In the words of the old Phil Collins song – the roof (garage) is leaking. I don’t think Phil actually wrote about the garage roof and it’s more flooding than leaking but still it’s the same type of thing. It’s not so long ago I wrote a blog about work setting me free and now it’s kind of happened again but with a twist.
I have to say that this last week has not been without its challenges. If I suggest that much of this stress has been generated by the presence of number one son in the house, some of you may understand, some may not.
I suppose if I told you that he’s been away for nearly two years in Australia and that this last week he appeared courtesy of our son-in-law who paid for his fare as a present for his sister’s birthday. That sounds all well and good but then unfortunately they were not around, leaving us to room and board him. So very nice thought on the son-in-law’s part but let’s just say it’s had ramifications.
The thing is he’s a big presence in every way. He always has had a large personality and now he’s put on some weight which makes him even bigger. We weren’t happy about this because with my history of diabetes we think he’s a prime candidate for the same. So we’ve been worried about his weight. I mention this because as you will see it’s germane to this story.
The other downside which should have been an upside but isn’t, was when we realised we had him for the week we thought he could help us with clearing and renovating aforementioned garage roof. However this hasn’t happened on account of him being out of the house 90% of the week celebrating with his chums who of course he hadn’t seen for a while.
The problem is we both feel guilty about how we feel. We should be delighted that he’s here but we’re not. And the whole week we’ve been waiting for him to volunteer his services. He didn’t. I thought just keep calm, he’s only here a week. How hard can it be to keep the peace? For such a short period of time? Answer. I got to Tuesday and then I’m afraid I lost my cool. I won’t bore you with the details but there was shouting. The usual ‘fine, I’m leaving to stay with X’ (his friend) – he didn’t.
I’ll give you just one example of the inter-change. At one point he said you don’t like me, do you. I said I like 90% of you. Seemed an Ok thing to say at the time. I followed up with how much of me do you like? Quick as a flash he replied, 91%. I thought of trying to say, I meant 92% but the moment had gone. That ship had, as they say, already sailed. That’s how annoying he can be. I lost that one.
I have not been helped this week, in any sense, by having a bloody cold. I admit it hasn’t helped my humour. Anyway on this Tuesday, after the exchange, I needed to ‘break set’ as psychologists sometimes say. And this is where the garage roof came into play. I would start clearing the roof with a view to getting it possibly replaced.
Considering how physically shitty I was feeling it was something of a miracle that I got stuck into the task of clearing vegetation, soil, roots, leaves, van roof rack, old fencing (it will come in some time) etc. off the roof. Probably over ten year’s worth of muck. But I did get stuck in and after a couple of hours, and the same from Mrs Summerhouse who was up there with me, let’s just say you could tell where we’ve been. I had that classic sense of achievement and a bit of seizing back control after my contretemps with number one son.
On Saturday I tried it again or rather we (Mrs Summerhouse and I) both went up on the roof again to continue our good work. However the outcome was quite different. First up my cold was worse and I didn’t feel like working at all. Second, it was raining, not hard, but persistently. Third, Mrs Summerhouse went through the roof, I mean literally not metaphorically. Fortunately not all the way through, but kind of up, or down to, one hip. Now more Beatles (as in fixing a hole where the rain gets in) than Phil Collins.
This was not a good thing and called into question my whole strategy of clearing and resealing the roof, for which I have already bought the tape from B&Q (see photo above, tape on right). This change of mind on account of the roof not being quite as solid as I’d thought / hoped. Incidentally, I had placed planks on the roof for us to stand on. But Mrs Summerhouse obviously had one of her I can walk on water moments. Which possibly she can but not, it seems, on an asbestos* roof.
And this is where the irony comes in and it is really quite ironic. Mrs Summerhouse is by far the lightest of the three of us and she went through. Number one son is probably twice her weight and so should never be allowed on an unsafe roof even if he wanted to go up there, which he doesn’t. But the point is the very aspect of him that worried us – his weight – would have precluded us asking him to go up there and help which was what we most wanted to happen (before realising it was unsafe) and which caused all the friction. Well much of it anyway.
So there we are I mean who designed this scenario? It still rankles that he didn’t offer to help but then if he had and we had accepted and he had truly gone through the roof and injured himself, how would we have felt about things then? So that’s my week. If I’d still been a working person, I wouldn’t have had the time and probably not even the inclination to feeling disappointed with my family relationships. But that’s another one of the joys of being retired. So much more time to, well everything, just more time.`
PS. He has just left the building on his way back to OZ.
*There is some debate about whether the roof actually is asbestos. The company who came and looked at it were quite clear that it was but then that enabled them to put the price up to £4,500 on account of half of this was specialist removal of said asbestos. My dog-walking chum whose son-in-law clears asbestos for a living was equally certain it wasn’t. I know who I believe.