Despite the fact that I have now been alive for more than forty years, it still took me until half past nine this morning before it dawned on me that the reason I didn’t find today’s alarm call too heinously early was the fact that I had, in fact, had an extra hour in bed.
It will never cease to confound me – this business of humans changing time. But I guess, as marking the passage of time was all down to humans in the first place, it’s our prerogative to play with it.
Yes, the clocks going back is a funny old business. It certainly has its benefits – three of The Four Little Seymours were blissfully unaware that they went to bed ridiculously early last night, so dark was it outside The Shed. I hurried and cajoled them up to their shelf, making out that it was REALLY LATE, when in actual fact it wasn’t, but I just wanted to concentrate on collapsing in a crumpled heap on the floor in peace, without someone dashing about like a loon, arguing or defying my dwindling authority with aplomb.
Yesterday, like most weekends to date, was relatively productive. Only one flank of The Funny Little Bungalow now remains untiled. This is progress!
Yet somehow, despite anticipating some kind of imminent euphoria that the outside is almost done, we are instead feeling a bit dejected.
The flat roof is still not finished. The Vegas Rubber is in place, but it’s not attached.
The Great Glass Windows are in! But they have no glass. And did the fitters leave Big Seymour with enough room for his hankered-after (yet slightly ostentatious) under-floor heating system? Whether his dramatic cry of “Oh sh%t!” when he inspected the frames in the dark after work was simply an over-reaction, I couldn’t tell. As someone who knows nothing about such things, I had assumed all was well when I plied the chaps with tea earlier in the day. Clearly, I was unaware of the margins they needed to work to.
Despite this minor hiccup, the half term holiday last week was spent well, all in all. We met with friends and family, went on walks (much to the Little Seymours’ disgust), set up photo shoots, and fitted in a trip to the library, a garden centre and The Pub Down The Road. We made fairy doors and wrestled with times tables a bit. I spent a lot of time twitching whenever anyone mentioned “going on the ipad” before 4pm, especially if it was sunny outside. And yesterday, Boy Seymour even built a house of his own.
I don’t really find it difficult occupying my kids in school holidays, but the weekends are a bit different. When Big Seymour is working on the Funny Little Bungalow, I’d love nothing more than to stand by his side, listening to Radio Two, handing him nails and “bumping” tiles all day, honest. But that’s very tricky when there are Four Little Seymours who need direction. What with homework, craft, independent adjudication of arguments, taxi-ing folks about and that most repetitive of tasks – food preparation, I am never as helpful as I’d like to be to anyone.
Yesterday, Boy Seymour was jerkier than usual. This often spells trouble. He was on the lookout for mischief, I could just tell. So, before I was able to help Big Seymour, and whilst the small girl Seymours were setting up a book shop with ALL THE BOOKS everywhere in The Shed, I had to find something to keep The Boy out of trouble.
So I gave him his father’s drill, some pallets, a few screws, and he built a house with them.
Now, of course, he didn’t just get on with it. I occupied my day responding to various yells (not gentle calls, but actual yells) of “Mummy!” when he couldn’t get his angles right. I had to intervene when sisters got too close. He struggled to tile the roof with the limited supply of wood glue I dug out for him, but by the end of the day, we had a “Comfey Cottage” (sic), as it was named by Little Seymour Number Two when she commandeered the thing later. With a few cushions and the artistic arrangement of a tea set on the singular shelf, Boy’s creation looked Pinterest-worthy! I was quite impressed.
By the middle of the day, though, the events that led me to wanting to collapse in a crumpled heap by bedtime started to occur in sequence. Little Seymour Number One decided she wanted to help with the tiling, so I essentially felt the need to stand at the top of the ladder and watch that she didn’t fall off the scaffolding, in between fetching tiles and cutting off sharp screw ends that Boy Seymour had failed to drill in properly to his Comfey Cottage, with an angle grinder. The smoke alarm went off in The Shed, and I had to run to rescue a visiting Grandma E from acrid fumes. A hornet found its way into the cooking, and put rather a dampener on the roast beef.
By four pm, hoorah! The Four Little Seymours were settled happily in front of Hocus Pocus, and I went to help Big Seymour. The sun was shining! The autumn colours were glorious against the blue/grey sky, which was becoming more grey than blue by the moment as we realised we only had an hour of daylight left. But Big Seymour is ambitious. And in that hour, he wanted to finish that side of the bungalow – tiled, guttered, and with the scaffolding down. As I stood, pushing the top-most tiles against the wall with both hands whilst the Gripfill/Instastick stuff “went off” (all to save there being any visible nails on the finished tiling), I was reminded of the various different forms of torture involving holding your hands above your head for hours on end, and I started to feel very uncomfortable. Weakness is not an option, and woe betide me if I let go of the tiles before they are fully stuck on, for they can fall, break, and take out other tiles below.
Soon, Big Seymour had to accept that we were not going to achieve all the things on his list. And as we started to pack up in the dusk, I let go of a tile too early. The bloody thing came off, took a tile out beneath it, and all that arm raising torture had been in vain. I was immediately filled with woe.
There was just one more job before Big Seymour would retire for the night. And, just as Hocus Pocus was clearly ending and small people were emerging from The Shed, he wanted us to lift the MOST ENORMOUS sheet of black granite out of his van.
Let’s just say that I thought I was strong. Amazonian, even. But this granite left me wobbling, feeling sick, terrified and drained every last ounce of optimism out of me for the rest of the day. Yes, we want to cut costs. Yes, free granite is lovely. But I am NOT lifting THAT again. Amen.
I finished the day grumpy, anxious and ate way too much cake. Luckily, His Highness David Attenborough cheered me up. There’s nothing more sobering and perspective-correcting than the power of the ocean. And I went to sleep, glad that I was not employed to film scary-looking “non-killer” whales in freezing black oceans, or dive in the shadow of a sinister yet beautiful glacier the size of Ventnor. I am happy to watch those wonders from the relative comfort and safety of The Shed, thank you very much.
After all, everything is relative. Einstein said so.
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