Brush off: Decorating throws our girl into a spin. Pic: Freefoto
Brrrr! Another cold snap. That caught me out. One minute I’m shaving, exfoliating and moisturising my legs in preparation for Spring and the abandonment of tights in favour of bare leggedness, the next I’m back rummaging in the floordrobe for a pair of woolly tights without a hole in the toe and/or gusset.
Since you ask, we’re actually doing okay down here in the sunny South of Scotland. We’ve not fared too badly this week weather wise. Torrential rain and wind aside, we’ve been spared the blizzards. We flirted briefly with snow this morning, but it didn’t come to very much.
Ah yes, dear reader, it may be Winter outside, but in the words of Barry White’s erstwhile backing vocalists, Love Unlimited, in my heart it’s Spring. When a young (ish) womans fancy turns to moving house.
I’m very grateful for this divine intervention weather wise. I move house on Friday and the gas fire and central heating boiler were condemned in New House on Monday, rending conditions Baltic at best, and there is much preparatory work to be done for the Big Move.
I move house on Friday. I can’t believe I just said that. I move house on FRIDAY.
When faced with such monumental life events, I just freeze. So gripped by inertia am I, I’m unable to pick up so much as a plate and pack it away. I may just have to drive away into the sunset on Friday and eat takeaways (Yay!) with my bare hands for the rest of my life, squatting on the bare living room floor in front of the telly. (Of course I have a telly sorted, I’m not THAT stupid).
SPRING: RISING SAP, DIY DEMENTIA AND FLITTING
- VIDEO Get the tool for the job
- Will it snow into the packing cases?
- Who else is on the move?
- It's all keeping Lindsey away
As you’ll know from a previous column, I accidentally threw away most of my clothes during an earlier shock and awe attack on the wardrobe in preparation for the big move, dumping them gaily in to the recycle bin at Tesco together with the size 8, 10, 12, 14 and 16 stuff I really meant to chuck away. (I’m a yoyo dieter; hence I’ve collected clothing in a range of sizes).
I may have to wear the clothes I’m currently wearing for the rest of my life, until I can either afford new ones, or crudely hand sew myself a nice skirt/top combo from a pair of green velvet curtains left behind by the occupier of the house I’m moving to.
Why are velvet curtains always green by the way? That’s one of life’s great mysteries right there. We had green velvet curtains in various rooms when I was wee. They follow me where’er I go. They’re a metaphor for my life. I’m a pair of green velvet curtains too idle and/or frozen by panic to draw themselves together. Okay, that metaphor doesn’t really work. Sorry.
I really do need to get a grip. I have walls to paint. I spent last night whimpering at six layers of wallpaper border in New House, in the vain hope that whimpering, and using very colourful language at it, would make it somehow slide off the wall and fall neatly straight in to a bin liner.
Kate, a regular to these columns and the wind ’neath my wings, set me the task of scraping off the offending border after setting me various other tasks which I abandoned, whining, including washing down the tiles in the kitchen, and cleaning the scum off the shower cubicle doors. Jobs like that give me the veritable heave. I’m a basic pleasure model, built for comfort rather than hard work and Kate knows this very well.
However, unbowed by this evidence, she set her jaw at me and handed me a basin of hot water and a sponge, barking orders to make myself useful by wetting the offending border liberally with the sponge and stripping it. She made it sound so easy. Sadly, the offending border was six layers deep and refused to loosen its grip on the wall.
Within five minutes I was channelling whatshername from the Exorcist. I’m sure Kate was waiting for my head to spin around on its axis. I was soon relieved of my duties yet again and ended up holding the basin while Kate teetered on a kitchen chair and dipped her sponge in the basin which I would periodically offer up meekly to her.
I did try to provide the entertainment though, by singing the first line to various songs which Kate would then pick up and sing along to. We’re usually in perfect symbiosis musically. We know every song ever written, including all the “woah oh oh”s and “yeah eh eh” and key change.
This game was going swimmingly until Kate mistook the opening bars of Eleanor Rigby for Ticket to Ride. Tsk. She’s no friend of mine. I mean, the cockadoody opening words of Eleanor Rigby are in fact “Eleanor Rigby”. How can you get that wrong? Huffed by her musical faux pas, I retreated to the bedroom to make myself useful by wiping down the skirting boards.
I half heartedly tickled them with a kitchen wipe before deciding to bounce on the new mattress for a while just to test it, and texting my other pals to tell them how exhausting this house move is and how cruel a taskmaster Kate is.
Suddenly the Fuhrer’s dulcet tones came skrekking through the house to me “I CAN HEAR YOU TIPPY TAPPING ON YOUR PHONE. GET WORKING AND STOP BOUNCING ON THE BED”.
She is all seeing. She is all hearing. I hate that. Let’s pray for clement weather please. I’m on fetching-and-carrying duties this evening. We’ll see. If you’re not busy tonight, give me a shout. I can’t do this all on my own y’know. Basic pleasure model, see?
