be distracted, resulting in a near-complete new roof in just over two weeks.

It’s fitting, then, that, on many of the wooden beams and planks, and even on the steel ones, his name is scrawled. Before the materials were delivered, they were marked up especially for him. And so, rather like a stick of rock, our house is internally engraved, not with its place of origin, but with the name of its builder – and owner.

So, I guess what I am trying to say in this post is that he is clever. He has impressed many onlookers with his very obvious skills over the past couple of weeks. I know what he can do, and so do the Four Little Seymours. Little Seymour Number One actually stopped being a stroppy pre-teen for a moment one evening to graciously thank her dad for making her a new (double-aspect, no less!) room of her own. And Boy Seymour is overjoyed that, despite not actually having a bedroom yet, there is a skylight in the place where his ceiling will be. (No, I haven’t told him yet that it’s an opener.)

The reality is that this new house of ours will be well worth the wait.
And wait we will, because Big Seymour’s current building stint is over. His hands, at least, were grateful to stop such frenetic roof-building, as the repetitive strain on them aggravated his very, very painful case of carpal tunnel.
Which may well be worthy of a letter to Nick Knowles…. what do you reckon..? 😉
#diysos