Gang

They all went off to work this morning.

When I say ‘all’, I mean Mark, Oliver and half of the Peppers, or perhaps that should be a third if you count Pepper, which left me and the dogs, and the rest of the Peppers to amble around the Park by ourselves.

It was all very peculiar, getting Oliver ready for a day’s hard labour.

I felt like DH Lawrence’s mother, anxiously getting her son ready for his first day down t’ pit. Of course I know that Lawrence did not actually go down the pit, merely went on and drearily on about it later when I was doing my O Levels, but the image is a good one and sums up my sentiments splendidly. He has become tall and spindly and seems to have too many knees.

Oliver, not DH Lawrence.

I made him sausage sandwiches just like Mark’s to take for breakfast, although the ones for his lunch were chocolate spread, not cheese and ham and olives, which is Mark’s usual fare. This was in deference to his extreme youth and still-boyish tastes. He is not yet at the stage of being given bread and strong tea and half an onion in a tin box and calling it Snap.

They loaded the car to bursting with tools, and tied some more on the top, and chugged cheerily away, being about as unlikely a gang of builders as you could envisage, and exactly what you might expect if you are trying to build a house on a vanishingly small budget. It is very courageous of Number One Son-In-Law, who is the gangmaster of the operation.

When we had emptied the dogs I came home to the happy discovery that Mark had taken almost all of his irritating clutter with him. This does not bode well for the state of his taxi when he comes to want it for its alternative purpose of transporting drunk people home, perhaps they will not mind squeezing in next to some saw horses and a couple of ladders.

I took the opportunity to do some tidying up.

I tidied the yard up.

Mostly it was just full of sawdust and stone-cutting dust, but there were bits of old sandpaper and used rags and buckets which had filled up with rainwater. I threw all of this stuff away, except the buckets, obviously.

I did not throw away any of the plumbing fittings or guttering clips or short bits of potentially useful drainpipe, but he will think that I have, because I have put it all in one tidy box, and he will not know where any of it is. No longer will he be able to think: Oh yes, I left that on top of the compost heap. He will have to go and look for it in the box with all of the others.

I am fond of Mark, but he is possibly the untidiest person I have ever met.

After the yard I moved into his shed.

This was difficult, because it was so full of clutter that I could not get inside it.

It was full of useful bits of wood that he is saving, and useful bits of steel that he is saving, and useless wood shavings and bits of old sandpaper, and rusty screws and rags.

I stacked the wood in a tidy stack at one end and the steel in a tidy stack at the other end, and swept up the wood shavings, sandpaper and rags.

I put all of his bits of windmill together, and all of his bits of solar panel together, and I took his precious treasured half-bag of plaster out of the enormous collapsing cardboard box and wrapped it in a plastic bag. You cannot buy plaster any more and when you have got some you must keep it in a safe place away from other builders. We have got just enough to do the new living room wall, and it irked me to see it spilling out of the tear in the box where somebody had dropped a car exhaust on the top of it.

In the end everything was neat again and there was a big clear space on top of his work bench where he will be able to tiddle about with useful things again, without everything falling off on to the floor.

In fact when he got home he was very pleased to discover that his mess was no more, although he did not think about it for very long. They were all exhausted and filthy, and Oliver had fallen asleep in the car on the way home.

We are having an early night. Oliver had a very early night, having showered, eaten a huge dinner and collapsed into bed at nine o’ clock. It turns out that a full-time grown up working day has come as a bit of a shock to his public-school system. All the same, Mark said that he did very well, and has laboured away all day without complaint.

We are off to bed as well.

I have attached a picture of an empty yard. I am very pleased with it.