Don't call me, I'll call you....

Part I’ve lost count again.


Well it looks like the day of judgement may be approaching. It certainly sounds like the apocalypse is on it’s way. Substantial chunks of the UK are under water and it appears the lost city of Atlantis might be twinned with Worcester… or anywhere in Somerset. Mind you, it was only a couple of weeks ago that people were kayaking down the main drag in Cork, and Hurricane Darwin has visited itself on large chunks of Ireland, lending new meaning to the phrase ‘survival of the fittest’. There isn’t much news escaping from the westernmost fringes of the Emerald (that would be the green slime from the unremitting damp) Isle.

This is because the infrastructure has all but collapsed. I got a text from my mate, just as her phone battery was on it’s last gasp. No electricity (so no internet), no phone line and a wildly erratic mobile signal. So far, no one knows how much of my house still stands, if any. This has put a bit of a crimp in my plans to advertise it online, as I doubt the prospective guest would dally long in the absence of a roof, with a cataract gushing down the stairs.

Still, perhaps it’s just as well as the site I inadvertently signed up for (I was trying to read the terms and conditions ‘we will help ourselves to whatever we feel like, alter our charges at will and without notification and there’s bugger all you can do about it’… and as it was incompatible with my phone, I seem to have hit the ‘accept’ button) got dreadful reviews.


I’ve been trying to remain upbeat and pretend to be enthusiastic about finishing the decorating (at long, long bloody last… you know that theory of the impossibility of movement? The one where the tortoise and the hare are racing, the tortoise gets a head start, but the hare soon catches up with him, but in the instant he catches up, the tortoise has moved a bit further, so the hare catches up, but now the tortoise has moved on a bit more…and so on and so on? Well that’s what it has felt like!)


To be honest, it’s all got a bit unreal, like watching a film of stuff happening to someone else. Instead of diligently finishing off the bathroom today, I grabbed my camera and a rucksack and headed for the beach. I got some very odd looks from other hardy individuals braving the gales as I stuffed my rucksack full of odd bits of driftwood. I now have a small beach forming in the room I am supposed to have cleared so the new carpet can go down.

I did wonder as I stuffed soggy and occasionally suspicious objects into the bag, why the hell I was doing this. I mean, I’ve been on a two year crusade to clear unnecessary crap out of my life. Then I realised that back in the day when I was pretending to be an artist, this sort of behaviour would have been perfectly normal, laudable even! Oh dear God, does this mean I might be reverting to type??? As I was already there (so to speak) I seized the moment, to the possible concern of anyone who might have been watching. First I plonked myself down at the rather turbulent water’s edge and whipped out my camera (the little one). Not content with taking pictures from a sitting position, I lay on the extremely damp shingle for a better angle.

The dog climbed on top of me (for added comfort and warmth).

Having spent some time writhing around in this approximate position, I got up (having decanted the dog), adjusted my clothing and proceeded down the beach, filling my capacious pockets with stones as I went. I wasn’t intending to re enact ‘The rise and fall of Reginald Perrin’, although it may have appeared this way.

Actually, some of the stones have naturally occurring holes through them and I was collecting these. Why? Don’t ask me, I was pretending to be an artist.
Meanwhile, in the real world…. I am trying to arrange insurance for my house(s). You would think this might be pretty straightforward. I mean, I already have insurance, I just want to change it a bit. So I call my insurance company (once I have blagged the use of a phone, freephone on landline is 14p a minute from a mobile…rinsed again!). After pressing a bewildering number of buttons for a bewildering number of options (for home insurance press 3, then wait an eternity while listening to brain liquefying canned muzak interspersed with ‘we are experiencing an exceptionally high volume of calls, all of our operators are busy, for further (dis)information visit our website which will tell you absolutely nothing useful which is why you are stuck on this bloody call in the first place abandon all hope ye who enter here your call is important to us….).

Eventually what I have to assume is a genuine human answers (a robocall wouldn’t be that unintelligible). Having explained what I would like to do ‘please can I switch my personal home insurance to landlord insurance and by the way I would like to add another property and give you some more of my money’.. I get the equivalent of ‘computer- says- no…!’ Apparently I have to insure my primary residence with them as well. BUT I DON’T HAVE A PRIMARY RESIDENCE! If I move in with Himself, then it’s his insurance, isn’t it? They suggested that he could move his insurance to them… I’m not sure what good that would do, as it still wouldn’t be my insurance. His response to this suggestion was unrepeatable (I told the insurance people this when I generously gave them a second chance) They told me that they would generously charge me £40 to terminate my contract. Now I just feel slightly soiled and no closer to getting on a ferry (although the email offering 30% off has excited my interest).


My darling daughter, upon viewing her prospective new home with boyfriend in tow mailed me to inform me that ‘basically he hates it’. Great. Now what was that phrase about looking a gift horse in the mouth? (although in fairness, if someone tried to give me a horse it’s the first thing I would do… why are they trying to get rid of it???).

I have been sent a list of works which she regards as essential. It’s all gone a bit quiet since I told her I had previous engagements and she may be doing the painting herself. It seems to have somehow escaped her notice that I have done nothing but bloody paint and decorate for the last two years.



In other news, the resolution to get up and go for a morning walk has been moderately successful. I have added interest by sabotaging mole traps as I go. Nothing deserves to die for the sake of golf (except perhaps the odd golfer).