Retirement blog and our second (yes second) summerhouse

This retirement blog asks (but doesn’t answer), when does a task become a project and are projects good for retired people? I only ask this question because last Wednesday our second summerhouse came into being. I realise that this makes two summerhouses and, to be true to this blog, I should rename it the summerhouses’ years.

But that seems a little clumsy and raises one of my grammatical blind spots – where to put the apostrophe when you’re showing possession and it’s in the plural. So I’ll stick with the singular version even though it doesn’t accurately reflect our current situation. I’m reminded of the Monty Python sketch entitled Arthur ‘two sheds’ Jackson. Look it up on Google / You Tube whatever.

So this second summerhouse ‘project’, if I may be so bold, has been in the air for several months. It’s not easy having a second summerhouse. So many decisions – How much to spend, what type of summerhouse (this one is a different shape to the first one as you can no doubt see from the photos), where to buy it from, what colour, where to locate it, even after deciding it would be up at the vineyard?

Having decided on this location (see photo below) I had to get Brian to dig out the foundations, get the hard-core from the bloke down the road, his nephew (I think) to pick up and drop the hard-core over the wall in his tractor bucket, make the frame with decking on top as the base. No siree, not easy.

So it’s been a bit of a challenge even though my only physical involvement thus far has been helping the guys who delivered it to lift over the wall and carry through the field, a couple of particularly heavy panels. The floor and the roof as you ask. They’d made these up in the factory. As I understand it this was to minimise the amount of time they spent outside in what has been a very rainy period of time. Sensible, but heavy to carry.

Another small or rather potentially big problem was that these panels were quite large as well as heavy, and, as a result, hung over the sides of the trailer upon which it was delivered. The roads to our barn are definitely not motorway width and in fact the trailer would probably have been banned from a motorway had it existed. But it didn’t, narrow roads were the order of the day.

The five (again more than usual but an effort to minimise building time) guys who turned up were all Polish. Fortunately they hadn’t come that far. Only from Selby, a couple of hours away. At least it would have been had they driven directly to the barn. The problem is the barn is off-grid, is that the term? This means no post-code which means they drove straight past the barn and down the very steep hill. Not a problem in itself but getting back up the hill with a full load on the trailer and five chaps in the quite old pick-up, was a problem.

I could hear it chugging up the hill and smell the clutch (a smell I know well from our own vehicles) before they got into sight. Then they saw for the first time, it seemed, the site whereupon the summerhouse was to be erected. We had gone to some trouble to take photos of the site and send them to the lady from whom we purchased the building. Turned out he, the guy in charge, hadn’t seen a one. So quite a surprise. How we all laughed although, as they were talking in Polish, I may have misinterpreted their feelings at this point. I wonder what is Polish for, this stupid f—– wants it where?

Having shown them where, happy days, it was to go, I decided the best thing we could do was go to the pub for lunch. I did tell you I didn’t contribute much to the construction but then I guess this is what we paid for.

I did feel slightly guilty. Two of the five men looked older than I am or maybe living in Poland, then working in England, ages a person. There was one old chap who, after carrying the heavy floor panel to the site, was bent over double with a complexion I can only describe as pale. I panicked for a moment. I thought bloody hell he’s going to have a heart attack and then the job will never get done.

I suppose if he’d cacked it (excuse my callousness but this build had already been cancelled two times already) they would have insisted on taking his body back to Selby or somewhere further afield. Certainly there was plenty of room on the trailer by the time they’d finished unloading it. He wouldn’t be hanging over the edges like the panels were. So that was good news.

Two and half hours later we sauntered back from the pub and, as if by magic, they had gone and the summerhouse had appeared. And, as a bonus, no dead bodies to tidy up. All that was left for us to do was stand back and admire our handiwork (in the sense of having had the idea) and then of course, to fill it up with clutter. The thing we do best. With just a hint of smugness of the ‘I knew if I kept this long enough it would come in’ variety, we ferried stuff up the hill, the very heavy wine cupboard in a wheel-barrow, wondering what fool decided that on the top of this hill would be a great place for a (second) summerhouse?

There was one small problem. The sofa we’d kept ever since we sold the cottage was of the flat-pack IKEA type. It was in bits and we’d lost the nuts and bolts thingys that are needed to put it back together. It’s the little things that cause the stress. Don’t sweat the little things, you say. True but without the little things, no bloody sofa. Hmm.

Anyway that apart, all good. True we couldn’t sit down to admire the view (the reason for the building’s placement) but we were able to sit on the edge of the decking and contemplate the wonders of our retirement. I have no doubt that when we were working, pursuing our careers with enthusiasm, there would have been no time for such debatably useful projects like buying and having erected, a second summerhouse. Retirement, it’s such a wonderful time of one’s life.

Looking back at the title of this retirement blog I realise I have made absolutely no effort to answer the questions posed in the first paragraph. If you were hoping I would, well … tough.