“As the builders say, the larger stones do not lie well without the lesser.”
Plato
As an avid watcher of Grand Designs, I range weekly from admiration to bewilderment as people flirt with bankruptcy and mental breakdown.
I am utterly useless with a tool in hand. From once mixing pure cement to the dismay of my builder, to bashing large holes with gusto unfortunately through the wrong wall, coming from a family of engineers and ship builders, the gene pool went wrong back in 1963.
Equally, I have never had a desire to live in squalor for weeks on end just to get a shiny new kitchen; so you might wonder why I decided it was time for a renovation project?
The old place passed the century mark recently, so a modest face-lift seemed due. Luckily I know a variety of skilled craftsmen – no girls and non-binary sadly – so engaged their skills.
My confidence was such, I left for a week’s holiday fully expecting, as only an idiot would, the removal of various interior walls to be a doddle. On my return, the only thing left was a giant pile of bricks; the skip man had been on holiday too.
No problem I announced to my builder. We were talking again after his midweek progress report of “little issue…bed now in kitchen!” It takes a while to get their sense of humour.
“I’ll show you how to fill a skip” he said. In my younger days I may have misinterpreted this as “You are a moron.” But I got where he was coming from and, besides, his apprentice was due on site.
Saturday came and, confident this would be easy stuff – for I know nothing – I had enjoyed a few extra beers at The Scruffy. Unfortunately, the apprentice was a no-show preferring a far more livelier Friday night.
I looked long and hard at the giant pile, closed my eyes and opened them again, hoping against hope that they were gone.
They were…after five hours of cramming them into every available space in the big rusty skip. “You’ve packed that tighter than a pair of Speedos!” quipped my new mentor.
Left to do the skilled bit, he sang away to his heart’s content, an eighties mix that left me in no doubt that if I was no brickie, he was not making X-Factor.
By this point, after a builder’s lunch of fish and chips supplemented by a salt mountain, my hands had begun to resist closing. Manfully, I ploughed on with thirty breeze blocks to unload.
It was then that my self-preservation process – denial – crumbled like rubble. I had been ignoring the numerous bags marked “Heavy Duty” filled to the brim, lining the driveway, the work of the missing apprentice. By now I hoped he was puking his guts up.
It felt like I was hauling dead bodies up and over, into the skip; I swear I almost cried when the last one tumbled in, tempted into a little jig. Had the apprentice turned up at this point I would have crammed him in too. The singing trowel came to inspect.
“You’ve saved some brass today” he said “I’d budgeted for two skips and an apprentice.” I knew the value of a skip – which was likely to be traded for many physio sessions – but as for the apprentice, I kept my counsel.
Next week I am speaking to primary school kids about the world of work. It’s a progressive initiative designed to offer kids an insight, especially those whose parents may never have worked at all – such is life.
We are a nation crying out for real skills. As useless as I am, learning a trade is surely a route to a good living. Those who do will be in high demand for there will be an ever increasing supply of the clueless i.e me.
More Building
Great to see an update of the work going on to restore the old Odeon.
Predictably, Bradford Council had to crawl from the rubble seeking glory here after decades of successive regimes doing their best to level it.
Comical Alex appeared on Look North, Bob the Builder in his new yellow hard hat, bigging up the Council; it was a short piece. Small wonder Bradford remains in the shadows.
And Finally
Want to ruin your weekend…watch this. Need more info about your Rt Hon Scumbag – see here.
Can we think any worse of these parasites?
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