On Sunday, as I drove Little Seymour Number One to her play rehearsal, I noticed a vacancy for a scaffolder, advertised outside a local builder’s yard.
Hmmm, I thought.
For a very brief moment, I could see myself in a hard hat, masterfully and cheerfully erecting poles and planks with my team of merry, strong lads, and knitting them all together with the enormous and varied screws that come in zillions of different formats, depending upon what arrangement of poles you are trying to achieve.
Yes, I did my usual trick of considering the scaffolding job in rather a lot of unnecessary detail, even though, in reality, I knew it would be my undoing.
How do I know this? You may ask.
Well, I shall tell you.
Just before I left to take Little Seymour Number One to her rehearsal, I had indeed been scaffolding. I was doing my best to follow Big Seymour’s instructions as he dished out orders to me over the driving rain. I had to pass him planks and twisty metal things and hook-over metal clamps and joining-up ones. I heaved enormous steel rods into the air and waved them about before they were secure, whilst successfully avoiding dropping any on the Shiny Van. I became a master of finding the boat level when it was lost and the best bit was getting to use the WD40 freely (such great stuff!).
It came as a bit of a shock to Big Seymour, though, when I had to stop, mid-scaffold, to ferry the children about. He couldn’t understand why I had to go, so engrossed was he with the task in hand. Luckily, Bonnie and Clyde (aka Grandma and Grandad) rolled up just as I was about to leave, and were able to pass him things in my absence.
But my brief stint at scaffolding proved to me that it is a highly skilled job. To do it quickly, without making errors and therefore having to go back and undo it all to put it right, is a form of art. It would be a bad move for me to make a habit of this. I’d impale myself or someone else. Or I’d lose all my fingers. I am not logical enough to understand what needs to go where, and I don’t like heights.
Having said that, when I ventured up on to the almost complete structure later that day, it was worth the trip. A whole vista of green fields, sheep and trees is suddenly accessible from where the Four Little Seymours’ bedroom windows will be. And somewhere on the distant hill, way up in the distance, is Chanctonbury Ring.
I can’t help but feel that such a view may be wasted on the Four Little Seymours, when the upstairs is done. Big Seymour and I will be relegated to the back of the house, where the views are somewhat less spectacular. But I may just sneak in to watch the sun set from time to time, or to try and find inspiration for some crazy plot or other. No doubt, I’ll end up day-dreaming.
Here is my problem. I am a day-dreamer. I run notions through in my head as if they were real, and hence, when I saw an advert for a scaffolder, I genuinely considered it for a moment.
It’s rather like last month when I seriously thought about becoming a retained firefighter. I’d be good at that, I told the Four Little Seymours. They rolled their eyes in unison, and waited for Mummy’s whim to pass. Just like Big Seymour did when I announced in October that I’d found my perfect job – my vocation, no less. I was going to be a registrar!
Well, I’m still not a registrar, and I won’t be applying for the scaffolding position, either. I am too scared to rubberneck at minor road incidents, so how I’d cope attending something more serious as a firefighter would be of grave concern.
I don’t like flying, so I can’t be a glamorous air hostess, and as for all the business ideas I’ve had – they’re all rubbish.
For now, I will stick to what I know. I mean, who wouldn’t feel proud to be a teacher/builder’s labourer/copy-editor/in-house writer/failed portrait artist/gardener/dog-sitter and second-hand washing machine saleswoman? Oh, and a mummy. I mustn’t forget that part, for it is the best.
I think what I am trying to say is that inspiration comes from all angles. A morning’s scaffolding and I’m a scaffolder. A day on This Morning and I’m a TV star. A few hours painting cartoon horses and I’m Norman Thelwell, all of a sudden. Bored I ain’t.
A vivid imagination is a powerful thing. It can be highly destructive, but it is also the fuel for optimism. Which is very useful when renovating a house.
And, on second thoughts, maybe the view of Chanctonbury Ring isn’t wasted on the Four Little Seymours, who may find their own inspiration from it.
Little Seymour Number One has just selected her options for Year Nine, and has countless choices ahead of her – which is both a blessing and a curse. Such opportunity! What will she and the other Three Little Seymours choose to do with their lives?
Who knows? Nobody can tell. If they’re anything like me, even when they’re forty, they still won’t have worked it out.
But maybe, if they focus hard enough on that panorama of hills outside their bedroom window, they’ll look back at this period of time and know that the hovel-living was worth it.
Either that, or they’ll all marry millionaires, and get the job done much quicker.
😉
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