There are many downsides to living on a building site. The opportunity for self-damage is one of them.
Even though we have, as the Carpenters would say, only just begun, we’ve still managed one gouged nose, two scraped arms, a nearly-skinned spine and countless stubbed toes. In fact, if I thought about it too much, I’d probably be beside myself, contemplating all the dangers we are yet to surround ourselves with.
I am dreading the arrival of the scaffolding.
The footings pit has been in-situ for one week, and it now boasts its very own little wall of concrete blocks, three courses high, which marks out the side of my new kitchen.
(It is way too early to be getting excited about a new kitchen just yet. We’re years off. But it is almost like the kitchen has been conceived, and I am expecting it. It gives me a warm glow.)
The Kid Next Door popped his head over the fence today, hankering after a play date with Boy Seymour. He was away last week, and so the sight that greeted our little neighbour, as his blonde head bobbed up over the shiplap was, naturally, something of a shock.
He was very polite about what he saw. He didn’t grimace, or shy away. In fact, all he really wanted to do was to have a go at walking the plank that leads to our door. I watched him do just that, carrying his iPad, and prayed that neither of them would end up in the pit.
After a short time, the novelty of the treacherous trench appeared to have worn off, and the iPad proved more interesting. But not before the Kid Next Door had announced, with all the wisdom of a nine year-old, that the extension we have planned will hardly be worth it, based on the siting of the embryonic new wall, and how little it will actually add to the existing house.
I spent a while considering this, and realised that he had a point.
But we haven’t waited two years to start the build, only to be put off now. The block wall is just the start.
And it very nearly didn’t start, after the nice antipodean chap delivering the blocks on Friday told me that I’d have to choose between our brand new gate pillar or the neighbour’s wooden post in order to get the enormous lorry far enough down the drive to crane off its load.
I couldn’t bear to watch, and disappeared down the road on the premise of “having to deliver a letter”. By the time I came back, an alternative solution had been found. Both pillar and post were intact. But the pile of blocks had been placed in such a manner as to completely prevent us from closing the gate.
“Don’t worry!” I told Big Seymour later, when he returned home to discover that there was a serious security breach. “I shall move the blocks myself! On Sunday!” I declared, willing to say anything to cheer him up so that we could get on with the business of heating up our Friday Night Curry and drinking wine, all the while knowing that concrete blocks are really very heavy, actually, and not fun to move at all.
On Saturday afternoon, Big Seymour hosted a Stag Party chez nous. The stags came to our building site in between a morning of go-carting and the obligatory evening shenanigans. A barbecue was planned. The weather was kind. All was well.
The Four Little Seymours and I had evacuated the place. Stags, beer, pits and planks were perfectly scary enough, without throwing children into the mix. I imagined raucous japes, lewd jokes and moonies-a-plenty.
When we returned home later that evening, long after the gaggle of men had left our village on the Number 17 Bus, high on champagne, a curious and very welcome sight greeted me.
In the dusky light of a late September evening, lined up alongside our pit, were eight piles. Four of blocks, and four of bricks. Wheelbarrows were placed over the tops of the piles to keep any rain off, and all the tools lay neatly nearby, ready for action.
At some point, during their stag afternoon, either due to Big Seymour’s coercion, or simply because they could, those men had managed to move all those bricks and blocks from where they stood, blocking the gate at the front of the house, round to the back, and made them ready for use.
All this whilst they were supposed to be sh*t-face w@nkered and in anticipation of strippers.
I don’t know if this is normal behaviour at a stag do.
I doubt it. I strongly suspect that Big Seymour just happened to start moving the blocks himself, whilst huffing and puffing, in front of the assembled group, and out of sheer pity, an impromptu chain gang was formed.
I feel guilty. That was my job. I told the lorry driver that it would be fine to dump the blocks by the gate. I said I’d move them.
But the Magic Stags got there first, and the Little Seymours and I are very grateful. After all, I was planning on having a little chain gang of my own…
