Posted on by JonnyB

There is an outbreak of fleas!!!

Short Tony’s dogg is in disgrace. It has had to be given a bath. Meanwhile, Mrs Short Tony has mixed emotions that her unusual rash has proved not to be shingles.

I meet Short Tony out in his front garden. An emergency stairs crisis paracarpenter has descended on me from Cambridgeshire, and I am keen to leave him to get on with it.

We discuss the fleas issue.

“She’s got a much bigger rash now,” he explains. “All down one side.”

“It would explain about the LTLP’s breasts,” I reply thoughtfully. “They are dotted with spots. It is all the fault of your dogg.”

“You’ve not got any bites?”

“No.”

“Me neither.”

We nod in satisfaction at our good fortune.

“We could always talk about this at the Village Pub?” he asks.

I sigh. “Sorry. I have to pick up Baby Servalan in an hour or so, and I have fucking Tread Adair working in my kitchen. Another time.”

He disappears inside to spread flea chemicals. There will be another time.

Posted on by JonnyB

‘Krrrikkwhoshhhhhhttt!!!’ explodes the Alarming Noise.

I tie my shoelaces hurriedly. The LTLP has clearly fallen through the stairs.

The noise of a woman falling through some stairs is one of those unmistakable sounds. It’s something totally and utterly distinctive, like a Routemaster bus, for instance, or a vicar falling out of a tree.

I rush into the kitchen. She is sat on the floor amidst a pile of wood, a bemused look etched into her features. “Fuck!” she comments.

We are due at Short Tony’s for dinner, so I pull her up and send her next door for a stiff drink. I then commence my Accident Investigator’s role, before carpenting some temporary stairs by balancing a plank on top of a wooden crate. This will allow us to reach the top half of the flight (currently still standing) with a bit of effort.

The saga of my stairs is becoming tiresome. We have joked before that we are likely to become the subjects of some form of ‘cowboy builder’ type TV documentary; little did I realise that Channel 4 might one day be interested for ‘Bodyshock: The Woman with a Riser up her Arse’.

I double-check that the plank is holding reasonably well, then scoot next door for some roast beef.

Posted on by JonnyB

I grow a beard.

I have normally quite fresh faced good looks, and the addition of a beard adds a bit more Hollywood ruggedness I feel. As if I have been stuck on a desert island for ages, but with a camera crew.

“You look like a fucking hobo,” remonstrates the LTLP. She pretends not to like my new rough and tough image. She will not be complaining tonight when I drag her to bed by her hair.

“It is a kind of protest,” I confide to Eddie, as we sit later on at the bar in the Village Pub.

“Against what?”

I stroke my beard thoughtfully. “I have pledged not to shave until I have a bathroom environment suitable to do so. You know – with a proper mirror, and a floor, and space to lay out your stuff. The idea is that every day the builders will see me with my beard, and be reminded guiltily of the fact that I have no proper bathroom.”

He nods, appreciatively.

“It is a bit like setting myself on fire,” I continue. “But without the hurty burny bit.”

“Have they noticed yet then?”

“Not yet.”

The Foxy Barlady sidles up and asks if I am coming to the next quiz night. My combination of rough edges and the spiritual, almost Buddhist, protesting dimension to my beard is clearly a winner. She has become my bitch (although I do not say that as it would be rude).

Posted on by JonnyB

I reach a Low Ebb.

“I’m around all day if you need a coffee and a chat,” offers Short Tony, kindly.

I mutter some words of ingratitude and return to my Ebb.

Later on, I have taken him up on his offer and sit morosely in his lounge. He asks me if I fancy a pint one night, and puts on his wide-screen television for Mr Blair’s speech, but nothing seems to cheer me up. The fact is that Ebbs are by definition reasonably low, so my specifically low one is an especial downer.

My builders are still building. They have been building for ten months now. I am bored of their building. I am living out of boxes. The bloke that’s been working in the kitchen has been there so long that it’s ceased to be a commercial transaction and has morphed into some kind of hostage situation. And the stairs have disappeared again.

I had possessed some temporary stairs, which I had been using to travel from the ground floor to the first floor, and back again. They were to be replaced with more permanent ones, which would hopefully allow me to make that journey for years to come. This was to happen whilst I was away at my in-laws. But, of course, only the ripping out bit occurred, and I am now the owner of Norfolk’s most inappropriate atrium.

Woe. Is. Me. As the kids say in America.

It is the ‘sharing personal space’ bit that is most distressing: I am a natural loner and like to keep myself to myself (nb if you have arrived here from the policeman blog this does not mean that I am a serial killer but if you want to send one of your horny honeytrap WPCs to check like you did with Colin then that is ok as it is important to eliminate me from your enquiries) (plus I have bought a spray from the internet that eliminates dna from sperm). When it comes down to it, I absolutely refuse to share my personal space, unless I have to go into a small space with some people.

Hence my Ebb.

It is a hard and fast rule here that we try to avoid anything approaching self-indulgence. But occasionally I must lapse, and this message has perhaps been the diary equivalent of an Arts Council-funded multimedia version of Jack Kerouac’s On the Road performed in Gaelic to the crofters of Uid by blacked-up ex-members of Marillion. But the Internet marches on and march on with it we must; tomorrow I hope to be back with a vaguely amusing anecdote about a beard.