I think that the future financial standing of certain shops in the Castelldefels/Gava/ Sant Boi area are directly dependent on our continuing efforts to make the house ready for our first guests in late July. There are certain hardware stores where we are greeted as old friends.
Toni has bought a new Bosch drill with which he rather ostentatiously parades around with a Bond-like demeanour and a startlingly sardonic smile. He is, even as I type, repairing the front gate. This metal and wattle construction is linked to the entry phone and has already been ‘repaired’ once by the jobbing trouble shooter employed by the estate agents. We were impressed with the alacrity with which our request for attention was received, but the final result is that we (or rather Toni) have to correct.
It turns out that the ‘wrongness’ of the professionals’ efforts means that it is difficult to produce a satisfactory result without grinding down two metal plates. So I am told. And I don’t mind being told as long as I don’t have to do!
Things are not quite as frenetic as they have been and we are now satisfied with completing a few domestic tasks rather than, say, producing a complete garden. We are, at last, at the refinements stage rather than establishing. It is, believe me, quite different with entirely different stresses. It is now possible to consider the logistics of having guests calmly without the Munch-like horror with which the prospect was previously greeted!
More pictures have been put up and now the house is something like a gallery and very comforting I find it too. There is the question of the Lost Paintings. I realize that not only is Toni’s favourite Ceri painting not where we thought it to be, but also one of my Young Artists in Habitat silk screen prints is missing. This is not exactly an inconspicuous piece being a large abstract mostly in browns. The artist’s father described his first ideas for his piece as looking like an ‘extended turd’ – needless to say the picture that I bought was a later version and a little more acceptable than that! These (and probably more) are part of the Lost Paintings cache which must exist somewhere.
Their reappearance will, however cause a certain amount of readjustment to the selection of paintings on display at present.
Our more immediate problem is a cat.
It is well known that these pests have a habit of using other people’s gardens as their loos. We have such a cat. It has walked on our outside table and has excreted in Toni’s immaculately laid volcanic rubble boarder. I suppose the cat must have assumed that it had arrived in kitty-litter heaven when it saw square metres of available toilet.
As a dog person I am all in favour of laying poison and mounting armed guard to nail the beast but I have been persuaded that this feline filth has some sort of legal right to life which precludes my very reasonable yet pleasantly Draconian solutions.
To those who aver that cats have souls I can only say that their mercenary souls are of such a quality of selfishness that make Satan himself look innocently generous – and I`ve owned a Labrador.
Anyway I have decided that a water-pistol will be my weapon of choice if I see any quadruped making its way with bathroom eyes onto my property. The blow to a cat’s pride of an expertly aimed jet of water from a child’s cheap toy may, with any luck, prove fatal – even without this happy outcome the deterrent effect should be worth the expenditure.
Meanwhile we have thrown away detritus from the previous occupant without a second thought and the play is becoming a clear (if disturbing) reflection of our joint personalities.
Tomorrow a possible visit to court to see the outcome of a hearing against The Owner and her medieval employment policies. It is too much to hope that she will turn up herself but even a quarter of a chance that she will be there is enough to guarantee my presence. For old time’s sake.
What a nice person I am!
Toni has bought a new Bosch drill with which he rather ostentatiously parades around with a Bond-like demeanour and a startlingly sardonic smile. He is, even as I type, repairing the front gate. This metal and wattle construction is linked to the entry phone and has already been ‘repaired’ once by the jobbing trouble shooter employed by the estate agents. We were impressed with the alacrity with which our request for attention was received, but the final result is that we (or rather Toni) have to correct.
It turns out that the ‘wrongness’ of the professionals’ efforts means that it is difficult to produce a satisfactory result without grinding down two metal plates. So I am told. And I don’t mind being told as long as I don’t have to do!
Things are not quite as frenetic as they have been and we are now satisfied with completing a few domestic tasks rather than, say, producing a complete garden. We are, at last, at the refinements stage rather than establishing. It is, believe me, quite different with entirely different stresses. It is now possible to consider the logistics of having guests calmly without the Munch-like horror with which the prospect was previously greeted!
More pictures have been put up and now the house is something like a gallery and very comforting I find it too. There is the question of the Lost Paintings. I realize that not only is Toni’s favourite Ceri painting not where we thought it to be, but also one of my Young Artists in Habitat silk screen prints is missing. This is not exactly an inconspicuous piece being a large abstract mostly in browns. The artist’s father described his first ideas for his piece as looking like an ‘extended turd’ – needless to say the picture that I bought was a later version and a little more acceptable than that! These (and probably more) are part of the Lost Paintings cache which must exist somewhere.
Their reappearance will, however cause a certain amount of readjustment to the selection of paintings on display at present.
Our more immediate problem is a cat.
It is well known that these pests have a habit of using other people’s gardens as their loos. We have such a cat. It has walked on our outside table and has excreted in Toni’s immaculately laid volcanic rubble boarder. I suppose the cat must have assumed that it had arrived in kitty-litter heaven when it saw square metres of available toilet.
As a dog person I am all in favour of laying poison and mounting armed guard to nail the beast but I have been persuaded that this feline filth has some sort of legal right to life which precludes my very reasonable yet pleasantly Draconian solutions.
To those who aver that cats have souls I can only say that their mercenary souls are of such a quality of selfishness that make Satan himself look innocently generous – and I`ve owned a Labrador.
Anyway I have decided that a water-pistol will be my weapon of choice if I see any quadruped making its way with bathroom eyes onto my property. The blow to a cat’s pride of an expertly aimed jet of water from a child’s cheap toy may, with any luck, prove fatal – even without this happy outcome the deterrent effect should be worth the expenditure.
Meanwhile we have thrown away detritus from the previous occupant without a second thought and the play is becoming a clear (if disturbing) reflection of our joint personalities.
Tomorrow a possible visit to court to see the outcome of a hearing against The Owner and her medieval employment policies. It is too much to hope that she will turn up herself but even a quarter of a chance that she will be there is enough to guarantee my presence. For old time’s sake.
What a nice person I am!
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