Weeks 46 & 47: The Artful Dodger

“Gawd mate, I tells yer, arter we’d dried the roof wiv the leaf-blower, as we was walking araand on it, water was squeezing art through these little pin-prick holes in the fibre-glass where we was treadin. No doubt abart it mate, your roof was bollixed”.

These were the fine words of wisdom of Ray the Roofer who, gawd bless him, rode in to the rescue (in his brand new Range Rover) to water-proof our extension roof. We’d first realised there was a problem only a week earlier when water had started to run across the top of the cooker-hood, to drip gently into the curry that was cooking below. No one needs a watered down curry. Especially when the water has a hint of green about it.

“If you’d left it any longer mate, the wood in the roof would have gawn rotten and we could’ve crashed frew it inta your luverly kitchen! Who designed it by the ways? Bleeding stunning!”

Ray, once we’d agreed a price (”£2,300 mate. Woah wait up though there fella, there’s the scaffold at about £300 to go. Oh, and they did half the lead flashin alright, but the other half is all over the show. Could be another £700 on top, depending on what we can re-use”; hmmm, I think I know how he is driving around in a new Range Rover), very quickly arranged for the rubber coatings to be obtained and the scaffolding put up. The only thing he couldn’t manage was the weather, which decided to be Very, Very Wet. I can’t tell you how tense it is, knowing you have a leaky roof, watching the forecast as storm after storm is predicted. Still, a week later his two lads (both over the age of 60) were up there doing the job that the extension builder should have; giving us a weather proof roof (“Guaranteet for 20 year”). It was all sorted in under two days and our holiday fund for this year was handed over. Yeah, I’d rather have a weather proof building than go to Corsica too. I suppose we can lug a couple of deckchairs out through through the landing window on to the newly coated flat roof, and sit in the sun pretending we are on a balcony overlooking French-Italian hills. Gah.

Milo (the Spaniel) was fascinated by the new chums that he could see through the roof light-well in the kitchen and spent two days barking at them. Honestly, I’ve threatened to have him stuffed and mounted on wheels (so that we can pretend he is still alive) several times in the last fortnight. Aside from apparently un-learning a few things (which is our fault because we didn’t know about “proofing” training; turns out dogs learn things in a location-specific way, so unless you take the time to generalise the things they’ve been taught, it stays taught only where they first learned it. Who knew?), he has also decided that being on the lead is not for him. The little sod has being leading us on a merry dance at the end of each walk. He seems to know (I imagine through scent) that he is near the end of each stroll, and turns into the Artful Dodger, jumping away as your hand descends towards his harness. Honestly his foot-work is so nimble, Muhammad Ali would be humbled. At his worst last week, he had Gin (so called because, hell yes, she would like a pre-dinner drink) and two strangers running around a local National Trust woodland car park trying to catch him. She tried everything, even getting into the car and starting the engine at one point in a bid to get him interested. We know how to overcome this, but it will take probably several months effort before it sticks. We genuinely had no idea just how much effort there is in training a pup. Sad as it is, I can see why the re-homing centres are becoming busier after the glut of puppy purchases in Lockdown-1 last Spring (not that we are about to do that with Milo. He’s a pain in the bum, but he is great fun and we all love him).

Talking of pains in the bum, the house next door has been acquired by a property developer. We received a planning notification with invite to respond. Now I am not a NIMBY (Not In My Back Yard) sort of fella. However, this plan will see a lovely, 100 year old, two-storey, detached house demolished to be replaced by a four-storey block of flats that appears to have been modelled on our local Tesco store. It’s massive. It’s totally at odds with the surroundings. It‘s basically an awful piece of design. Said planning notification galvanised the locals into organising objections on quite a scale. They’ve requested the deeds for the building, they’ve looked into Restrictive Covenants, written to MPs and councillors, leafleted neighbouring streets and even carried out an informal wild-life review (turns out there‘s at least four protected species living in the surrounding area). Honestly, the organisation of the logistics involved would shame the planners getting supplies to the Western Front. I could almost feel sorry for the developer, except the design is purely about maximising his profit and has not one ounce of sympathy for its surroundings, so nah, he can suck it up. Here’s hoping that the planning authorities insist on something less superstore-like.

What else? Ah yes, the materials for my Canine First Aid diploma have turned up and I’ve made a start. Poor Milo has had his pulse taken and been checked for decent circulation. Gin drew the line at me taking his temperature through as the only probe we have is the one for checking whether your chicken is cooked.

But Good News! BT (Boy Teenager) has decided that he wants to do the course too (this is a thing. His anxiety has been at its peak around formal schooling and learning, so him signing up to this is a big plus); seems that if the study leads directly to earning “peas” (money), the incentive is sufficient to overcome the worry. He has also been investigating property development as he thinks this is ultimately the path he wants to pursue. Good for him!

But Bad News! All four of us have had the most horrendous cough. It started with GT (Girl Teenager), who was clearly the ground-zero carrier. She had a Covid test (negative), as did I (negative). That was nearly a month ago. Then BT and Gin caught it (both tested. Both negative). We’ve all been hacking away like an emphysemic coal miner with a hundred-a-day smoking habit. It’s been so bad that I noticed Ray, who could hear us all coughing up a lung each whilst he was up on the roof, started to stand five metres away from the front door when he knocked to talk about something. I felt like making us badges to point out that “It‘s a cough, not the Covid”, but then that would have reduced the aisle-clearing effects of a well-timed cough in Waitrose. The thing is, how did we catch it? We’ve all done the “hands, face, and space” (or whatever it is) thing that the Government have asked us to do. We haven’t been flouting the rules. We’ve been wearing masks. Makes you wonder?

And with that, we amble into week 47. I profess that I am missing seeing friends and family. Zoom, Teams, WhatsApp are a good compromise (and thank God for them), but it‘s not the same as having a beer and curry, listening to Running Around John and Alg talking about bands I‘ve never heard of, or Marcos, G, Mark & Jack chatting nonsense about football (and spreadsheets). Ah well, it won’t be long before we can, and its a modest price to pay to not catch the Rapidly Mutating Virus.

Stay safe chums.

Love & elbow-grease,

Mr H x