This morning, when I was waving Little Seymour Number One off on her school bus, I squealed with delight when I noticed that the poppies we smuggled home in Seymour book bags last summer have produced the most beautiful array of colour in front of the desecration that is The Funny Little Bungalow. I’d seen that the poppy plants were growing, but I couldn’t dare to believe that we might actually have such a varied display!
It’s said that poppies grow where destruction has been. So it’s no surprise, in fact, that there are also poppies growing in our very own field of rubble. Not just poppies, but weeds, too, if I must call them that. (After all, what is a weed? It’s so subjective.)
Big Seymour surveyed The Rubble Field on Saturday morning, on his way to hammer batons onto the side of our new upstairs.
“We should weed this,” he declared.
“The Royal We” is his way of telling me to do something without getting short shrift. I mean, it’s not as if he’s resting on his laurels, but the inaccurate use of the word “we” does usually result in raised eyebrows, at least.
But not this time. This time, I laughed at him. Uncle Bacon Nose, who was visiting, laughed too.
Weed the Rubble Field! Pah! As if, mate. On yer bike. For one thing, what would be the point? It’s not ready to become a patio just yet, For another, why would I remove the greenery when, without it, the area is just a bland, sharp and painful expanse of broken bricks? At least I can be distracted by the optimistic power of nature as I gouge my toes to shreds whilst hanging the laundry on the line which, typically, lies above said Rubble Field.
And besides, there are poppies there. I’m not weeding those. The End.
Hopefully, this week, I’ll be more productive than last. Mini Seymour has now recovered from The Pox, and is back to her usual bossy old self. She made me take her to her favourite place on Friday, so improved was she. On her say-so, I spent over a fiver on pick and mix at the amazing Steyning Sweet Shop. I wanted to shout to the disapproving lady in the queue behind me that I have Four Little Seymours, actually, and not just this greedy little monster clutching the bags, but I pretended to myself that I didn’t care what she thought.
Later, Mini Seymour did share the sweets – sort of. But she dished them out with great pleasure, and very much at her own discretion. She was obviously feeling better.
After the recent dip in our enthusiasm levels, I decided that Big Seymour needed to engage with his public a little, and so I climbed up the ladder on Saturday with my phone, to find him and make a Facebook Live update. It’s been a while since the last one, and without the support from The Rest of the World, the Funny Little Bungalow has felt rather isolating.
Up the ladder I climbed, not realising quite how high he was this time, working on wobbly scaffold boards, and then I was stuck. All the bad dreams I have ever had about being stranded on a ledge a thousand feet in the air seemed to be realised at that moment. I was not at all comfortable.
True to form, Big Seymour took the phone and chatted to his public (all seven of them), whilst I clung on for dear life, developing an even greater respect for what he is doing up there than I had before. I got down – just, but not without images of falling and the acute awareness of just how dangerous this all is.
After that little PR boost, we are back on track. There’s nothing like moral support to keep us going. I think we need a flag up on the roof, to encourage people to beep their horns as they drive past, reading “Toot if you want…”? Nope. I have nothing.
It helped, too, that Grandma V, Big Seymour’s favourite labourer, was with him yesterday. She knows how he works, and does what he says. She’s brilliant. Between them, they fitted the soffits and fascias to the northern elevation, so that’s another small step in the right direction. Plus, the roof tiles are on order.
This is very exciting. Or it will be when I come to terms with the fact that they are not the right colour. Big Seymour has chosen them – his prerogative, I suppose, given that it’s his blood, sweat and tears that has constructed the roof. But let’s just say that they are not what I had in mind…
Ps, if anyone has any suggestions for what we should have written on our flag, please do get in touch. All of my ideas are rubbish.
0 Comments