Ramblings during lock down

To add a little levity to the Covid-19 situation because, let’s face it, we all need a smile,  I will now relate some things that amused me, or someone else at my expense, in the past months.

The refuse tip

I have been decluttering. I expect many of you have done the same and afterwards, looking at the mountains of filled boxes, wished you had waited until the tip was open before starting.

I began in our family room. It was the repository of items unwanted elsewhere in the house, some too good to throw away but never sold or donated, and others simply dumped ‘pending disposal’, such as a disgusting single mattress (more of this later) and bags of old clothing.

Along the walls in our family room are six Billy the Bookcase  shelves, largely populated by pulp fiction but also containing a whole set of Encyclopaedia Britanica, circa 1960, and a number of glossy tomes that Whizz received when he failed to cancel their automatic dispatch by the Folio Society, about twenty years ago.

Work in progerss. and one more empty shelf on the opposite wall.

We love books, and many of those on our shelves hold happy memories: Presents from grandparents and much loved childhood reads…

Beloved reads

but most books we couldn’t bear to dispose of simply because they were books. Now, however, with the convenience of the ebook, these cheap paper versions have lost value in our hearts. Even Whizz agreed that the space they occupied was more precious than the worn copies of Harold Robins and PD James, so I began to box them up.

Meanwhile, in the kitchen, a series of appliances chose this period to die. As I write, we have a diminished bank balance and a brand new tumble drier, dish washer and microwave.  The defunct versions of the two former (in both senses of the word) appliances were taken away by the obliging service engineer, but the microwave oven awaited disposal outside our back door along with other objects I don’t even remember. All I know is that the pathway was beginning to look like Steptoes’ yard.

Leaving a pile of boxes in the family room, I moved on to the garage. Our garage is not your usual single width, single storey job but a domineering structure, one and a half floors high, that presents an unattractive view through our new, double glazed, patio doors.

Note the washing line, evidence that the tumble drier gave up the ghost last week, and the Red Kite, gliding above to provide ornamentation.

The trouble with a big house, and a garage that many could live in, is that you have room to simply dump things that are too much trouble to dispose of, or that might come in handy one day. Hence, our garage is home to reels of cable of differing sizes, pots of unwanted paint, specialist cleaning products, ancient weedkiller, a very dangerous circular saw on a metal stand and, pertinent to this story, a huge sheet of polystyrene, a full arms’ width square and 2 – 3 inches deep, purchased to insulate our porch roof and subsequently deemed unnecessary.

A visit to the tip was imperative, so, back in the family room, Mavis, Whizz and I wrestled with the mattress and succeeded in taping it into a giant roll. This provided the item with more giggling and  grunting than it had experienced during its useful life. We hefted it into the car, where it occupied a good deal of the available space, but not too much to prevent the enormous insulating sheet from the garage fitting on top and the microwave and other things being tucked around it. Not the books. They were destined for an unsuspecting charity shop.

Mavis and I set off in Whizz’s car, which is larger than mine (and much tidier, but that’s irrelevant). I tried not to be concerned that  the council website advised that only one person was allowed out of the car at the tip. But I had already wrapped my arms around the mattress and it was quite liftable, and the polystyrene? Well, how hard could that be to carry?

There was no queue at the tip. We had chosen our timing well. Two men were stationed at the entrance: one seated at a table issuing guidance to the other who greeted arrivals through their open car windows, peered suspiciously into the back to make sure there were no explosives or illegal immigrants, and yelled a description of what he saw to the guy at the table. This seated fellow then told him the number of the skip in which  the items should be deposited and he (standing man) conveyed this information, which we could clearly hear already, to us. In our case, the port of call was skip number 12, one of the last in a row of huge skips, labelled with their intended contents.

I was delighted to find a space for the car near to skip number twelve, and under the watchful eye of another hi-viz man, reversed the unfamilliar car towards a plastic barrier before coming to rest two inches from it. I lifted the tailgate of the car, squeeked out the polystyrene and with it held in front of me in both arms, walked sideways to permit a view of my destination, skip number 12.

I reached it, gripping the insulating sheet to keep it steady in the breeze, and looked round the edge to gauge my aim.

Curtains. I mean, the whole thing was curtained off – closed.

Helpful Hi-viz shouted, ‘You need to put that in number 2’

What?!!

By this time the wind had really got up and when I turned around to berate him and his kind (in a  quite restrained manner due to me having Buddhahood ‘n’all), the sheet caught the wind and I staggered about like a drunkard trying to tame it. This completely distracted me from my tirade.

With dismay, it dawned on me that the entire contents of the car, apart from the microwave, must be carted to skip two. I couldn’t drive back to it as the system was one-way. The only option was to walk. It doesn’t sound far, but actually, it is quite a long way when you are fighting with large piece of material acting like a wingsuit, or lovingly embracing a massive mattress.

Wingsuit. This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license. Richard Schneider from Los Angeles

Meanwhile Mavis watching from the comfort of the passenger seat, was helpless to come to my rescue.

Finally, with a delightfully empty car and the happy anticipation of alcoholic beverage as reward for my energetic and buffetted experience, I drove us home.

Gin and tonic in hand, I made a call Horace to catch up with her news. I related my experience at the tip, and in return she admitted to one of her own.

Did you know that  runny paint is not allowed in landfill? I didn’t, but now, unfortunately, given the number of half used tins still requiring disposal, I do. Horace and Kerching however knew this full well when they buried their tins deep in a plastic bag  under other junk, to sneak into a skip.

But sins have a tendence to find you out and as Horace swung this bag into the landfill container, its bottom caught on the edge and the bag burst open causing tins of paint to clatter to the ground and one to burst open, showering her with bright orange paint.

Her guilty  eyes met Kerching’s and the two of them fled without looking back. Fortunately, their location remains concealed from all but closest family, unless  a reward is offered for information leading to their arrest.

Teaching

I am a T.A, specialising in Speech and Language. The lockdown forced me home, and fear caused by my age and vulnerable status, kept me there. Thanks to the compassion of the school, I have been working remotely, marking maths and, to pass the time and hopefully add value, filming a  Creative Writing lesson or three, making quizzes with a human face – mine, and recording audio versions of the trickier texts the children are faced with in their home schooling.

I learned a lot about recording and editing video during the above mentioned Writing lesson and quickly realised I needed a script and an autocue. I chose teleprompter Premium, and set it up on my phone.  It cleverly allows the script to roll at your chosen speed and font size and sits on the screen beside the camera so that your eye looks almost at the audience.

I had a small barrier behind me to block out the room, which contained all the above mentioned junk, and began recording the first lesson. After a few abortive takes, I reached the end of my performance with barely a hesitation, and loaded the video into my editing tool Hitfilm Express, on the computer.

It was then I realised the teleprompter on my phone screen concealed a view of the disgusting mattress, propped at the end of the double bed. Duh!

One last bit. Evidence of what lies ahead for me and mine

I have made no secret of the fact that I am tipping over the hill. Not completely inept, but conscious of an inevitable deterioration in my faculties.  Up to now, I have reported on the consequences of a decline in my eye sight and memory , but I always knew, given the evidence of my grandfather and mother, that I would end up hard of hearing.

Cn you hear me now?

Lately, and it may be partly due to an increased use of earbuds during Zoom calls and lesson production, I have noticed that people have started to mumble.

Let me also remind you that Whizz and I, on our walks with the dog or in the kitchen while I prepare dinner, have many interesting debates about the state of the world. It was in the kitchen that we were discussing world recession. I was arguing (or fishing for more information) that if the whole world is in recession, why does it matter? We are all starting from the same place; our economies have all dropped, but in relation to each other our positions are the same. I still don’t understand the answer but something Whizz said made me prick up my ears.

‘China,’ he said, ‘Is a combination of Billy Connolly and a police state.’

I wracked my brain, seeking a link between these two seemingly unconnected entities. I had watched a program about Mr Connolly travelling in Iceland  and I knew he was from Scotland, but could think of nothing to connect him with China.’

‘What do you mean?’ I asked at last.

Whizz explained that because of the size of its economy…

Aha.

Not Billy Connelly but BIG ECONOMY.

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