The Waiting Game

This is actually (and really) Sunday’s blog but the time is out of joint and the previous blog committed the ultimate sin of breaching the midnight limit; in BBC terms this would be the equivalent of speaking over the pips!

‘The Times’ (when it was a decent newspaper and not owned by the Dirty Digger) used to print letters whose writers had noticed the first cuckoo of spring. I feel that I should write a similar missive but this time describing the first viewers of the new year.

After an extended period of unnatural activity (cleaning) and perverse behaviour (tidying) the house looked as unlike anything that I would like to live in as I could imagine: everything, as Toni would say, “in his place.” I want to get back to clutter and my books, but that will be ere the set of sun and the selling of the house.

The couple who came to view seemed to like it: the man dwelt on the car parking possibilities and the lady was drawn to the kitchen and the views. We now come to that non-time which is the time between the viewing and the response. As today is Sunday we will have to wait until Monday and even then it is sometimes delayed. Wait and see. Good advice.

The down side of preparing the house for a viewing is trying to find out where you put all those things which you just stuffed into any corner or drawer, telling yourself that you would restore everything to its appropriate place as soon as the viewers had left. What I actually did when they left (apart, that is, from the instant character analysis and pointless worry about whether or not they were likely to buy the property) was make lunch.

There was nothing outstanding about the repast we had, but the feature which interested me most was the colander which I used. At Toni’s behest we bought a new one in Sainsbury yesterday. Now I remember colanders from my youth. They were something which your family bought once and the article stayed with you for the rest of your parents’ lives and then was transferred to you by natural selection or some such process and was something which you used until it broke and then continued to use because a colander was something which distant family bought and handed down, not something which you could buy yourself. The one we had was made of aluminium and came down to Cardiff with my parents from Leeds. It was quite small and couldn’t contain a full saucepan full of potatoes for example. It also had a wonky base, so that it leaned a little to one side. Did we buy a replacement? Of course not! So you can understand my wonderment at actually having the temerity to lash out and purchase an heirloom. And very fine it is too: a professional looking thing in gleaming stainless steel and large enough to take a couple of chopped lettuces! A momentous day indeed, and, as Toni paid for half of it; an internationally significant day!

Perhaps today is the day that I get more fully into the novel of ‘Nicholas Nickleby’. The description of the Muffin and Crumpet swindle which is just about to be perpetrated seems as relevant today as it was in the time of Dickens. Although the fraud is presented in a humorous way the reality behind the scheme is harshly serious and, although this fraud is being carried out in a public meeting with the stock comic characters of Irish MPs etc., all you have to do is reset the meeting to a carefully constructed web site on the internet, and the link to the present is clear and the money making possibilities just as lucrative!

Man's greed never changes!