A Pillock's Castle (2)

I’m in love.  I’m in love with my lovely plumber – not the one who said my house wasn’t fit to work in, the one who hefted herself up into my loft, said ‘That’s a bit of an arse, love,’ and will come back on Monday night to fix my leaky tanks.  Yes, apparently there are two tanks, and both ballcocks are buggered.  She didn’t make me feel a pillock.  She made me feel good for not only having a light in my loft, but having the switch at a place you could reach on the way up.  She didn’t even laugh at me for not knowing how to extend my extendable ladder.  I love you, Ms Plumber.

I’m also in love, though not quite so deeply, with the chap from the water company who came to excavate my external stopcock.  He didn’t make me feel a pillock either.  He said ‘At least you know where it is, love.’  Apparently there are people who summon the water company and airily demand ‘Find my external stopcock.  It’s somewhere in the grounds.’  Not only that, he said he thought it was a bloody silly place to put a stopcock and he’s Putting In An Order to have it moved so it’s more accessible.  All free.  Free.

I’m not the most inept person alive.  I have eptitude.

And hopefully, on Monday, the whole cock and balls story can be laid to rest.

It’s been a weird week at Pillock’s Castle.  I had the week off work, joy and hallelujah, but the problem with having the week off is that you poke your tiny little bud head above the dirt, start to bloom and unfurl your petals towards the sun, only to feel the deadly hand of frost come Sunday evening.  I did start work on the five month plan, to ensure I am able to retire in the autumn.  I made a list of Things I Can Do That Might Be Put Towards Earning  A Living.  It didn’t take long.  I went to the library and studied the Writers and Artist’s Year Book, disappointed that there is no section detailing Publishers/Magazines/Newspapers Aching To Give Enthusiastic And Totally Inexperienced Writers A Chance.  I bought a copy of Writing Magazine.  I went on the internet and found out how I could get a stall in the local market, should I have any ideas at all about what to put on it.  A friend who is a brilliant cook and is thinking of starting a food blog said I should try a blog, focusing on one of those Things I Can Do.  I went on the internet and looked up how to start a blog.  My head hurt.  I took my mother out to lunch on Wednesday and, in between her dire predictions of what will happen when we have a Labour government beholden to the SNP (she’s got nothing against Labour, it’s the Scots she doesn’t like), she suggested I ring Bugger Lugs, my ex, and demand half his pension.  When I pointed out that, after fifteen years, this was likely to be a waste of a phone call, as indeed it would have been fifteen years ago, she started Remembering Your Dad who it must be said left her well provided for.  I loved my dad.  He was witty, creative, loyal, generous and bloody funny when pissed.  He was also argumentative, dogmatic, blisteringly sarcastic to anyone he didn’t approve of, and by the end of his life a cantankerous old git who sometimes reduced his carers to tears.  In other words, a fully rounded human being.  My mother left him three times during their long marriage, but that was then, and now my dad sits with the angels, a model to all men, and particularly to Bugger Lugs, who isn’t in the least cantankerous or argumentative, but who committed the unforgivable sin of finding another woman more appealing than my mother’s daughter.  No way back from that one.

Pillock’s Castle was all set for a long night after the polls closed on Thursday.  The night’s viewing was all planned:  C4 for the run up, with The Last Leg and Gogglebox, and then back to the Beeb and Dimbleby’s Last Stand for the serious stuff.  Nibbles laid out, corkscrew and coffee to hand.  C4 was a bit of a disappointment – The Last Leg and Gogglebox were fine, but I’m not a great David Mitchell fan and Paxman’s attempts to be C4 rather than BBC felt awkward.  I missed Jon and Krishnan.  Then, of course, came the exit polls, and Paddy Ashdown’s hat pledge, and Sunderland, and you knew it was all going to go horribly wrong.  I ate all the nibbles and went to bed.

It is easy to lose a sense of proportion.  The VE day commemoration the following day highlighted that no, this is not the worst of all possible times.  The country went to the polls in peace and safety, and the elected government will take its place without fear of military or any other intervention.  Nevertheless.  Nevertheless.  I really wish that the next time I meet my mother for lunch our main topic of conversation could be how the Labour government will manage the threat of the marauding Celts. 

And putting Gove in charge of Justice.  What a load of ballcocks.