Deja vu???

Part sixteen.

I’ve been waiting for the dog’s passport to become valid (which reminds me that mine is due for renewal). While she is hopefully becoming immune to rabies, I have headed Oooop North. 

One of the primary reasons for this is a househunting mission. It seems that in the course of the last couple of years I have become no wiser when it comes to estate agents. Of course I did all the usual stuff, spent hours trawling the internet looking at slightly misleading pictures… How exactly do they make an 8X10 living room  appear to be 16 X 20? Perhaps they have a stock of specially miniaturised furniture?

Of course I am not at all familiar with the area, so I got Himself to drive around a bit and do a recce. The area in which my daughter is most interested is the student area. It appears on first (and second) inspection, to be a human zoo. It is also overpriced and boasts the kind of housing stock that gave Dickensian landlords a bad name.

Further forays to the surrounding areas have proved to be an education… When house hunting in Ireland, it was unnecessary to consider the concept of the ghetto (it makes no difference to the price of your house whether your neighbours are cattle or sheep). This is not so in Leeds. Failing to pay attention to the local demographic could be disastrous.

After our excursions I emailed the various estate agents, who by and large ignored me. I did get the details for a number of properties about twenty miles away (and very attractive they were too), but my criteria of ‘under £XXXk and within walking distance of the university’ seemed to have got lost in the ether.

I did finally manage to speak to one or two individuals, and attempted to explain myself and my ignorance. I thought the simplest way to do this was to say ‘if you wouldn’t want your 19 year old daughter living there, then neither would I’. This strategy met with varying degrees of success. For a start, perhaps I should have mentioned that she is violently asthmatic and horribly sensitive to fungal spores, so a property with moisture pouring down the walls and an exotic pattern of mould on the ceiling (sometimes indistinguishable from the wallpaper) will not be suitable.

Most of the properties which fell within the budget were pretty similar, so really the deciding factor was the neighbourhood. We were shown around one delightful little place. Recently refurbished (this instantly aroused suspicion in Himself), close to all amenities, neighbouring houses looked loved and tended… There was however, a rather peculiar building occupying all of the opposite side of the road. It was a fetching shade of pink and our agent said it was squash courts once upon a time. I noticed that there seemed to be a sauna there now, next to the bingo hall. I ventured that we thought it might be a brothel, but was informed that it was a private club/pub type thing. Further research online later revealed that it was indeed a Gay sauna and meeting place which boasted such amenities as a ‘rim stool’, St Andrews cross (I’m pretty certain this isn’t a flag…) and several porn cinemas catering for all tastes. I continue to treasure my ignorance as to the purpose of the above implements, but it became pretty clear that the activities within made Sodom and Gomorrah look like a kindergarten nativity play.

 I also discovered what a ‘Bear’ was, which cast a new light on the name of the neighbour’s house…’Bear’s Ave’, which I had previously thought to be a rather weak pun on the name of the road….

I can see all this putting a serious crimp in resale values… Moving swiftly on….

And so we kept on looking (much to the disgust of the daughter, who had fallen in love with the above property…). Not that the experience made me at all twitchy or suspicious, but my research into other potential properties became a lot more rigorous… It appears that the large and extremely well secured establishment opposite another house was home to a large number of shell companies, all of whom had the same directors, one of whom had recently been banged up for getting caught by Customs and Excise…. Very strangely indeed, almost every house on that street had been sold on the same date, for the same price…..

To fill in the gaps between going to view houses (when the bloody estate agents can be bothered getting back to me!) I have been assisting with the upkeep of Himself’s manor. As you may be aware, this is not a task for the fainthearted. I began with a little light chainsaw work,

 as Himself has recently invested in a woodburner. He claims this is exclusively for my benefit. Of course it has nothing whatsoever to do with the price of gas and the large number of trees (free fuel) taking over his garden…. This free fuel however, will not be available till next year, in the meantime he is researching suppliers… And buying from B&Q….

Then we did some rendering, which was a little tricky as the wall in question was very effectively screened by many years of unpruned shrubbery, which may be why the render was falling off….

It was at around this point that he received a phone call and buggered off for a weekend’s sailing. It was an astonishing display of spontaneity, as I cannot normally extract him from his rut without several months meticulous planning and a number of cunningly crafted arguments. I usually end up resorting to barefaced blackmail in the end anyway.

With all this uninterrupted time on my hands I butchered the garden and did a phenomenal amount of washing. He complained about the amount of electricity used.

We then set to clearing and insulating the loft. This may sound straightforward. In fact it meant grovelling on your belly, face down in the sooty remains of the industrial revolution, with fibreglass insulation circa 1960 inveigling it’s way into every crevice. The bunny suits and masks made us look like mutant ducks.... 

It seems we cleared about a ton of rubble from up there, which might go some way to explaining why the ceilings are bowing, and in one case collapsing???

We toddled off to pick up some insulation and somehow managed to jam nine large rolls into the back of my little van.. Well, almost. Due to a slight misunderstanding (I was more or less lying under the van at the time, trying to prevent the last roll from falling out as I closed the door) I failed to notice that Himself hadn’t extracted his hand from further up. So I swiftly banged the door shut… He roared, he hopped, he swore. He kicked the offending roll of insulation before going on to repeat the performance several times. We were beginning to acquire an audience and I wouldn’t be at all surprised if the CCTV turns up on YouTube! It probably didn’t help that I couldn’t hide my laughter…..

I bought him an extremely large PLAIN rug, so I don’t have to look at his horrible carpet anymore and re arranged the living room furniture so it no longer resembles an old folk’s home down on it’s luck… He has been extremely reserved in his appreciation of this. I also bought him a special box for putting all his stray socks in, and tidied the landing so it is less of an obstacle course. You don’t have to turn sideways in order to enter the office now. He is complaining that he has bought all the beer this week and was obliged to pay for lunch because the card machine was down.

In the interests of health, safety and sanity I have booked a ferry.

Stop me and buy one!

I took all of these in Ireland, I'm going to post them in batches. If you would like a print of one (6"X8"), then please donate to either of the selected charities, Cancer Research or http://cuhcharity.ie/donate/online-donation/,  let me know which one you would like (I've given them all numbers)  via comments and I will send you a lovely glossy print :-) Handy for Xmas???

1g

1h

1a

1b

1c

1d

1e

1f

1i

1k

1m

1n

1o

Intermission

Intermission.

A few words about Ash, as she is the raison d’etre for this blog, so it’s time she was introduced.

I met Ash back in the land that time forgot (otherwise known as rural Ireland in the 1980’s). We were both in our early teens and our respective families, possibly fed up with having a hormonal horror skulking around the house like a small black cloud, despatched us to a remote riding stables for a residential riding ‘holiday’. It was run, rather surprisingly for the time and place, by a lady of West Indian origin. My dad, a racist of the old school, nearly choked on the spot when he saw her. In fact it might go some way to explaining the heart attack he suffered that night! Ash was already in residence and I was sharing a room with her. We bonded immediately, as much out of a need for self preservation as anything else. If the place existed nowadays it would be instantly shut down on the grounds of health and safety (there was none) and child protection (ditto). Dinner, when/if it happened was often baked beans on toast. Sometimes it was just toast. The sanitation facilities were to be found in the feed room and in the course of a month I didn’t manage a single bath or shower as the hot water was always used up by the proprietors children. I settled for washing bits as and when they became available and having an occasional swim in a mountain lake. We found a dead mouse in the bath once. It remained there for a week. At some point a pair of ‘gurriers’ arrived, sent by social services from Dublin. Ash and I were left in charge of them, and the three young (and deeply obnoxious) children of the house, while the proprietor and her Neanderthal husband went to the pub. There was a commotion in the sitting room and we rushed in to find one of the gurriers brandishing a loaded shotgun, which the Neanderthal had tucked safely behind the door. I don’t quite know how we managed it, but we wrested the gun from him and spent a short but satisfying time teaching him the error of his ways. When the adults returned we were paid in crisps and lager for babysitting….

We finally departed the establishment some time later, at the wrong end of said shotgun. The Neanderthal had decided to run us out of town for being rude to his eldest daughter. I can’t say it was a wrench. We hitched to the nearest big town and somehow got on the train for Dublin. I remember falling asleep on the bags while we waited at the station. I’m not sure we actually had tickets.

At some point I was given access to a pair of ponies and Ash used to come and visit. One memorable morning we started out very early and went for a hack. There are very few bridleways in Ireland, so we had to make do with the grass verge. Having exhausted the possibilities of this verge, we came across a tidy bungalow with an immaculate lawn…. And a low picket fence. The temptation was too much. We dared each other and Ash went first. As she executed a perfect landing in the middle of the lawn the front door opened and a lady in a quilted dressing gown and curlers emerged to pick up her milk. I didn’t hear what she said as the pair of us made like Shergar (gone!) down the road at speed.

A few years after, Ash came on holiday with me. I really wanted to go to my uncle’s, but wasn’t crazy about spending a couple of weeks in the exclusive company of a couple of stout soaked old gits (my dad and my uncle). Ash to the rescue! (after I had bellowed down the phone to my (deaf) uncle that Ash was a girl, honest. No immorality at all there!).

I was just learning to drive, so as soon as we were out of range of my mother (in her very precious car) my dad pulled over, put me in the driving seat and instructed me upon which pubs to stop at en route. Of course I had neither license nor insurance.

We made it, although the clutch suffered horribly and gave up the ghost shortly after we arrived. My dad refused to believe the problem lay with the car rather than my driving, which resulted in Ash and I pushing the car several miles up the road to my uncle’s. Once it had been repaired my dad and uncle sallied forth to celebrate. Ash and I were left in the house to amuse ourselves and prepare dinner. This we did, although the bacon was a rather strange colour as I had boiled it in the same pot which I had used to dye a dress… The men failed to materialise and eventually we got a phone call. Could I come and get them? They were too pissed to drive… This must have been very pissed indeed as normally inebriation was no impediment to driving at all.

I left Ash in charge of the dogs and the bacon and went to the rescue. As I approached the car I thought it looked a bit odd. This was because it had a flat tyre. Very flat indeed. When I found the terrible twosome in the depths of the bar, they refused to believe me (what could a girl possibly know about flat tyres???) and ordered another pint on the strength of it. When I finally extracted them, a scene straight from Laurel and Hardy ensued. They argued about how it had happened and whose fault it was. Then they argued about where to place the jack (in the most dangerous possible place, so the whole car constantly see sawed). Then they argued about why the nuts refused to budge (because they hadn’t removed the rubber caps first). Eventually I went and fetched the landlord as the pair persisted in ignoring me and waving wheel wrenches at each other. Ash awaited us at the front gate, and watched in awe and horror as my dad got out to direct me (waving his arms, shouting and leaping about like a demented leprechaun), the dogs escaped and kept running across my path in pursuit of the crazy man and my uncle, who for some reason had his fiddle with him, told me what a grand job I was doing and emphasised his point by walloping me repeatedly about the head with the fiddle case. The result was that I demolished the wing on the gatepost and parked up on the septic tank in the middle of the garden. The chaps seemed unperturbed and repaired inside for an aperitif. Ash did her best to soothe my frayed nerves (oh sweet Jesus my mother is going to kill me!!!) and we both watched in bemusement as the chaps re enacted their favourite scene from the Muppet Show, getting the (equally bemused) dog to play the piano.

Shortly after this Ash became a biker. I don’t know if there was any connection.

When I say biker, I do NOT mean the sort of bird who has perfect nails and rides pillion behind her testosterone laden slab of meat. Ash had her own bike and would never, ever ride pillion (although she was happy to take passengers, especially if that meant that she could give them the kind of ride that meant they had to change their pants after… and not in a good way!). My daughter was always begging for a spin, so one day Ash gave in and took her round the block… She’s never forgotten it….

I have had several memorable (I’m sure the white line is supposed to be on my right….?) excursions, but I’d better not elaborate….

While I was at college, Ash got into the habit of turning up at random having hitched down from Dublin (this was a period when she was between bikes). Occasionally she would bring an entourage. Being in possession of the kind of face and figure that could lead to misunderstandings, she was in the habit of doing her manicure whilst in a car… using a large hunting knife… She once performed for the Bishop of Cork…. Not that I’m suggesting he did anything to provoke her, it’s just that she took the view that prevention is better than cure.

I left her babysitting one day and came back to discover that my daughter would now only go to sleep if we played the ‘Sisters of Mercy’ at full volume…

I introduced her to Vindaloo (just the once)

She introduced me to schwarma (infinitely preferable).

She organised my 40^th birthday bash… I don’t remember it… That’s how good it was!

I abandoned her in a tattoo parlour in Birmingham, which resulted in her first tat..

We always forget each other’s birthdays (the 40^th was an exception, I’d just sailed in on a tallship…)

These days life is a little more sedate for both of us (well, mostly).