Danger

I’ve had it easy over the last few weeks. Big Seymour has been in a kind of brief hibernation from all things building-related, during which he hasn’t really done much to the Funny Little Bungalow. But now, I see a stony glint in his eye and I know that he’s on a mission.

He’s building the side of the bungalow “Up To Plate”.

Consequently, we now have the old faithful scaffold up, and in the years since we have last used it, it has aged somewhat. It’s browner than before, and is more iron oxide than steel. It does scare me.

Like, for example, when, on Saturday morning, I was down at the bottom of the garden doing something with a bonfire, and I glanced up at the house to see three of the Four Little Seymours, merrily standing on top of the scaffold with their father who appeared not to have noticed them there. My initial feelings were that if he was fine with it, then it must be OK. Maybe I just worry too much? Perhaps I’m neurotic.

But… I soon found myself making my way back up the garden. Then I, too, ended up on top of the scaffold. And it wasn’t all that bad. I could see the fields beyond the house, and the sheep and the hills. It was a rare sunny February day, and all was well.
For a brief moment.

It was only a matter of seconds before my hot and sweaty prickly synapses started telling me that I’m a useless and irresponsible mother, when Little Seymour Number Two climbed down and began peddling a toy tractor under the scaffold and the precarious piles of tiles thereon. No! I yelled, like a banshee. They’ll fall on your head! I hollered. She promptly peddled off at speed, to a safer location, whilst rolling her eyes.
To be fair, the tiles weren’t wobbling. But I had images.

Then, I calmed myself. Boy Seymour, who was the only remaining Little Seymour up there, decided he wanted to alight.
Down he went, and it was only when Big Seymour surfaced from his bricklaying trance when he casually mentioned that the little chap shouldn’t have gone down the way he did, because those planks aren’t secure.

Oh good God! The hot sweats started again. I’m not very good at this. I didn’t see that particular danger, and it prompted me to get off the scaffold myself and decree that NO CHILD IS EVER HEREWITH AND HENCEFORWARD EVER ALLOWED ON OR UNDER OR EVEN NEAR THE SCAFFOLDING EVER. Ever.

That is my rule. It is the law. It should have been made before and I am repentant.
Oh! The stress!

It couldn’t have been more fitting, then, after we failed to resist attending the Jumble Sale in the afternoon, that Boy Seymour found himself a marvellous skating helmet for 50p, which I shall encourage him to wear whenever he’s within two feet of his father.

Dangerous though a building site can be, I was reminded rather starkly just how treacherous the wider world is when, on Sunday, Little Seymour Number Two was nearly flattened by a reversing Lotus. Its silly low and grumbly tones were so out of place that we didn’t hear the thing until it was nudging her in the car park as we dropped her at a Thinking Day meeting. Luckily, Mr Lotus was reversing only slowly into my child, for which I am eternally grateful.

I guess I’m just a bit on edge at the moment. It’s been a while since we have had scaffolding up, and other fascinating things that the Little Seymours are likely to want to get involved in. It will take some adjusting to the dangers as the build progresses, and I’m going to have to be on the ball.

I am frequently reminded of the time when we took a wall down in the last house and, despite the bricks flying and the general desecration, a tiny baby Boy Seymour was sitting happily in his high chair watching the whole thing, and loving every minute.
But at least he was containable back then.

This time, he wants to help, and to prove his construction prowess has today been down the garden with his tool kit, sawing branches off Big Seymour’s favourite tree and beginning the foundations of an arboreal house. So far, he has made a small nest of twigs in next door’s overhanging oak, he’s hit Little Seymour Number One in the head with a branch and left a huge mess.
So, maybe, when he asks to help his dad on The Main Project, I might just have grounds to refuse his request.
Unless he’s wearing that jumble sale helmet, of course.