DIY – onetruekev

March Mutterings

I may be getting sensitive due to having all the eye injections over the last six months, but I do find myself wondering more and more whether my eye and brain connect the same way as they used to, and as they should. On the train I glanced up at one of the posters in the clipboards on the train and automatically thought it said, “A little blindness goes a long way”. Which is a very strange thing to be advertising. I immediately thought, are they trying to take the piss? Are they trying to say that blind people end up travelling further because they can’t see when the train is at the station they need to get off at? Only for it to click on about the fourth or fifth glance up at the poster that it didn’t say ‘blindness’, but the word was actually ‘kindness’, which makes a lot more sense. But I’m still left with the quandary of, is it my eyes or is it my brain that is fucking with me now? Spookily, I wrote that in my notebook on Saturday afternoon. I started to type it up on Monday, and I had only completed as far as saying eye injections when my phone rang. It was East Surrey hospital, saying that looking at the scans from last month they want to arrange further, urgent, eye injections for my right eye, and could they book me in for later in the week. It would therefore appear to be my eyes which probably have the issue.

Anyway, up in London on Saturday and we have arranged to meet in a pub called the Earl of Essex, which we followed up by going in one a hundred yards along the road called the Duke of Cambridge, as if we were doing a tour of East Anglian lorded gentry before heading for dinner in the Tamil Crown. And all on a day when we had been to the football playing against a side nicknamed ‘the Royals’. So of course, after having eaten the post food pub would be called the Island Queen. But only one of the group was heading on home via King’s Cross.

I did an author talk on Sunday. Even writing that still doesn’t feel right. It is difficult to label myself as an author, even if I do have three books published. I had been asked to do a talk on life writing and self-publishing. For a change I had done some preparation. I had put a slide pack together and written up extensive notes a long time before the day. The problem is, between writing them and the event I hadn’t really looked at them, and was then internally flapping about how I would cope with getting the words out and making it sound as if I knew what I was doing. Lots of dread and nerves. But it was fine. Nobody left during the session. People laughed. In the right places. And there were relevant questions. I even sold a couple of books. And the time flew past. Whether I’d do another one is debatable. We’ll see.

After more than four months having camera club meetings via Zoom, we are back in the huts in Tilgate Park, which to me is a blessed relief. I don’t care if it is cold, or if there is rain. It is a good twenty minute walk each way, well twenty there and about nineteen back. it may seem strange for someone who doesn’t do social activity very well, but I fucking hate Zoom, as who wants to be on conference calls in the evening when I’ve spent most of the day on calls at work. People are sat in the huts in their coats, some hats, some gloves, but it is real life and not a little screen. And as it is prints competition night, there is a need to have the physical items there in person. (Came in the middle of the entrants, three of my four photos were middle shelf, so reasonably happy with that.)

Then it was another night, something else to do. It has been one of those fortnights, Previous Monday was camera club on Zoom, Tuesday Mother Tongue, Wednesday camera club in the huts, Thursday, a writing group, Friday, wilding talk at Ifield Barn, Saturday was a writing group, football, then up to London for Helen’s birthday meal, Sunday I was presenting a session on life writing and self-publishing, Monday fantasy author’s panel, Tuesday football, Wednesday camera club, Thursday crime writers panel, Friday book club / romance authors panel. So roll on Saturday and a break.

Well, I say that. I’m well known for DIY standing for destroy it yourself. As a child my nickname (from my parents) was Clouseau. But there was a success on Saturday. The old blinds in the living room have been up there longer than I’ve lived in the house. There has been a new set of venetian blinds sat in the storage cupboard at the front of the house for at least three years waiting to be put up. Mainly because I’m scared of making my usual monumental mess, this time of the walls around the window and / or the new blinds. Taking the old blinds off was interesting, they hadn’t been screwed into the walls or the lintel above the window space, no, they had been screwed into the pvc frame of the double-glazed windows themselves (and I thought I was a fuckwit at DIY). But we managed to get them down, drill holes into the walls for twelve plasplugs and they all worked, a wooden block was added to mean the blinds would fit snugly and then installed the blinds. More than twenty-four hours later they are still in place, and working as expected, which means they are doing a hell of a sight better than the fold down desk I attempted to put into the spare room which fell off the wall on its first use.

Sometimes you’re not sure how things are going to be for any given weekend. But it is harder and harder to just wing it and go to away games of football. Despite following a League One side which never sells out its allocation of tickets, a lot of clubs refuse to sell to the away fans on the day at the ground, which means you have to plan ahead by at least one day, if not two because you have to go to the club to get a ticket, and the cut off is usually 3pm on the Friday, sometimes the Thursday, which takes the last minute decision making off the table. Add the ridiculous on the day train fares, and it could be expensive. I was looking out of idle interest at what it would be to get to Huddersfield and for just me a return was £166, reduced to £119 via ticket splitter, but would have been another forty quid less if booked a week before. It is a lot for an impulse decision to go. It turned out it was probably a blessing not going as it ended up being a 5-1 walloping, which would have definitely put a damper on the day out.

With Nothing Else Occupying My Head

There has been a lot going on recently. A trip to Madrid has been well documented. So have the flurry of home games for Crawley. It has been a long time since it was started in January, but the bathroom is still not finished. OK it is useable, but there is still the bathroom cupboard and flexible mirror to go, and until they are done then the final tidy up can’t be. There are all kinds of things in unexpected places in the house, the front and back gardens, and until last weekend the loft.

After getting back from Madrid there were also a whole host of events with WORDfest. I was on stage for two of them. The Write Way Live at Ifield Barn theatre, where I read one of childhood memory pieces called “Cake.” The next night was the quiz, and someone came up as I was putting out a few nibbles on our team’s table to ask where the cakes were. Live interactive tales of Crawley in the old Ask building followed, and then on the Saturday there was the Crawley Creative Writing Group’s session for which I’d produced the books, then in the evening it was the Mother Tongue event where I read a poem in Gaelic (mangled might be a more appropriate description). And comedy night. It’s been busy.

I have been reading certain things and making up in my head what they actually said. Three weeks into using the toothpaste I can see it is called Oracare and not Oral Care as I’d read / assumed. Now all I can think of is someone having to look after Rita Ora.

Another example of this phenomena came when a leaflet came through the door for the local elections. It was from Labour for their candidate Bob Noyce. It took several attempts to get the name correct as I kept reading it as Bob Nonce, definitely not a voter friendly name.

And I spent years misreading a supplier’s name at work before I finally got their name correct. The company supplies the vast array of flexible benefits on offer alongside our payroll. And therefore, I always assumed their name was a mash up and called them Beneflex for at least ten years before it finally sank in there is no L in their name and they are actually Benefex. Personally, I think they missed a trick.

On to destroy it yourself. It is nearly two years since the kitchen was done. Not long after it was completed, I attempted to put a towel rail up on the wall behind the kitchen door. I made a mess, and one side came off the wall. So, it was removed with a view to fixing it later. Instead, last week a different rail was bought and on Saturday I got round to putting it up. I got two holes drilled in the wall without making them massive, got the plasplugs in OK, had one side fully screwed in tightly, and had the other side screwed in three quarters of the way only for the top quarter of the screw to snap off. I thought I would unscrew the first side and move it along a couple of inches. Only for the thread to disintegrate and make unscrewing it impossible. I could get it out of the wall. I’m still in a strop about the effing wall and its utter dislike of me and distain for me when it knows I hate DIY and I’m bad at it.

Anyway, a friend came round, managed to get the new rail off the wall and have securely fixed the original rail to the wall. But there is now a new blind to fit in the living room, and the thought of it is giving me the fear.

I was a bit meh all weekend. Part of which is the unrelenting horror show that I know work is going to be, and part of it is the destroy it yourself piece, as it makes me feel like a worthless / useless piece of excrement.

Helen suggested putting some music on and wanted a suggestion of a record to play. So, after umming and aahing I went old school. Not in a rave or rap view, but picking something from my teens when I first got really into Motown. Back in the eighties I had a set of cassettes. Motown Hits of Gold, volumes one to eight. I have the record box set now, which in addition to the eight originals had a disc nine of ‘future hits.’

I haven’t played any of these since the eighties, but I nominated volume seven side one, as it was one of the cassettes I played to death in my Walkman. It is amazing what memories it brought back. So much so I wrote a piece just about that album.

And both the music and the writing takes my mind off it all.

WFH Continues

So, lockdown continues (well for sane people it does, but they appear to be in the minority in this country), and so does working from home. It seems somewhat ironic to be writing about working from home when I’m on a day off. It seemed a great idea at the time to book the day before and day after Easter off as leave to extend it to a six-day weekend. That was before all the madness started, and it’s now an extended break of looking at places we can’t go and visit.

I’m typing this up on my own laptop, sat in the place I sit when I am working from home. After the third week of it I can safely say, I’m still not a fan. I doubt I’ll ever be a fan. It’s not the isolation I miss, not having to see people on a daily basis is great, if only I didn’t have to speak to them or communicate in any way at all it would be perfect. It’s the environment. It’s home, and no matter how you try and dress that up, it’s never going to change.

I find myself absently looking out over the back garden and to the park beyond. One day last week I spent an inordinate amount of time watching a tree surgeon coppicing a tree in the park. Like a monkey he moved from branch to branch wielding his chainsaw. The bottom of the back garden has seen various landscape changes. One by one the holes in the fences caused by February’s storms and the crazy dog’s attentions have been filled, with the last hole plugged last weekend as the neighbour put up their panel that had blown down. It’s now safe to let the dog out unsupervised.

I have been noticing what the cat does as well. Being doorman to the furry pest I get to see him make his way down the garden to escape to freedom. He has a routine. He jumps over the low side hanging stem of the rose bush at the top of the path. He jumps rather than go around it as that means going onto the grass. When he gets to the end of the path he stops and looks around for a bit, then it’s a leisurely jog down to the bottom of the garden to sit on the stump of the tree that was cut down a couple of years ago. He sits there contemplating whether to leave the property. Then he turns and has a look down the side of the shed; comes around it and looks at the mess of a fence covered by chicken wire where the dog has been trying to get into next door to eat the bread they leave for the birds. He then turns and scratches a discarded patio tile. After sharpening his claws, he makes a dash across the garden and hides under the bush halfway down the other fence. And finally, he goes back to the bottom of the garden and leaves.

He has been a poor confused cat the last couple of weeks though, as with the fences being mended his open access to the park beyond has been cut off, and the poor old fella has seen every walk out route become blocked. He now has to jump up the fence to get out. As it isn’t fully secured it wobbles a bit as he does so before he jumps back down on the other side to freedom. Fortunately, the dog hasn’t figured out how wobbly the gate panel is, as if he rushed it, he could easily knock it over.

Inside the house the layout has changed as well, Helen is no longer working from the kitchen table. We finally got around to putting up the wall mounted desk in the spare bedroom. It had only taken two years between buying it and putting it up. Mainly because I’m a cack handed danger when it comes to DIY, and I’ve been putting off having to drill holes in a wall and attach something to it. The desk that came out of the box bore no resemblance to the one we thought we had bought, and it was heavier than remembered. The desk is in place, and Helen is using it quite happily, but it doesn’t stay plush to the wall, and if it were not for the T support it may well come away from the wall. There will be no way it would support my usual work pose of heavily laden elbows on it holding my head in my hands at the idiocy appearing on my screen.

The commute to work gets no easier. I have taken to managing to avoid the sudden warm downpour every morning on the way downstairs, it has dwindled down to two or three times during the working week. The beard has grown quite wild and is getting to Grizzly Adams proportions. It will have to be hacked off if necessary before it gets to full on hipster style. My jeans are looking at me forlornly each morning as if to say, “give us a break – you’re wearing us out with this everyday malarkey”. Which is fair considering they are now in use seven days a week instead of just three. I feel as if I am well on the way to a full-on hobo look. I think the next step will be the acquiring of a shopping trolley, and the change in storing clothes in drawers to a collection of mismatched carrier bags.

Roll on (not the deodorant mind you, that’s totally against hobo rules) a return to a normal working environment, where it actually feels like I’m at work and I can concentrate on work and I can see the interruptions ambush coming, instead of skype surprising me. (Fortunately for everyone concerned the camera is covered.)

At least I know that on my own laptop typing this I can’t get interrupted by the biggest pest know to man (and woman).

What now Katya?