When will you be finished?
How long will you have to live in The Shed?
Surely you’ll be in by Christmas?
What is your timescale…?
These are the queries of the moment. The million dollar ponderings. The enquiries to top all enquiries. Such questions have been so unanswerable that they have almost become rhetorical.
It’s true that our timescale has never been set. Winging it seemed like the best idea – no pressure, no disappointments. Just plod along and see how we get on, knees and finances depending.
There was a time when six months in The Shed was my own personal goal – let’s be out by October, before the mists and mellow fruitfulnesses really get on our tits. But Big Seymour suddenly started to sweat when I mentioned this one day, and at that point, I backed off. We don’t need him to break under the strain!
Yet… all of a sudden, there is something in the air. A change of pace – not yet obvious, but there nevertheless. A gear shift, an exciting buzz… an end in sight..?
Well, not really. The End will surely never come – what is The End? I dare not even think about that. But a few very recent events have come together to push this whole process on.
Firstly, we have paid the deposit on The Great Glass Doors! This, my friends, is huge. With The Great Glass Doors, the cornerstone of the whole house will be in place. The feature that the whole project was designed around will be ours!
Secondly, at this very moment, our friend, Roofer Rik, is doing his magic on our new flat bit of roof. Hopefully, by the end of the day, we’ll have Vegas rubber protecting the boards, and the autumn rain can do its worst.
And thirdly, and more scarily, I met up with my Financial Adviser Lady yesterday. And to cut a long discussion rather short to avoid boring you completely, she thinks it would be best all round if, by the end of March, we could be finished.
Now, we all know that we won’t be finished. That new kitchen we’re going to need? I think that might have to wait a while. And the two-way fireplace Big Seymour has his heart set upon? Yep, that too. Carpets are a distant dream, and as for soft furnishings – pah! Who needs those anyway? But we now have a vague plan – a timescale, dare I say it, for when the renovations are over.
Of course, this will add pressure. It may even add stress. Big Seymour couldn’t really work any harder. But the bulk of the project will be behind us – surely that’s exciting?
And if, by some miracle, we are “done” by then, The Four Little Seymours will be more than ready for a little additional space of their own. The Shed is feeling smaller and smaller as the nights draw in, and crotchety teens and annoying seven year-olds don’t mix well in confinement. Boy Seymour, at seven, is such a conundrum, I really don’t get him. Roaring one moment, screaming the next, then giggling maniacally as I try to suggest that waving his pants in a sister’s face is not the best way to engender love between him and his siblings.
Yesterday, after school, we convened in the garden, and I prepared myself for the task ahead of coordinating homework, dinner and familial peace. I procrastinated a little – there were bits of tree to rake up after we’d trimmed our vast collection of leylandii the evening before. Raking is preferable to refereeing in my book. Besides, it was still light outstide, and warm. Why rush inside a shed?
So, I’m raking, and we have the usual fight over who wants the key to get in The Shed first, but Boy Seymour is not in the melee of screams this time. Where is he…?
Then, a blond head pops out of the top of the huge hedge, framed beautifully by the yellowy green colour of the floppy conifer fronds. I smile to myself – he’s being a kid! He’s climbing a tree. How lovely! I shall not tell him off. He is not annoying anyone.
Now, Big Seymour is partial to his hedges. He likes a neat bush – however large it may be. And, after their trim, our hedges were looking rather magnificent, actually. So, when Boy Seymour’s head popped out the side of the big hedge instead, and his scrawny, grasping little arms came with it, I knew what Big Seymour would be saying.
Be the Good Cop, I said to myself. Tell him to climb, by all means, but upwards, not outwards. Don’t make holes, and no one will know! OK?
OK, he said.
But so inebriated was he with the new-found joy of Leylandii Burrowing that he wasn’t really listening. And the hedge started to suffer.
Then, attracted by the general squeals of delight emanating from within, two more Little Seymours approached and burrowed their way in, to be seen a few moments later at the top, some nine feet up, bobbing amongst the branches.
I knew I should have told them not to. I could see danger, but I could also see good wholesome fun that didn’t involve anything electric. We have a picture of my own brother, Uncle Bacon Nose, atop a neighbour’s laurel, circa 1992. I dabbled in the sport myself once or twice, too. So I watched somewhat nostalgically as three little heads moved along the top of the trees, and I held back as some of the forbidden side branches were ruffled. I waited whilst Mini Seymour started to whinge (not an uncommon occurrence these days), and then I ran when the whingeing turned to a scream and was swallowed up by silence…
Boy Seymour had released his grasp on her, and Mini Seymour had fallen from the top to the ground, her fall broken by those good old leylandii branches – but only just. She emerged from the base of the trees shocked, scratched and covered in bits of garden, then promptly wobbled off to The Shed.
At this point, I called an end to that game. Fun though it was, nine feet is high. It may even be ten. Or eleven. I have not measured. But I didn’t want any more small Seymours dropping like stones out of it, thank you very much.
I made it VERY CLEAR that this activity was over. I looked each child in the eye and spelled out my instructions: “DO NOT CLIMB UP THERE AGAIN”.
But The Four Little Seymours’ favourite pastime is currently that age-old art of Ignoring Your Mother, and rather than stop the game, the blighters retreated to The Shed, changed into more suitable outfits for Leylandii Burrowing, complete with hats and long-sleeved garments to avoid scratches, and set off up the bleedin’ trees again.
We had words. Loud ones. And but for one last attempt by a solo Little Seymour Number Two (my sensible one!) to sneak back up there, I seemed to eventually get the message across.
But tomorrow is another day, and I don’t fancy my chances of keeping them out of there at the weekend. After all, when space is in short supply, a network of trees like that must seem like a whole new world, a bit like Narnia.
And actually, when I put it like that… I think I’ll join them.
Aslan! I’m coming for you!
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