OK. Here goes. Where are we? Oh yes.
I shall tell you the story of the last week at The Funny Little Bungalow. I seem to remember posting something about Sputnik’s failed launch very late on a Saturday night. Well, I am pleased to report that Sputnik only bloody works! He conjured up a smidgen of really very hot water on Monday. It came out of the kitchen tap and everything! He didn’t explode, he did not burst and by and large, he didn’t leak.(Much.)
That was exciting!
On Sunday, Big Seymour, owing to the postponement of Sputnik’s launch, was forced to stuff endless chunks of Celotex into the holes in the kitchen ceiling. It was snowing in there. It snowed horrible, dusty globs of man-made funk everywhere, necessitating crude breathing apparatus and a very powerful vacuum cleaner waiting on stand-by. But by jingo! He celotexed the whole damn room. Poor bugger.
Also on Sunday, to add to the fun, our brave and intrepid friends arrived to stay! Bless them. The Four Little Seymours were overjoyed to see their chums from the West Country, and Big Seymour was especially pleased to welcome the strapping eighteen year old, who had only gone and taken a few days off work to visit us… and help out! He was a whizz at taping up ceilings, holding plasterboard up and drawing pencil lines. For hours on end, he laboured, devoting most of Tuesday to the cause.
Toby. You are a legend.
But it wasn’t just Toby, oh no. His grandfather, the inimitable Professor Finklebuhm (something of a legend in his own right) spent the best part of that same day excavating our living room floor with the care and attention of an archaeologist. Which was appropriate really, as we unearthed a rare find! Upon lifting the old carpet, we discovered part of the ancient kitchen floor, tiled in little red shiny cubes where the original stove would have been. The floor had to come up, but the tiles have been squirrelled away. I plan to make a retro backsplash out of those beauties.
On Wednesday, it became clear that a wall paper stripper would be required to remove the few patches of eighty-year-old, glued-on filth that was adorning the walls in the “front room”. This was the one Big Seymour had earmarked for plastering first, and those walls needed to be clean. Luckily, some friends came up trumps with the strippers (ooh err), and I got to work the next day, but golly gosh, it took me ages. In fact, we all had a go, and on Thursday night at midnight, Big Seymour, Little Seymour Number Two, Boy and I were still plugging away at it. We had to give up in the end. It was torture.
Friday came, and Rik The Roofer turned up with his plastering hat on. Rik the Plasterer was a very welcome sight. And by the day’s end, the two biggest surfaces were a lovely smooth terracotta pink colour – a harsh contrast to the original walls, which were downright gnarly by comparison.
At the weekend, we had all lost some steam. Or at least, I had. But by the end of Sunday, the front room was all that terracotta pink (bar a few surfaces by the staircase). My deliciously ugly 1960s fireplace has been plastered around (it’s staying!) and Big Seymour has even declared that it doesn’t offend him as much as he’d feared. Probably because he has put the chimney breast to good use, by installing a gadget of sorts inside the cavity.
F@cking gadgets.
Big Seymour lay prostrate on the floor yesterday evening, exhausted yet satisfied. He was a bit broken, but you can’t keep him down for long. And today, we all went back to the usual routine for a rest.
Tonight, Big “Deadpool” Seymour built the stud wall for my utility room.
Now that’s what I call The Return of the Mojo!
Hoorah!
0 Comments