A Pillock's Castle

So fifteen years ago bugger lugs buggered off, and out of the kindness of his heart he let me have the house.  With most of the windows falling out and half the internal doors off where he’d never got round to fixing them back on after stripping them, and a boiler that huffed and puffed and threatened to blow the house up.  And I was proud, you see, and I’d bloody show him, yes I would.  Me and the kids would show him.  I’d take that mortgage on single handed and I’d show him.

I remortgaged, it being the cheapest way to borrow money for the necessary repairs, and I went back to work full time to pay for it.  And no-one was going to say my kids suffered through being in a single parent family, no they weren’t, so I borrowed more money and used credit cards to take them on holiday and buy them new clothes, not second hand, and I accepted less than CSA minimum from him because I wasn’t going to ask for a penny that wasn’t freely given, not me.

I’m a pillock.

And after I’d done the windows and the doors and the boiler, I sort of thought, well, the house isn’t falling down.  I’ll have a good go at it one day.

I’m sixty now.  The windows, doors and boiler are fine (except that a couple of years ago I had to replace the boiler again and I’m still paying for it) but the guttering’s falling off, the eighty foot garden looks like Sleeping Beauty’s forest, the ballcock thingy in the cold water tank sticks and then we get a periodic drip through the bathroom ceiling, and the Delft shelf in the hall fell on my head last week (there’s never been any Delft or anything else on it).

My water stopcock is still the old one on the pavement outside the property, never did get round to having one put inside.  In order to mend the ballcock thingy I have to turn the water off.  After a week of searching under the Sleeping Beauty hedge my son found the little cover and opened it up.  An hour of soil and debris scraping later we still haven’t found the tap. The internet tells me they can be up to two foot six inches down and I should call the water company in case drug addicts have left needles in the cavity.  If any drug addict has the determination to get under my hedge on a regular basis, I want to know what he or she is on.

And did I mention that the plumber who came initially and told us we needed to turn the water off, also looked round at my chaotic and cluttered home and said he wasn’t sure he could work in these conditions?

Obviously never seen a Children’s Services mucky house file.

Last week I took the decision to retire from my job in social services in five months time, just after my sixty-first birthday, although I won’t get my state pension for another five years and my mortgage runs till I’m seventy (told you I’m a pillock).  My workplace pension is far from glorious, and I have no idea what I shall do or how I’ll pay for the mortgage or anything else.  My daughter isn’t speaking to me at the moment as a result.  She says I’m selfish and irresponsible and she feels very resentful.

Yes.  The kids. He’s twenty-six and she’s twenty.  We got shot of him for a few years while he went to drama school and acted his way round the country with various theatre companies.  Now he’s decided he wants to be a singer songwriter.  And come home to nurse the muse and live rent free.  He’s a good guitarist and a decent singer and he gets lots of local gigs and busks, but…  Meanwhile the daughter has decided to defer uni for a few years while she works.  Brilliant idea.  The first three jobs didn’t work out, but now she’s happily housekeeping in a ‘pub with rooms’ which, while not zero hours exactly, is dependent on business and pays minimum wage.  After a dodgy year with her health, she’s saving up to go on holiday with friends, and because I feel she really could do with the holiday, I’m letting her off board and lodging for now.

Like I said, I’m a pillock.

And there’s two cats to feed, flea, worm and periodically inject.

I have to retire or I’ll end up in the local psychiatric hospital.  Or the angina will turn into something worse and the kids will be taking over the house problems permanently.  At the moment I don’t know whether to laugh or cry, or both at once.  I’m always broke anyway, have pawned and eventually sold anything worth doing either with, and still face each month never knowing how I shall get to the end of it and not be offering the bailiffs a cup of tea. 

Meanwhile bugger lugs and partner (whose house he moved into after her ex-husband paid off her mortgage for her) retired two years ago and farts about doing a few hours at the local library, partaking of their village’s am drams and going on three holidays a year.  Jesus, Mary and Joseph, I’m a pillock.

Yes, I could sell the house, if anyone would buy it in its present condition (yes, they would – you could sell a kennel with a sitting tenant down our street, because of the location).  And buy myself a little one bedroom flat with no garden and an internal stopcock.  But lazy little toe rags though the kids might be, I’m still their mother and when they have to go home, there still has to be somewhere obliged to take them in.

So.  Next five months.  I have to find a way of earning a living without going to work.  I have to pay off existing debts and not incur new ones.  I have to find a way of restoring my house to its 1930s semi-detached glory with no skills to do it myself and no money to pay anyone else to do it. 

Yeah.  I’m a pillock.