Even though we are at the fag-end of the year, something happened today that will be the defining feature for me, and possibly for a few others too.
My ‘creative space’ is not my brain, it is a ‘squalid corner’ of the third floor where my desk (cluttered) is hemmed in on one side by a sawn-off storage unit, a plastic segmented bookcase and a queeny printer; on the other by a series of CD box vaults, the back of an IKEA bookcase and an Anglepoise (knock-off not real) lamp; behind three low-rise bookshelves, a bewilderingly large number of plastic mini-shelved units and a lopsided arrangement of Things Too Large to Put Away Properly; in front is a low wall and the stair well. And this altogether conducive-to-creation ensemble is finished by a high-backed office chair that is literally falling to bits, with the faux leather coming away in specks.
Enough, I said to myself, I said, is enough! A new chair is necessary and, furthermore, it will be something that can sweep up my Christmas and Name Day offerings into one coherent present. The ‘Name Day’ thing is important in this part of the world and you ignore the recognition-through-presents at your own risk, it therefore follows (as the night the day) that reciprocation can work together for good. As my Name Day is actually Boxing Day a seasonal personal present objective makes sense, so I thought a new chair would concentrate minds and contributions.
Having tried a selection of chairs in all the main superstore outlets in the vicinity and found all of them lacking, Toni actually discovered a dedicated office furniture outlet with ‘sale’ prices in Cornella, a place a few towns along one of our motorways and a place passed through by me on my daily journey to the School on the Hill.
Today was the day we visited the place. I had (in mind and written in my notebook) a list of desirable attributes of the New Chair. It had to have i) a base of five wheeled feet ii) a high back iii) gas suspension iv) be ergonomic v) be made of leather vi) have no arms or have removable arms vii) look ‘the business’. I did have a vague sort of idea of what sort of cost it might be, but I decided to be adventurous.
The end result of much sitting and trying this and then trying that, was that the ergonomic trumped the leather. The seat that I have decided on, and indeed ordered for delivery in January looks a bit more medical than office-like, but it is comfortable and virtually everything that can, adjusts.
And the cost.
Toni was and still is shell-shockedly stunned that any sentient life-form could even contemplate paying so much for what is, after all, at the end of the day, an office chair. Well, I have. Or at least I have paid a deposit. And even the 20% deposit was large. So, you can imagine that the whole thing (the other 80%) is, well, monstrous.
In my defence, I would opine that my complete lack of smoking is a major factor in allowing sums of money which would have gone up in smoke and been ingested in tar to be used for something that is much more (much more) useful and necessary. But is an awfully large sum of money. For a chair.
And, as its main material is a sort of mesh (to allow for air flow and healthiness) you don’t even get plush, buttoned leather for your money – in spite of the fact that the money you have paid could easily have allowed wheels to have been fitted to a handmade ottoman and still have had money left over.
And I don’t care. I have got (or at least will have) what I wanted. And it is something that will be used. And used constantly. And, and I think I am trying to persuade myself here rather than any reader. And so, I will stop. But I (and that is the important pronoun) I, think that it is money well spent. And I sincerely trust that I will be saying that in twenty years’ time (when I am still using the bloody thing) and then dividing the price I paid in 2020 by the number of years I have been using it and saying to myself, “It’s a bargain!” and “My back has never felt better!” and so on.
I am further encouraged by the fact that the person selling me thing was actually using one of them as her own office chair. And that has to be good. Doesn’t it? Yes?
What the AOTC (Advent of the Chair) will necessitate is Doing Something to the chaos of the third floor. Such a splendid beast must have space in which to dominate the surroundings. The detritus behind me at the moment must go. Where? I know not, but somewhere not behind me. The Chair will be brought unto me by the lackeys of the firm and they will Construct The Chair, presumably by bringing up the pieces to the third floor. There is no room whatsoever to do any construction so, what years of nagging by Toni have failed to do, the AOTC will force me to do: create space where no space exists.
My last and latest attempt to Clear Up the third floor comprised checking through long unopened files and junking and shredding irrelevant papers. This created gratifying large bags of rubbish, but not any appreciable space as I had been excavating rather than bulldozing. Something much more radical is called for, and to be frank, I am not sure that I can muster up enough iconoclastic zeal to do the necessary. Toni has, bless him, offered to do the ‘tidying up’ for me, but I know that I would have to ‘dispose’ of him after the event when I realized what priceless pieces of ephemera he might have got rid of!
So, the next few weeks are going to demand a positively Dominican level of material rejection from me if I am to make any impression on the cluttered chaos. Wish me luck or wish me the equanimity to see the AOTC as setting a diamond in the dross of attic confusion!
And yes, I am well aware that I have not actually told you the price of the thing. And yes, I have no intention whatsoever of so doing. I may be happy (if that is the word that I am looking for) with what I have done, but I think that I can only convince others by denying them specific totals. Better to speculate with lurid imagination rather than condemn in black and white! And you will have noticed that I chose a generic chair for illustration rather than something more identifiable.
And talking of the unjustifiable, Johnson is trying to have his cake and eat it: he fulfils his promise to allow us to celebrate Christmas but wants us not to do it because it will fuel the increase in Covid infection. So, what this appalling man is actually doing is putting the onus on the British People. He lacks the courage to admit that he was wrong to promise a variant on the “it will be all over by Christmas” (that always works out well!) and instead of imposing legally enforceable restrictions he is leaving it all up to us. He will then, of course, wash his hands and say that it was made clear by the government that there were risks involved and people were warned, but people will be people and therefore you have only yourselves to blame! He truly is repellent.
Here in Catalonia and in Spain things do not appear to be much better. Our prime minister has had to self-isolate because of his proximity to the French president and we all know that all hell is going to break out after the Christmas period.
We have gone through a year when normal has been taken out roughed up, lightly killed, spat at, insulted, trampled on and general bad mouthed. I think we know that we are in the final stretch, and I further think that we know that the final stretch is not going to be measured in weeks but rather in months. And probably quite a few months. I am telling myself that I will be lucky, very lucky, if I am vaccinated by April. And since I tick a few of the ‘at risk’ boxes, I think it is going to be the end of the summer or the middle of the autumn until a majority of the country is close to having had the jab.
Given those expectations, Christmas is neither here nor there, it is just an odd date in the unrelenting sequences that we have been subject to during this pandemic.
But my chair will be here in January. Something concrete to look forward to.
