It’s amazing how quickly one becomes used to a cavernous hole in one’s kitchen floor.
I have actually forgotten it’s there.
Well, that’s to say, I had, until the Meter Reading Man came round.
I am always a little suspicious of Meter Reading Men. Too many cautionary tales about fakers have left me wary of them. But when his shadow appeared at the door, I was fairly confident he was genuine; most criminals take the easy route, and simply getting to our door is hard enough.
The Meter Reading Man had a look of disgust on his face when I opened the door, as he’d had to clamber over the ramparts to find me. He introduced himself, and I had a minor panic. Owing to various events over the summer months, the meter is not as easy to access as it used to be. This wasn’t going to be straightforward.
I decided to take him down the garden, over the moat and onto the scarified terrain that is our lawn, where I pointed past the brambles which line the boundary down the side of the shed, and said “Is that what you’re looking for?”
It seemed to be – although I wasn’t sure from his poor verbal communication, and after he’d asked if there was another way to get to it, and I’d said no, he set off.
He wasn’t impressed, you could tell. He swore at the brambles, and peered disapprovingly at the mud beneath his feet.
I scuttled off back into the house. He and I were clearly not going to be firm friends. But when I got back inside, I realised that he could indeed have got to the meter through the little-used kitchen side door, if he didn’t mind stepping over the deep, dank hole in the floor.
When the meter had been read, I showed Meter Man this short cut, but I felt I should warn him that he mustn’t put too much weight on the makeshift manhole cover as he stepped back into the house – it does bow and bend when it’s under pressure. So, with my fingers crossed and saying a little prayer, I beckoned him in, hoping I wasn’t about to generate some massive insurance claim.
He survived, only to discover, when he got to the door the other side, that I’d locked him in, and he was trapped.
I quickly muttered something about “force of habit” and set him free, but I think he was genuinely scared. Maybe he’d never been made to do an assault course before being locked in a kitchen with a woman who claimed not to know where her meter was before. Come to think of it, it’s the perfect set up for a murder, complete with freshly dug concealment pit, if I had been that way inclined…
But I’m not. And he was a bit of a wimp, really. Yet I suppose living the way we do is rather extreme. I suspect Meter Man lives in a normal house, with a hole-free floor. I expect his house is presentable, orderly and unhazardous.
I have to accept that our domestic set-up is not the norm. Even today, I was told that I’m brave for living in these conditions. I wanted to shake the chap who said that – bravery is fighting an illness, or going to war. This is simply us, wanting the type of house we can’t really afford, and trying to achieve it anyway.
I sometimes worry that the Four Little Seymours are missing out on a conventional home – a home where the floor is intact and the walls are not decorated with graffiti and fungal spores. I’m aware that our layout is downright peculiar, and not everyone has a damp dormitory for a bedroom.
On the other hand, I feel that, by giving them this experience, they will at least have stories to tell. Not every child is actively encouraged to call the walls their sketchbook, or mine for stones of a certain size in the rubble fields outside the back door. This is not Aleppo. This is our choice.
The Council Man made his visit on Wednesday. He’s a dour chap – it’s hard to read his face. I screamed when he arrived as he surprised me whilst I was taking the recycling out. Then I proceeded to babble on about lintels, beams, padstones and drainage pipes, until he seemed to have got the information he needed. He surveyed the site suspiciously, said he’d never seen it done like that before (!) and appeared to ponder over our plans for far longer than was necessary, whilst narrowly avoiding smearing his trousers with something chocolate-moussey that the Little Seymours had left behind. He seemed entertained by the hole in the floor, and the time he spent looking at it didn’t quite equate to the effort Big Seymour put in to making it. I omitted to offer him a cup of tea, because he makes me nervous.
Before he left, I apologised for not being very helpful in answering his questions – Big Seymour would be better at that, I admitted. But I’m sure I saw a small smile as he nodded, and said “You did well. You’re all doing very well.”
Praise indeed! A few simple words from a man with a great deal of power. And such words are encouraging when, as even he put it, we have a big job ahead of us.
And it is a big job. There’s no quick fix to this renovation. We have oftentimes contemplated just doing up what’s here: new carpets, some paint and maybe a wall or two of Quentin Blake wallpaper. A new bathroom with a stand-up shower. A front door with a letter box…
The easy option might be more achievable, and would definitely come to fruition before Little Seymour Number One leaves home, but it’s not The Master Plan (- which may not). It would be a cop-out. The Funny Little Bungalow has the potential to be rather swanky, if the Four Little Seymours and I are willing to wait it out. Because, unlike Meter Man, we are not wimps.
And like the Council Man said, we’re “all doing very well”.
I wonder if he’ll be saying that when the roof comes off..?
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