Welcome to May. How nice it is to look out of the window and see those lovely blue spring skies with temperatures well into the teens. Wait…..what???
It is because we live in such a diabolical climate that we are such a testy and irritable bunch most of the time. Sitting with the heating on watching the rain pound against the window does nothing to lift the spirits after such a long and weary winter.
We live in a house that is fairly old and having stood for over a hundred years enduring a climate which typically includes about 300 wet days each year, it has of course developed its fair share of issues. These issues are the house’s way of expressing its own disgust at the shite weather it had the misfortune to be built in. It has younger cousins sat in lovely sunny temperatures in other parts of the world that post selfies on the internet to taunt our house.
Since we’ve been here, which is over three years now, our gable end (that technical term is the absolute extent of my building jargon) has had issues. We’ve had bouts of damp which is no surprise as this wall stands unprotected against the worst that Bolton’s weather can throw at it. I’ve been in denial for all of that time that it needed re-pointing. Most of that reticence has been down to the cost of what sounds like a horrendously expensive job of course, but some of it has also been down to the fact that I don’t really know what pointing is, beyond it being something I can’t do.
This is where my Dad steps in. Jobs like this roll off his back like the perpetual rain does off our leaky wall. It helps of course that all of his working life was spent in the building trade rather than sat at a desk poncing about on a computer. It was only when he went into the office as estimator and then Director that he was afforded the luxury of working inside.
So whilst I have ponced about on my computer my Dad called a friend and arranged for some scaffolding to be put up. This is black magic in itself and I went to work one day with a bare wall and returned with a structure more complex than Spaceship Earth at Epcot attached to the end of my house. Over the next few days my Dad made his way up and down said scaffolding with whatever mixture you need in order to point something, making things better. My Dad doesn’t believe he is the age he is of course, so did not give this a second thought!
Once the pointing was done he then went on to spray the wall with some magical mixture that waterproofs it for the next couple of millenia. Suffice to say that our gable end now needn’t fear the weather or indeed nuclear holocaust within my lifetime. I have no idea what we would have done without my Dad’s intervention and expertise, other than employ some bloke to do it and sacrifice our entire disposable income for the next decade to do so.
So we’re grateful for the help and in return all I can offer is to continue to sort out his iPad every now and again. Slightly less manly but no less essential skills.
This lack of spring hasn’t stopped Louise going into full spring clean mode and I sit typing this surrounded by clutter from our various cupboards that I now have to sort through and place into a “bin it” pile and a “save it forever” pile. Somehow it seems that my Mum saved every single book for every single subject I ever did at school. Amongst them is a Life Story project from primary school which is looking a little worse for wear now, but includes gold such as this….
Looking back at the quality of this, it is no wonder I went to have such a high-flying career and went on to write several best-selling novels…oh, wait…..never mind.
Till the next time…..
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