Posted on by JonnyB

The Methodical Carpenter sensationally returned!!!

“I wouldn’t have left you in the lurch,” he explained. “I’ll finish off your job here then go my own way.”

I was glad, and not just because his absence had threatened to make us homeless. Despite his spiky character, I liked the chap, and was fond of his carpentry. He buzzed away at his saw, only occasionally wincing at the electrical burns on his hands.

I left the site, all well with the world.

Less than twenty-four hours later Short Tony was on the phone to me.

“I thought you might like to know,” he began, in that tone of voice that inevitably precedes information that one would like not to know, “there is an ambulance and a paramedic’s car outside your cottage.”

I knew who the casualty would be. My stomach experienced that horrible, desperate sinking feeling, like when you get out of the bath all beautifully clean and fresh ready for your date with sexy TV actress Zoe Telford only to realise that you really, really need a poo and it is likely to be a smeary one. I got in the car and sped over there.

The Methodical Carpenter had been hospitalised after a horrible testicular accident. He would not be returning to work.

Really homeless this time.

Posted on by JonnyB

The M42 is a godawful place.

Let’s face it, most motorways are. But at least some actually take you somewhere interesting. You know – London. Or Leeds. Or the junction with the road that goes to Norfolk.

The M42 just seems to go from motorway to motorway. Granted, you can use it to take you away from the Birmingham region, but it doesn’t even do that very well what with all the congestion. It is utterly pointless in the big scheme of things. It has no interesting features and only exists because otherwise there would be a big white gap on the map. We edge along this Bedfordshire of motorways – Baby Servalan and I – stop, start, stop, start.

I spot a small gap to sneak into. Unfortunately, so does somebody else and there is almost a little bit of an accident. I pull back in time, the startled face of Michael Flatley, Lord of the Dance, gawking at me from the driver’s seat of the other car.

“That is Michael Flatley, Lord of the Dance,” I explain to Baby Servalan. “It is not often that you meet a major celebrity on the M42.”

The black mercedes of Michael Flatley, Lord of the Dance, surges forward as the traffic eases slightly.

“We should follow him,” I decide. “To make sure that he is not up to something.”

I zip in to a space a few cars behind him, to the annoyance of a lorry driver who is presumably on the same mission.

The traffic slows slightly again, having reached that annoying stage where every single car is in the outside lane. Michael Flatley, Lord of the Dance, is now quite a way ahead. He is escaping!!!

I contemplate doing some overtaking on the inside in order to narrow the gap. Road safety concerns win out, and I hang back like in all the good cop shows, concentrating on maintaining my pursuit.

We all speed up. This stop/start method of driving probably suits the way his feet use the pedals. A couple of cars pull over into the middle lane, and now there is only one between us and Michael Flatley, Lord of the Dance. I can afford to ease off a bit now, his F14TLY number plate inadvertently signposting his identity from some distance.

We continue in this manner for some miles, Baby Servalan and I, and Michael Flatley, Lord of the Dance. I have to admit that he does not appear to be up to no good. But I maintain my vigilance.

He suddenly pulls off at the M40 junction. I continue on to the M5, cursing the fact that I do not have a CB radio and thus cannot appeal for lorry drivers to continue the chase. Michael Flatley, Lord of the Dance, disappears into the concrete distance, no doubt satisfied at having eluded me.

Posted on by JonnyB

Temporary absence.

Attending my sister RonnieB’s wedding.

Please talk amongst yourselves.

Posted on by JonnyB

The Methodical Carpenter’s sensational resignation has hit me hard.

On the first floor of the cottage, work is almost finished. The painters are done, the shower is working and Carpetright have been engaged. It is a lovely first floor.

The ground floor is less complete, but still encouraging. A kitchen. A bathroom. One of those outside lights that goes on and off in the middle of the night when an ant wanders past.

So I am reasonably happy with the ground floor.

My issue, as far as I can establish, is getting from one floor to the other. This is an activity that, even with rationing myself, I am likely to want to do several times a day. Being unable to do so, I realise, makes the cottage unsustainable as living accommodation for a family with a young baby. And, having to move out of Narcoleptic Dave’s fully stair-equipped cottage at the end of next week, it suddenly hits me that we will be homeless.

Homeless.

‘Homeless’. It is not a word that I have ever really thought about. There is no such thing, I reflect, as ‘The Homeless’ – only ‘People Without Homes’. And I appear to have joined their ranks. I have only ever really thought about homelessness in an abstract context: ‘it’s terrible the amount of homeless on the Strand. They quite spoilt my enjoyment of the opera.’ But now…

‘Homeless’. From the Latin ‘Homus’ (a place to live) and the Anglo-Saxon ‘Less’ (I have not got one). Homeless.

Homeless. There are many famous and successful homeless people I can take comfort from, like the lady in the van in the Alan Bennett story, and the Littlest Hobo, and Gary Glitter. Although thinking about it, the lady in the van did have a home (a van). But I admit I do not have the problems Gary Glitter has, what with glam rock being very out of fashion in the early twenty-first century.

Homeless.