The Funny Little Bungalow has claimed its first casualty – a little sparrow who got trapped inside, and couldn’t make it out. For some reason, this has made me inordinately sad, especially as I had tried to set it free after hearing its desperate calls.
But I must pull myself together. The death of a creature is always sad, but what other innocuous little brown bird would receive such excellent after-death care (being wrapped in doll’s clothes), a funeral lasting over an hour, a neatly decorated grave and even a headstone? OK, a stick. A head stick, reading “In Memory of The Little Sparrow”. Three of the Four Little Seymours went all out with the respect-paying. And now, every time I walk up the garden, I am reminded of the sparrow’s life, and I try to be glad for it. Or at least I will be when I have washed those flippin’ dolls’ clothes.
Years ago, I bought Big Seymour an enormous print of men in New York, building skyscrapers, dangling off the girders as they ate their packed lunches. I wonder how many of them fell off? The Titanic, during its construction, claimed the lives of eight men. And as for The Pyramids? Who knows? My point is that I live in fear of Big Seymour falling off the roof, and in comparison to that dreadful possibility, The Little Sparrow’s death is handleable.
PLEASE GOD DON’T LET ANYONE FALL OFF THE ROOF!
Anyway, my mind is now hurting. Bad thoughts, bad thoughts…
Back to the update.
The tiles are going on! And at no snail’s pace, I might add. Big Seymour has been making the most of the light evenings to pop a few on in the evenings where possible, and it’s quite impressive – all the small roofy bits (the technical term might be flanks?) are now tiled, and the front elevation (yes, technical term) is awaiting its turn. The windows are ordered – for the upstairs at least, and it’s rather exciting! And as an added bonus, the colour of the tiles isn’t upsetting me.
Last weekend, I carried a few packs of tiles up a ladder – very slowly, on account of my self-diagnosed vertigo, and I didn’t drop any. But I was slightly baffled when Big Seymour asked me to get some tilernarfs. Tilernarfs? What are those?
Anyway, the best news is that I managed to keep the Four Little Seymours out of the way of the scaffold – not a good place to hang around when tiling is happening. (Bad thoughts, bad thoughts…). Mini Seymour spent some time making sandcastles in the Type One, but I thought that was acceptable behaviour for a small child who lives where she does. So I’ll let that slide. Besides, ironing boards are far more dangerous. She managed to acquire a black eye from one on Saturday, and I’m not entirely sure how…
As I type, Big Seymour is finishing up on the roof. He’s mumbling something about “not enough lead”, although my toes tell a different story, on account of it being stored in a place that shall remain secret (burglars like church roofs for a reason), but where I am often stubbing myself on hard, heavy rolls of the stuff. No wonder my poor feet are so ugly, and no amount of Scholling seems to help.
And can we just quickly talk about the saniflo variety of toilet systems? Let’s just say that I have had to put up a rather inelegant hand-written note above the bog, that politely reminds the Four Little Seymours and any needy visitors to our camp that POO, PEE and PAPER ONLY must venture down our temporary u-bend. The poor system, which isn’t a Saniflo, by the way, sometimes spends ages churning, gurgling and straining as it valiantly attempts to send the waste to the drain, seventy metres away. The stress when the water rises to the top of the bowl and threatens to spill at least six Seymours’ gut contents over the floor is enough to make me drink. Which I am not doing, on account of it being July.
Dry July. It sounded like a good idea – after all, it will be school holidays next month, and there will be no such restrictions, so a break now is wise. But I made the mistake of trying non-alcoholic shiraz last night, and my heart sank. It’s truly awful – it tastes a bit like fruity, putrid blood. Which I probably wouldn’t mind if there was alcohol in it. But I’m enjoying feeling very smug about this whole temporary teetotal thing, and so there is one benefit.
To finish, I must thank you for the feedback about the look of the website – I will work on it. If only I can remember how…
(Oh, by the way, “tilernarfs” apparently are tile and a halfs. Or tiles and a half. They’re bigger than normal tiles, anyway. Incidentally, this whole episode reminded me of a place Big Seymour took me to once, back when I was too polite to question the origin of its name – The Troler Bar was, in fact, a pseudo-austrian dive hidden at the back end of a shopping centre in Worthing, where mushroom growers gathered to relax. It had lederhosen and plastic schnitzels hanging from the ceiling, and the glaring, flickering glow of a nearby amusement arcade provided occasional lighting at night. Yes, The Troler Bar was, in fact, called The Tiroler, and I suspect it closed long ago. Before the Funny Little Bungalow had entered our lives, when Donald Trump was just rich, and when the Four Little Seymours weren’t invented yet. It certainly was another world back then.)
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