The House Husband

Well, my wrist was fine this morning. I guess the excessive exercise did it some good. However, the same can’t be said for my upper arms. It was ridiculously difficult to lift my arms up this morning. But the hedge could not wait so, after shopping and talking to mum & dad, it was back into the hacking, sawing and lopping.

I was joined, today, by Dave next door, who was busily trimming his side of the hedge. He finished in quite quick time because he was using an electric hedge trimmer.

Am I alone in hating these things? Ok, I’ll admit they do make things easier and quicker and I’m not adverse to things that do that. There’s no way I’d beat eggs into a meringue with a fork, for instance and our washing machine is an essential part of my life (I well remember mum’s boiler stick and mangle). So it’s not so much the convenience factor. It’s more the imposition.

Firstly, the imposition of the noise on my ears. I hate the sound. So loud and intrusive and, if the wielder has a big hedge job, it can drone on for ages. I’m possibly a bit more irritated by sounds than most people (apple crunching, crisp munching, tinny earplugs, etc) so I guess this one is a tad spurious and more than a little self centred.

The second imposition is on my joy. This sounds quite odd if I discount the sound thing. Let me explain.

One of the overridingly joyful things about gardening is the ambience. You work in the garden surrounded by the sounds of nature, be it the birds singing their many and varied songs or the insects buzzing around and this, particularly on a sunny day, is wonderful. The combination of working with nature while almost feeling like your part of it, is a delight. And in some ways you are.

When I dig a new bed, it isn’t long before the robins come down and peck around, hoiking out the worms I’ve disturbed. And I always love the sound of foraging blackbirds as they become used to my presence. (Actually, the foraging blackbirds can be a bit disturbing when you’ve grown up in Australia where a rustle in the undergrowth could mean sudden death. Fortunately I’m used to it now.)

I’ll admit to having the radio on but it’s always Radio 4 and the voices almost become part of the soundscape. It’s never loud enough to disturb anyone or anything and it’s informative as well.

Possibly that’s enough about my dislike of electric hedge trimmers…Nicktor would be asleep by now if he had started reading this. But it does move nicely into my conversation with Dave, across the hedge, once he’d finished making a racket. He told me the Story of the Hedge.

Dave’s Story of the Hedge

The people who lived in our house before the people who lived in our house before us, had two boys. Like most young boys, they liked to kick balls around. This was when there were no fences separating the gardens. For some reason unknown to Dave, the father of the boys was convinced Dave was irritated by the ball continuous finding its way into his garden, forcing him to retrieve it. Dave assured me, it didn’t bother him in the least. This makes sense, as I reckon Dave is the nicest man in the street.

Anyway, to remedy this imagined problem, the father put up a three foot fence in the back two thirds of the garden so they could kick the ball against it. I didn’t ask Dave how he felt about the constant thump, thump, thump but I knew how I’d have felt. Obviously, a three foot fence isn’t going to stop any balls kicked higher so, as a sort of slow but effective form of natural boundary, the father put in the hedge. The family then moved out, the hedge barely started, selling the house to Maxine and her family.

Oddly, the Crazies (our neighbours on the other side) were the ones who had a problem with Maxine’s girls. Not because they kicked balls but because they’d say things. The situation grew so bad that the Crazies put up a six foot fence so keep their nasty little faces out. I should add that I have always found Maxine’s girls to be nice and polite whenever they’d come round to collect the mail and find it difficult to think of them as horrid…and, of course, the Crazies are crazy.

One thing that Maxine and her family were not that good at was gardening. At least as far as the hedge went. They just let it grow. And it did. When we moved in, in parts it was ten feet high. While I quite like the privacy this sort of giant hedge affords, Mirinda dislikes the amount of sun the garden loses out on because it’s long and narrow. They’d also have regular burnings up the back which scorched the leaves of the final two plants meaning they’ll never be green again. Mirinda particularly hates that end of the hedge.

Now, our hedge may be tall but it’s minuscule compared to these trees.

The Queen's Bottom looking hazy but beautiful

I managed to complete the painting today. The entire hall looks very bright and white now. The entire house also smells of paint. It will need a jolly good airing tomorrow.

I took another photo of the stairs today to try and show the colour when bathed in sunlight.

From the top of the stairs

This time I took the shot from the top of the stairs and the colour at the bottom is pretty true.

The six pictures are Japanese calligraphy. Each one is a character that means something (happiness, love, etc). Years ago, when Mirinda stopped off in Japan, a Buddhist monk painted them for her. We think they’re beautiful and I think they look quite dramatic against the white wall.

The only thing that happened out of the ordinary today was a visit from the woman who lives at number 32. Yesterday a parcel was delivered to them but they were out so I took it in for them. It then sat by the front door waiting for retrieval. No-one came and I was a bit concerned that they’d gone away and we’d miss them when they returned (seeing as we’re off to the Isle of Wight on Friday).

I had just finished sealing the front door with masking tape, ahead of painting it when a knock scared the daylights out of me. Normally I would have had a bit of warning but the noisiest members of the house were taken to the kennel this morning. I stood up (I was bending over, filling the roller with paint) and the woman was standing the other side of the glass looking a bit beseeching.

While most of the street is very friendly with frequent queries about everyone’s health (“Hi, how are you?”) and nary a missed opportunity to say “Hello”, the people at number 32 are somewhat distant. I don’t know why. I wouldn’t actually recognise them in the street, to be honest. I took a guess and assumed it was her.

You see, having just taped the door up, had it been a salesperson or one of those annoying people who knock on the door throughout the day during the week, I would have told them to…well, to go away because I’d just taped the door up. Seeing as it was a neighbour and I had her parcel, I sighed and removed half the tape then ripped off the rest by opening the door.

She was very apologetic – it was quite obvious what I was doing seeing as I had a paint roller in my hand, white paint all over me and a dust cloth on the floor – and started to show me the card the delivery guy had left her. I just smiled, reached behind me, grabbed and handed her the box (I think they were shoes or something in a shoe box). She apologised again and went off, box clasped in her arms.

I closed the door and re-taped it, vowing not to open it again for anyone until the paint was dry. I did manage this but only because no-one else knocked. It could have been the big sign I put outside telling people I was defusing a bomb and they shouldn’t come too close.

So, basically, that was my day, with a bit of tidying and floor washing thrown in.

Our neighbours are weird. I think I’ve said something similar before. I think they’re getting weirder.

Mirinda has noticed that the father often takes the dogs for a walk late at night. In the park. Unless there’s a good, bright moon, the park is pitch black.

So, tonight I’m in the bedroom, folding up the clean clothes, Carmen and Day-z helping in the way that only they can, by sleeping and suddenly there’s this god-awful screaming. Naturally the poodles went crazy and started barking then dashed off the bed and out the back where they proceeded to yell at the fence down the end of the garden. being a human and therefore having the ability to out think a poodle, I looked out the front window.

Next door’s porch light was on and the new rescue dog was sitting there emitting the screechy noise. I think it was trying to sing. Meanwhile I could hear our two right down the back of the garden barking at nothing.

The front door was open and the dog was bathed in the hall light. And then the father came out, lead in hand and led the dog up to the park. Interestingly, it was just the new rescue dog and not Otis, the scaredy-cat whippet they own.

It took ages for the poodles to come back but come back they did. They leapt onto the bed, collapsed and were instantly asleep. Wish I was a poodle sometimes.