Doing Other Things

Things have slowed down here at The Funny Little Bungalow. There are tumbleweeds blowing across the newly tiled roof, and thick cobwebs have started to set in upstairs in the corners of what were freshly painted bedrooms.
OK, I exaggerate. There are no tumbleweeds. And the cobwebs aren’t that bad. But progress has certainly hit a hurdle.
Big Seymour has been busy doing “other things”. And it’s about time, too, I suppose. He has effectively knocked down and re-built a whole house, pretty much single-handedly, over the last sixteen months. He hasn’t really gone anywhere or done anything other than work, and when I heard him saying one saturday that he was plumbing to make a change from insulating, I realised just how much patience he must have to be sticking it out at all. It’s a miracle he isn’t fed up of the sight of the place entirely.
And so, when July arrived, Big Seymour shook things up a bit at the weekends. He went to Devon for a fishing weekend. And fell asleep. He went to a barbecue. And nearly fell asleep. He dug out a friend’s garden, pointed someone’s chimneys, and then came home and fell asleep. And then, in August, we went away.
Big Seymour fell asleep a lot then, also.

Of course, human exhaustion isn’t our only hurdle. The budget – that teeny, weeny, minuscule little budget that we set out with, has been exhausted, too. The Fiery Beast (the new two-way fireplace that will also cleverly heat our water) saw to that.
It was inevitable, really. We were too optimistic. Or delusional.

But optimism is a great thing! I am optimistic that we – Big Seymour, The Four Little Seymours and I, are about to embark upon a new phase. There will be a big push, and the Funny Little Bungalow might rouse itself, with our help, from this frustrating hiatus, and start to come back to life. The budget issue, we shall ignore. Besides, Boy Seymour has suddenly developed an all-consuming desire to mow lawns – every day. Offers of employment have flooded in, and so I will rent him out for a fee.

All the Little Seymours are now back at school. They were keen to return. Somehow, miraculously, I managed to find all the school stuff I’d squirrelled away at the end of July so it didn’t get eaten up in the bowels of The Shed. And soon, we will be back in the swing of the term time circus… and facing a second winter living in the garden…

Bring it on.