Avatar Where has Kev been?

You know the deal, I disappear for a while, then I come back full of beans then disappear again. Its a story as old as time. Well this time you may be forgive for thinking that I’d just been too busy doing a masters degree or looking after kids or some other made up nonsense, well no. Not this time.

For the last 5 and a bit months I have in fact been trapped down the character hatch. I know, I know, you’ve both told me to leave it shut, but sometimes the curiosity gets too much for me.

Now those of you with a keen memory may remember the last time I went down there, got stuck and was abandoned by Ian who was too busy demanding ham I had no means to provide. You’d think I’d have learned my lesson, but no. I opened the hatch (with a pack of ham in my bag just in case) and sank down into the Old Beans.

I spent a few hours wandering through the ornamental gardens, had a picnic by the Zorse monument and whiled away another hour or two doing a sketch of the bell tower in charcoal. The tower’s looking in quite bad shape these days, and you can just make out the corpse of a recently deceased zorse leaning against a wall.

Anyhow, I was just about to come back home when I heard that sound… you know the one… The sound of moody guitars, breaking glass and arty poetry that could only mean… Pete Doherty. He spotted me immediately, he had the mad faraway glint in his eye of a man who’d been forced to exclusively eat zorse meat for 13 years, and he was pissed. In both senses. I think he’d worked out how to distill zorse piss into a kind of hooch. Anyway after chasing me round the great hall, the gardens, across the old Loinsford campus and back to the clock tower he eventually caught me and pressganged me into forming a new band with him and doing a tour of the forbidden lands, (the Cockall Archives, the Saint Kingdom and the Savannah of in-jokes).

The band was just us two, and all I could play was the recorder and the demo button on the keyboard. It was awful. Pete wrote some witty satirical lyrics about Ian’s love of ham and the fall of Chris Industries, and off we went. We played 700 gigs, mostly to empty rooms. Occasionally the zorses would come by, and then quickly leave, but mostly to empty rooms.

For whatever reason, when we returned, Doherty was sated. His anger subsided, the punching stopped and he just wandered off into the mist surrounding in the Loosh Vestibule. I was free. I made my escape and resealed the hatch. I’ve learned my lesson (for now), and I’m back. Hopefully.

Avatar Fivewide

As a grown up who doesn’t have any children, I am at liberty to while away my days as I see fit, perhaps enjoying a round of croquet on the lawn now and then, or devoting an entire day to perfecting my butter caramel technique.

This means I am free to buy Lego if I want, and build it all on my own, without any meddlesome children to spoil the experience. Lego is wasted on children anyway. They don’t get it. It’s a sophisticated product for adults like you and I, and long may it remain so.

Not so long ago I treated myself to a new set, thanks in part to a Lego gift card I was given for my birthday. (This is further evidence, as though it were needed, that everyone agrees with me about Lego being for grown ups.) The new set is excellent, for the most part, but in one of its bags I found something that made my blood run cold.

We have long spoken with disdain about the horror of the sixwide Lego car.

Now behold the fivewide brick.

Avatar Mind your step

There’s a restaurant near us that we sometimes go to, which is in an old building. You’ve been in places like this before: it was an ancient thing to begin with, all wooden beams and low ceilings and big oak beams everywhere, but then it’s been extended by knocking through into bits of other buildings and there’s more bits taking it through the back into what used to be an outhouse of some kind. Now it’s a rambling maze on the inside, full of little rooms and cosy nooks. It’s nice.

Anyway, there’s one table tucked away in a little space of its own, surrounded by oak beam walls and artfully exposed ancient masonry, and whenever people go to sit there, they find themselves having to go up two steps and then go back down one step again. It’s like a little barrier on the way in that is a positive invitation to trip up and go headlong into a table full of unsuspecting diners. The floor level on both sides is barely any different, so it’s just in the way.

Anyway, I’ve noticed this several times and always thought it was odd. Turns out they must get asked about it a lot, so they’ve put a sign on the step to explain why there is a step in this eminently stupid place.

Avatar Damp saga

You’ve heard of tap saga. Now prepare yourself for… Damp Saga. The story of one man’s quest to conquer the Forces of Dampness that threaten to overthrow his way of life, turning everything slightly moist and, upon close inspection, slightly mouldy.

I am currently battling dampness on four war-torn fronts.

From the north, the paint on the bathroom windowframe and windowsill has worn away to a point where wood is visible. This is because, in their infinite wisdom, previous owners of the house positioned the bath under the window, so when you have a shower you spray the whole window area with water.

From above, the new loft insulation I fitted last year is keeping the house warm, but it’s also keeping the loft damp, with condensation forming to such a degree that in very cold weather it effectively rains in there. Everything we store in the loft is now under tarpaulins, except for the things we didn’t cover in time, which are ruined. I have fitted new vents to the roof to get some fresh air through it and eliminate this unwelcome indoor microclimate.

From below, the very high water table in this area (the whole housing estate might be built in what is technically a lake) means that in anything less than drought conditions the lawn is often under an inch of water. My neighbour has an elaborate plan to resolve this by digging big holes, creating new soakaway pits and laying pipes, though I can’t help feeling that his plan will only succeed if they are big enough to absorb all the rain in this area of Hampshire.

And from the west, water running downhill through a series of back gardens is now making its way through the wall of the garage, where it turns out the woodwork starts below ground level. This means that, now the monsoon season has arrived in the loft, we have nowhere to store anything that we wish to keep dry. A big damp patch is creeping across the floor and fixing it is going to involve removing a whole line of garden fence and digging up part of next door’s garden. I have made a half baked effort to deal with the symptoms using wood preserver and cutting holes in the garage wall to allow air in. I do not feel hopeful about this.

Unlike #tapsaga, there is no satisfying ending to this where, after a hundred frustrating steps, everything works out. This saga is just an ongoing list of damp situations. Thankfully the inside of my car is still dry, most of the time, so I have decided to live there instead. Please send towels and talcum powder.

Avatar Five Novembers ago

We bought our house from people who thought they’d be living there forever. They didn’t, because we sent them away so that we could have it all for ourselves. I regret nothing.

Anyway, last week we pulled all the wallpaper off the walls in what had been their baby room, and found a charming memento painted behind it that had presumably been intended to last for many years.

It lasted five years and we’ve painted over it. But here it is, a message from five Novembers ago, just to prove it once existed.

Avatar Kitchen guide

At the risk of inducing an episode of PTSD in Kev, I’d like to give you a quick rundown of where we are with the kitchen, one week in.

For a week now the living room has included a fridge, a sofa standing on end, a drinks cabinet, a table, a microwave, a kettle and a toaster. All our meals have either been boiled, toasted or microwaved. The kitchen itself has bare walls, a bare concrete floor (now perfectly level), wires sticking out of holes and pipes that go nowhere. The ceiling has one coat of white paint. As I type this a very tall Polish man is whistling and making loud banging noises and there are a range of half-built cabinets scattered around the room. The rest of the house does not bear thinking about.

For your convenience, I have compiled this list of things you might need and where you will find them.

ThingWhere you will find it
Extra large martini/cocktail glassesUnder the radiator in the spare room.
Electric chopper/blender thingElectrical bit is in a cardboard box underneath two other boxes in the spare room. Blade is in a bag with sharp things that you should avoid putting your hands in. Lid is AWOL.
CandlesIn a plastic bag underneath the Uno cards in the fold-down part of the drinks cabinet.
Dining tableIn pieces, under a blanket in the spare room, behind the chairs.
Dining room light fittingGlass shades are under a collection of tea towels on top of the chest of drawers in the bedroom. Wires and metal bits and bulbs are casually scattered on top of boxes in the spare room.
Bag of quinces from the bit of our quince tree that hangs over the neighbours’ fence, brought round by the neighboursUnder the Flash Speedmop refills and a recipe book, on the shelf in the utility room next to the recycling.
Jar of ground cinnamonOne is in the bag of herbs, spices, condiments and oils in the spare room. Another one is in the bag of pasta, rice and tins. Another one is in the bag of snacks and biscuits.
Cat bowl, including remnants of cat’s previous mealNext to the wifi router in the hall, behind several pairs of shoes and some old post.
Skirting boards from the dining roomIn the garage, balanced on top of two old pallets and the saddle of a bicycle.
SultanasIn a drawer in the living room next to the Ryvita and a bottle of maple syrup.

Avatar The kitchen of the future

We’re getting a new kitchen. This is an exciting time for us, and also for everyone we know, so please rest assured that we will be sharing stories and pictures of this thrilling adventure at every opportunity.

Having decided to buy our kitchen from one of the big kitchening retailers, we had the room measured up and then attended a design appointment where all the possibilities for filling a space with plywood cupboard units were explored in full. We compared paint samples, touched various worktop textures and considered the merits of many differnet taps. Finally, when our choices had been entered into the supercomputer, we held hands and watched as our brand new kitchen was rendered in Hollywood-style 3D graphics before our very eyes. The kitchenologist even printed out a picture of it so we could take it home and gaze on it in our own time.

Our present kitchen, as you may recall, has pale yellow doors and a wooden worktop, arranged in a U-shape around the walls and sticking out on a peninsula. Our new kitchen, which is going to be totally different and better in every regard, will have creamy off-white doors and a natural stone-coloured quartz worktop, arranged in a U-shape around the walls and sticking out on a peninsula.

While the new kitchen will be far better built than the old one, incorporating improvements such as the upper cupboards not leaning precariously off the walls and the worktops not soaking up colourful patches of everything we’ve ever placed on them, the clever 3D render is not that detailed.

When we got home with our print-out, we excitedly stood in the dining room and held it up at the appropriate angle in front of the old kitchen. It appeared for all the world to be a picture of our existing kitchen.

We have put the picture away.

Avatar More culture in the workplace

In May last year, you might remember that I brought a little classical beauty into the lives of my work colleagues when I anonymously gifted the Mona Lisa to the men’s toilets on the third floor.

I was under no illusion that this artwork would be permanently displayed, and so it was little surprise that, after ten or eleven months, it vanished without warning, leaving an empty frame to greet toilet-goers once more. To be honest, I was pleased it lasted as long as it did.

My quest to bring culture to the workplace has not ended there, though. No, it continues, with renewed vigour. Since the Mona Lisa was taken down I’ve chosen to assume that the Toilet Overlords at work aren’t keen on renaissance realism, so my latest contribution is something more abstract.

For gentlemen on their way to their most personal ablutions, I now proudly present Piet Mondrian’s Composition London 1940-42.