And then there are the good weeks. The weeks that seem to flow via their own volition with no pushing and shoving from me. The weeks that bring little parcels of better news and stir spoonfuls of clarity into my coffee.
Today. A slow morning turning over the ins and outs of our lives in rambling conversation. Tea and crumpets. Working in bed like the invalid I am not because the sprint to the office that is the sofa across the room struck me as all a bit too much on a day when there doesn’t seem to be any bones in my legs. Oh what fun we have!
It has been a busy week. Great strides have been made. My lovely site is wearing a new dress. And The Library has a new home because a change is as good as a rest now isn’t it and I’m a fancypants don’t you know? And speaking of change, the original buyer has now announced he will be ready to complete in two weeks, and so serious is he, that he had his DAD, who was a very serious man indeed, call us and confirm that he had re-mortgaged his own house in order to fund his son’s property purchase, and they expect the exchange of contracts to happen by mid-August. But I do believe we will have to hedge our bets on that timeline because I do believe we have been here before…
We are however feeling a little upturn in hope and in honour of that hope have started jiggling boxes about and sending Ben into the loft to bring down boxes that once belonged to his bookish Mum and Dad. Oh bliss! Other people’s books, little glimpses into who they were, told book by book… Graham Greene, a book of birds, The Road to Wigan Pier, Flowers in the Attic, William Golding, Iain Banks and a cartoonish affair called TripeMasters in honour of the wobbly white stuff that was once the family business.
(Ugh. Tripe. if you don’t know what it is, you probably don’t need to know. Suffice to say the very idea of it turning up on my plate makes me shudder. Sorry Ben’s family).
Where was I? Oh yes. On the precipice of change. And about time too, because the front has fallen off the air fryer and as that is just about the sum total of our kitchen, we need to get going, onwards and upwards towards a more civilised way of life or else we are going to turn into dodgy microwaved curries.
In the meantime though we are doing our best to gather up executive (dys) function like so many petticoats and thrust ourselves towards the very real business of actually moving and what to do with 94 animals while we are moving, and where we will stay in-between moving off terra firm and onto the canal and yes, you would think that we would have all this in hand, but honestly the whole kaboodle has been something of a moving target and it is has been horribly difficult to pin anything down at all, so we didn’t try and now we are all guns blazing and reminding ourselves on an hourly basis that in the very short two and a half years in which we have known each other. we have already packed up two whole houses, so we can do it again and it surely won’t be long before us and our ark full of animals are bobbing up and down the Macclesfield causing merry hell in a boat liberally draped in way too many potted plants.
I am of course being terribly organised on virtual paper and have got wild lists full of safety equipment and random essentials like key-rings that float and doggie life-jackets, and I will confess to being in Alison heaven, and overly enthusiastic about forcing Ben to study my exhaustive lists, while he reminds me that before we order elaborate water filtering systems we are going to need a boat and damn, that really does seem to be the current spanner in these bullet pointed works. Damn it.
Trouble is, we are so shy. Isn’t it silly to have a combined age of 104 and feel so very shy about poking around other people’s boats, when they WANT us to come and poke about with a view to buy? Left to our own devices we would shut our eyes, jab a finger at a screen and say we want that one and that would be that, but there are terrible things in the way like surveys and boat-movers and all manner of shenanigans that we don’t want to do, but sensible sorts insist we must.
Grrr. Sensible sorts. How very much we would have loved to be sensible sorts. But alas we are not. We are a muddle-fest of lovely calamity and I do believe that as a combo we are double the trouble, but then where would we be if the whole world was peopled only by the sensible?
Anyways, today. Typing. Trying to manifest my way to a new life. Giddy with ideas for my beloved Brocante! Tracking my child down, for his ability to answer his phone is in steep decline and he is constantly astonished when his Dad and I work ourselves into a frenzy wondering if he is ok, and fid ourselves being paid for our troubles with outraged reminders that HE IS AN ADULT AND ALMOST CERTAINLY NOT DEAD. About to get ready for party night, to which we have added the choosing of a film to the routine that usually includes, cheese, wine and Gogglebox, but tonight will include Lady Gaga, hummus and elderflower gin blessed by the world’s biggest ice-cubes. For oh what fun we have now we have a fridge!
Before that, though, a little tidy-up. And a stern word with Autumn, our Maine Coon, who has recently decided that life as an indoor cat is beneath her, preferring instead to prowl the mean streets of Lancashire. Slipping out at every opportunity, only to saunter back hours later without the faintest hint of remorse while we roam the neighbourhood shaking cat food, and screeching “Autumn!” into the afternoon and no doubt confusing anyone within earshot, who must surely be tempted to shout back, “No, Summer!”
But there she will be, draped across a sun-warmed tin roof like the orange feline star of her own production of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, making the most of the warm weather while we prematurely age ourselves with worry.
Heck, if it isn’t my son, it’s the cat. When what I really need is for the moving parts of my life to stand still, stay where they are put and answer the bloody phone! Gosh. (Rant over).
So yes. Gin and hummus and a new website, and clarity and hope and all the good things. Ben is running a bath now, with scalding hot water he will wait a hour to cool for there is no cold tap, while I, already bucket washed will sit down to swipe kohl around my eyes in order to remember who I am…
And then we’ll spend the evening lamenting and reminiscing in equal measure, getting gloriously nostalgic for the nights we danced to Purple Rain, back when there was still a hole in the bedroom ceiling and we could look straight up into the rafters.
Isn’t it strange the things that come to feel like home? Not the perfect houses or the polished years, but the odd little details that made a life unmistakably ours. The missing ceiling. Prince giving it the bifters. The certainty that somehow we will muddle through. Because we are excellent muddlers, fashioning home from whatever happens to be in front of us, and no doubt looking back years later and discovering it was beautiful all along…
Thank heavens for the good weeks.
I love the new dressing of The Library! Will we be receiving a new invitation to Circle? I can't seem to access anything but I did change my email from the last time we had Circle.