The Builders Have Left the Building

Since last Thursday (now two full weeks in fact) peace has descended on our home again.  It has been a long, hot summer with dust and rubble and noise, lots of noise.  Having just put down my first year back teaching I had mapped out a whole other summer for myself…

I was looking forward to a peaceful couple of months padding around the house in my bare feet followed by three little doggies, who would also pad around and stay cool in shady places.  I was planning to write poetry and a blog, do little drawings every day to illustrate my poems, perhaps write a short story or two and maybe even do the illustrations for my picture book, but none of this happened as the builders moved in.

I mentioned previously that this house is still in progress in spite of the fact that we have been living in it for the past four and a half years. In addition we have a problem with uninvited guests hopping in over the wall whenever they please to help themselves to anything that they need out of our garden.

We have been battling for years to keep these thieves out, building our walls ever higher, but they are very persistent.   Over the years we have lost a garden table, two bikes, acro-props, number unknown, fruit from our trees and a large ornamental pot.  On a couple of occasions I have charged out into the garden to stop robberies in progress, saving hosepipes and scaffolding.  Vic surprised a visitor in our Nispero tree one afternoon too.  It does not seem that much, but it is the sense of violation and lack of privacy in our own home that has made us so determined.

In addition we now had a duty to protect our new family members.  I was so afraid that someone would steal our dogs.  Being full-bred Westies they are very wantable, though Looki did not come with pedigree papers, he scrubs up very well, they all do.  Both the girls have family trees as long and illustrious as a Borzoi's leg.  The girls are neutered it is true, but a thief isn’t going to turn them over to check their bellies for a scar, he will take them first and ask questions afterwards and if he cannot breed them or sell them on, will probably just dump them and that just didn't bear thinking about

Oh yes, and one other thing.  Westies hate cats.  Hate them. 

In the morning when we all rise and I have said hello and rubbed three sets of ears and kissed three shaggy foreheads and avoided (almost) three tongue kisses from our little babies they want to go out.  They really want to go out!  Not so much to go for a wee, but to find cats.  I open the back door with difficulty as three eager black noses are pushing to be the first out.  And they're off!  Kerry usually in the lead, but quickly overtaken by Candy.  Looki has been known to leap over the two of them, but then come to an abrupt halt as he doesn’t quite understand what he is supposed to do then.  So while the girls sweep the garden for hidden cats he sort of pootles around cocking his leg on any handy bucket or tomato plant.

Most of the walls were already high enough to keep small dogs with very short legs from escaping. But there was one weak point which I had barricaded up with an old metal table and an unwanted painting, not very attractive and not very secure. It was time to get the builders in.

We are not people who do things by half measure.  In addition to the walls we had already built we now have a superhuge wall almost five metres high and jagged up with glass. It is behind the Nispero tree to the left hand side of the garden.  This wall continues as the ground rises so becomes less of a height at around 1.80m, this was also as a consideration for allowing light to enter our garden.  On top of this wall we have industrial steel railings, 1.80m tall with razor sharp spikes on the top.  We also put the same type of railings on top of the original wall on the right hand side of our property.

Industrial steel railings enhance the view beside the Nispero tree

There is no fear that any Westie is going to get out of our garden even in the desperate pursuit of cats!  And I hope that no one is stupid enough to try to come over from the other side.  I would hate to get up in the morning and have to report a dead body skewered on the top of our fence.  The spikes are really sharp!

There is no fear that any Westie will get out!

While this building was going on Vic and I decided, in our ultimate wisdom that it would be a good idea to get a few other 'small' jobs done at the same time.

There were plenty of things that were left unfinished when the first contractor ran away with our money.  So we decided to finish the balcony, build a back door step, put a proper cowl on the chimney, build a new stairway up to the roof, put a tap on the terrace, finish the electrics and put railings on absolutely everything including the landing outside our bedroom which really has been a bit of a hazard all these years, with a sheer drop to the bottom of the stairs.  There were one or two other things too. 

Looki surveys the sheer drop to the bottom

A couple of weeks we thought….

So instead of barefoot tranquility, Vic has been confined to Scotland in order to keep the money flowing and myself and the Westies have been tripping over acro-props in the hallway and getting caught on the billowing plastic cover on the stairs.  Not to mention the very hard bits of rubble underfoot that have caused me great grief when I have inadvertently stepped on a piece while trying to pad around in my bare feet.

Kerry takes the power tools as they come

For three days solid during the occupation we had three men on the roof with kango hammers knocking a new hole in the roof for the stairs.  Poetry doesn’t really flow at times like that.

Poetry does not flow

Still we did try to maintain a routine of sorts.  The alarm would go off at six thirty, I'd hit the snooze button and if Kerry was on the bed I would put my arm around her fat little tummy and drift off again. Ten minutes later.  Plinky plinky plonk!  It's off again. Snooze. Snuggle...... Plinky, plinky ok ok!  I'm getting up!

I reach for my glasses and shuffle out of bed in the darkness.  I have got into the habit of shuffling to avoid stepping on the vital limbs of any canines that are lying, creeping or charging across the floor.  I still do everything in the dark because I have spent so long without lights, waiting for an electrician who never came, that old habits die hard and I just do without.  I put my glasses on because I still have to check from the bathroom window every morning for unwanted invaders in the garden.

I sit on the loo. Looki is usually the first to come and greet me there. We have a little cuddle and he either creeps toward me with his bum in the air or in a classic Westie-creep pose with his little back legs splayed out behind him while he pulls himself toward me with his front paws or he simply rolls over into total submission and 'rub my tummy, mummy' mode.  So I do.

By this time Kerry is screaming or gargling at me in her own peculiarly vocal way and Candy is just rushing around in circles panting.  The fur on her face is squashed into a sort of sideways quiff from having been in a deep sleep.  I put on my dressing gown and shuffle towards the stairs.  We have to pass through a maze of acros holding up the new part of our ceiling and the work platform for building our little housing on the roof.  The pack sticks close together and we all make our way down the stairs being careful not to slip on the plastic wrapping that was supposed to protect the steps, but only causes us daily grief.

Threading our way through a maze of acros

Big lumps of rubble hide in the folds of plastic and every morning without fail I step on at least one painful piece and I have the scars to prove it.  Somehow we all make it down the stairs intact, but uncomfortable, and I let the dogs out for their morning cat hunt.  Then I painfully retrace my steps to wash and get dressed.

Big lumps of rubble hide in the folds of plastic wrapping

Before the builders we would have got ready and gone straight out for our walk early, before the heat and before too many other dogs are out on the prowl.  During the building we had to wait for the builders to arrive, which made us late and made me grumpy.

No, it has not been an easy summer, but just as suddenly, the builders are gone and we have our life back again for a while.  There is still dust and the odd piece of rubble turns up in the most unusual of places and the electrician still hasn't finished, but we have at last a sense of peace and a taste of what the summer might have been.

Candy makes friends with the stair wrapping