Not one, not two, nor even three. On Wednesday we had ten builders on site – I guess my rant at the end of last week had an impact. Count ‘em – ten! Four electricians, a plumber, two plasterers, two labourers and our usual very patient carpenter. And, it’s remarkable how the presence of other trades folks encourages the patient carpenter to get a bit of a move-on.
Friday was supposed to have been the finishing date for the kitchen extension. What was originally going to take “three to four months” is now into its tenth month and it was looking, for a moment, as if they might actually get most of the outstanding things done by then. Alas, at the last moment, the tiler was unavailable to grout and seal the floor tiles so that has been delayed until tomorrow. We had this news after we had shifted everything out of the kitchen to make room for him so the dining room is full to overflowing with stuff and the lounge is in a jumble – we have to pick our way carefully through the freezer, refrigerator, tumble dryer, pine cupboard, etc., in order to make our way upstairs.
Hey ho. Having lived with this mess for ten months I guess we can stand a couple of more days. In spite of our trials and tribulations, we are very pleased with the result and we’re looking forward to getting everything settled once the dust dies down – sometime about March I should think.
Other than that, the big news this week will be the upcoming General Election on Thursday. Sadly, I am expecting the worst possible outcome – a tidy majority for the Conservatives which will enable Boris to inflict the worst possible damage while preserving the ability of the hedge fund operators and Russian oligarchs to squirrel their money away offshore and thus avoid the scrutiny which new EU regulations will bring. We shall vote, of course, but as with every election in which we have participated, our vote means nothing. We live in a solid, Conservative constituency and, as someone in the village said, if they put up a monkey wearing a Conservative rosette as candidate it would win.
Some cruel wit suggested that a monkey would be an improvement on our current MP but that’s just mean. Admittedly, she is not the sharpest knife in the drawer and is a hard-core Brexiteer (you will be surprised to know that her husband runs a hedge fund which is based off shore, something which she failed to declare in the MPs register of interests leading to a reprimand). Once she had the audacity to patronise me in an e-mail exchange we had explaining why MPs were “delegated” to vote as their constituencies did in the EU Referendum, something which has no basis in constitutional law and which is completely contrary to the “advisory” referendum as it was laid out in the Parliamentary Order Paper. In other words, I think the technical term is Bollocks. Now, to be fair, she may or may not have known that she was talking bollocks. If she did know then she was lying, something which seems to come surprisingly easily to politicians the world over. If she really believed in what she was writing she ought to disqualify herself from serving as being too thick. If that were the case, however, we’d have but a handful of MPs left. It is astonishing how so many of these folk suffer from delusions of adequacy.
Lots of love to you all,
Greg