Upper East Side Dublin Co-op Board

The first person to view our second offering is a male student; even though I was warned against taking students, he was so convincing on the phone I invited him to take a look. Then it occurred to me that it’s a perfect student combination, I already have two, so that would be three of them doing their finals this year, they’d be in the library til midnight most of the time. He loved it, and being a commerce student he did a deal to pay up front for four months and get a discount, saying that he wouldn’t have to worry about his rent after that. I said that sounded like a great idea, except I would have it all gone in the first week.  I liked him, he was a musician as well, not the DJ-mixing kind, but a traditional accordion player and had an agent, like I said, he’s not studying accountancy for nothing! In the end, his parents decided it was over budget. On to the next, a woman who didn’t like dogs, I suppose I should include the dog in our ad, and a very sweet trainee teacher, and through my own fault, took too long to get back to her and she found something else. This is all telling me that there must be a right person moment coming up.

A Chinese lady called enthusing about the location and how it would be perfect for two Chinese girls. They’ve never left China before, they’re eighteen and don’t speak English. I protest there is only bed in the room, ‘that’s not a problem, very common to sleep together in China,’ I’m sure it maybe, but the co-op board are not buying this. ‘Too much looking after,’ they diplomatically counsel me.  I’m inclined to think anyone under twenty-one will bring out too much maternal instinct.

A very eager Frenchman in his fifties wants to take the room for 6 months and bring his golden retriever. He is very compelling about his dog, aged Thirteen and unable to climb stairs. I’m still thinking about it, though our own Tess might have something to bark about and then I’d be a dog-sitter during the day.  Hmmm.

I suppose I imagined an Argentinian who could teach the tango or someone from Venice or Rome with whom I could brush up my Italian and eventually do a house swap. Equally, someone from St Tropez or Paris. You see that dog could ingratiate herself to me yet.

Male Role Models

My neighbour calls in to see how the boarding house is coming along, with her two under fours in tow. I find Disney plates and cups, they’re amused that a woman with big boys still has baby things. Their mother works full time, so this is a treat to be visiting during the day, they move with the speed of monkeys on acid, tearing around the house investigating and stopping for food along the way. I’d completely forgotten what that frenzied curiosity can be like and wonder how on earth I brought up two of them myself.

Neighbour, we’ll call her Kerry because that’s where she’s from, gets galvanised too,  and announces she’s been waiting to replace a bed and offers me the old one. This is great news for both, she doesn’t have to get it taken away; at the very least I was looking at 400 euro for a basic one with a mattress for the second tenant’s room, CC#1 having carted the old brass bed up to the attic. I went to have a look, perfectly nice pine double bed, it just needed, guess, handymen to dismantle and re-assemble and we both decided it should be painted white for the Nordic purity vibe I was re-creating, for which read: all white room. The strange thing about this interchange is that we have both walked only a few feet, and figured out a great transaction. This neighbourliness might seem normal to most of you. I have been living here for seventeen years and we really only got to know each other at Christmas.

Huggy Noddy had told me to call him if I needed any more help. This time he came with his colleague, who for the sake of consistency we will call Big Ears, but he definitely doesn’t.  By now Noddy and I had struck up a bit of rapport, he also had two sons, both in university studying incredibly erudite things. He has a few properties and knew a thing or two about tenants and a breadth of geopolitical-cultural knowledge. He was an expert on Botswana, due to his tenant, Miss Botswana. He could ream off the finer nuances of all the Eastern bloc nationalities, I think he liked the Poles the best. He says he will be at the auction rooms in Rathmines on Thursday morning and will come by to sort the bed. By now I am amassing sundry useful items to donate to his own rentals, a small tv we don’t need, some lamps which are very nice but I’ve no use for.

I escort the two men to my neighbours, where they exchange polite greetings. As they walk up the stairs, Kerry jabs my ribs with her elbow. She thinks Big Ears is a fine specimen, her very words, in fact are, ‘he’s a real man, look at his shoulders, his chest,’ she swoons, ‘and he’s so well spoken,’ eyeing me as if this would be a good match. ‘Kerry!’ I exclaim, not for the first time my apparent lack of husband material was cause for matchmaking.

This week, neither son was back at college, what a great time to have DIY going on, though CC#2 had managed to take a break in Paris with his girlfriend, he didn’t pick that savoir faire off the ground, leaving #1 resistant to my pleadings.  This subtly changed however with the appearance of my two new great allies with bits of the bed. #1 helped while they assembled it and I discussed the paint plan. Before I knew it, Noddy had got a pot of undercoat from his car, I had the box of brushes and white spirit at the ready and he was showing #1 how to mix. I left the three men to chat alone while I found a can of white satinwood, a useful hoard; it was four years old and still effective.

The two men were on their way and #1 was painting away, alone. I took a peek, he didn’t want to be disturbed, ‘do you want me to bring a radio?’ ‘No, I’m fine.’ I congratulated Noddy on his success, #1 would never, ever, ever have done that job for me.  It was the unique way an older man had discussed how to mix the paint, sand the wood, and could also have bribed him for all I know.

Now all we have to do is find the perfect tenant. It has become a bit of a co-op board with the boys and we have to take our existing tenant into consideration, though he’s so considerate I don’t think he minds who we have. He says I’m too picky. I can see how Madonna had so much trouble being considered as a suitable neighbour in Manhattan.

The Builder Blog

The Builder Blog – it was bound to come up sometime, so let’s get it over with!

Week two of Thirteen was a hive of activity. As if, by telling people I was taking in lodgers they were galvanised into action with me. Most surprisingly, some of the builders I’ve been trying to track down for two years showed up. At last, Wexford builder returned and I got a bit of felt and flashing laid where a leak persisted, and with Noddy having done all the handle work and screw fixing, I was running out of jobs by the time Mayo builder phoned to say he was ten minutes away. I found a towel rail hanging askance; just to make the trip worth his while.

These odd jobs are rewarded with pots of tea and mince pies. But most of all it’s the chats in the kitchen that we’ve had over the years that bind us (and provided great material for my novel). I’ve worked with all sorts of builders, as a project manager or a designer, where there’s a planning and management skill and there’s also one other essential, unteachable skill, begging. I invoked that more than anything during the building heyday.

Now they ask me have I any work going, not for a while I should think. Nor will it ever return to the way it was, thankfully. I could never understand where the money was coming from, how people were driving brand new cars and buying multiple properties. I thought I must be doing something wrong; working very hard and yet just keeping up, knowing intuitively that it couldn’t be sustained, but the ‘experts’ knew better – even without a degree in finance I knew the price paid for the Irish Glass Bottle site could never stack up. Developers – and city planners - thought they could make Ringsend into Chelsea, Ballsbridge into Knightsbridge. We’re not London and never will be, we were once the most graciously planned city in the British Isles, now let’s just hope we can keep the city alive and rents get real.

One of the first people to have the vision and see the potential of adapting old disused buildings for a grown-up gritty night out was the late Hugh O’Regan, sadly one of the recent casualties of this era and a great loss. Another visionary, Jay Bourke, whose Cafebardeli chain went down, introduced the best casual eating experiences of our time, cool, urban, healthy and, again in historic buildings, gently and creatively adapted.  Of course, they, like many, many others were lent too much money and nobody knew when to stop.

Man-Flu and Woman-Fire

Adam and all his ribs moved in quietly, almost invisibly and disappeared again for a week. When he returned I had an urge to feed him, at least do Sunday brunch, I asked the boys to promise they’d scramble eggs for him if I wasn’t there, my mother even suggested ironing his shirts. ‘I draw the line there,’ I insisted, I don’t even iron my own. We next met in the kitchen on Sunday morning when he sought a glass for some water. He had a bit of a cold, I fell over myself getting out the Berocca , the Echinacea, ‘you’re grand,’ he said, I’ve a pharmacy in my room, ‘Surely some lem-sip?’ I pleaded, as I toppled a bottle of evening primrose oil, nail varnish remover, super glue, herbal insect repellent and sundry spools of thread as he shuffled back up to his cosy bed.

Thinking of cosy beds, I remembered my new toy. The Fire.  I can’t wait to get out the firelighters, scrunched newspapers, matches and briquettes, which I haven’t seen used in at least twenty years and see what happens. Trying to source logs in Dublin seems to be a bit of a secret. Expert hardware man, Rory, says they’re too dear and those Wicklow people won’t deliver them. He can’t be bothered keeping them anymore. I know I’ll crack this one day. Tips anyone?

The room that’s never used, what David McWilliams would call The Good Room, has been re-arranged in deference to the lodgers, with reading chair facing fire. Now that it’s sort of ablaze, the thing about a fire is you can’t turn your back on it. You can have a radiator on in a room and not be in it. But you can’t ignore those real flames. And the only thing to do on a wet, windy, grey Irish Sunday with a fire lighting, is, well read. And reader, this is a long forgotten realisation; you can actually read all day, only interrupted by rearranging and reapplying briquettes. It is an art. I finished Donal Ryan’s Spinning Heart and started Selina Guiness’s Crocodile by the Door, both kindly lent to me by a dear friend, as I’ve gone more Kindle recently. Another controversial subject, but with 3,000 books and counting, there just isn’t the room and of course there’s Michael O’Leary. I will tell you about my Ryanair wardrobe another day.

All writers unanimously advise you have to read, read and read again, if you want to write, so I’m not just relaxing, or being still as I was recently reminded to be, but also working. No guilt there.

When Noddy came to light my fire

The huggy Noddy spun around my house like a whirlwind, checking on anything that needed to be done and spying my useless gas fire in the hearth,  said, ‘those things eat money, don’t  give out any heat, you’d be better off getting rid of it.’

‘Can’t afford to, I never really use it,’ I replied quickly seeing a large bill coming my way. He examined my front door for the deadlock, drilled the marble and fixed in a screw so I could at last have a mirror hang in the bathroom, he fitted the bedroom lock and new handles and said he’d be back next day to remove the gas fire. I took a deep breath, ‘how much though,’ he paused, ‘sure, give me eighty.’ My brain whirred, a neighbour had been charged one hundred and fifty to remove just the gas fire, I readily agreed. Though I was used to working with builders, they’re a fugitive lot, once you’ve got them on site it’s no easy matter to keep them there until the job is done to your satisfaction, not theirs. I’ve been waiting two years for two separate builders come to fix a crack in the roof, fugitive is putting it mildly.

The three for nine euro salmon and prawns were poaching nicely in the oven, pity about the lack of dill, rosemary would have to do. And a selection of colourful vegetables were roasting beautifully. I don’t know why I never thought of this before, none of that Masterchef fussing about the hob with three pans on the go, and a sheen building up on my face. This way, a fine dining experience was concealed in the oven and a veneer of calm pervaded when absentee boyfriend arrived.

‘You’re not going to believe what happened,’ I started on my serendipitous builder story. The colour drained from his face. ‘But I said I’d do it,’ he said with a tight-lipped resolve.  ‘Let me see it,’ he demanded. Upstairs we went, he ran his hand along the roughly planed door where I now noticed huggy Noddy had hammered the lock in place, ‘what sort of person would leave a job like that?’ AB asked in disgust, ‘what else has he done?’ I showed him the mirror in my bathroom. ‘It’s crooked,’ he hissed, ‘I have an eye for these things you know.’

I for one, wanted to enjoy my salmon,  and readily summoned counter-conflict approach ‘darling, I thought I was doing you a huge favour, so you could just eat instead of finding the right tools, you wouldn’t have the bits you needed, I saw what that guy had and they were very unusual indeed.’ Hair toss and quick exit.

‘I brought my own toolkit, it’s in the car,’ he announced firmly. I knew if I checked the veracity of this statement I would seem a trifle suspicious to say the least. But I bet it wasn’t there.  But it was thoughtful (in case he ever reads this) and he was suitably soothed when dinner was served. It truly is a famine or feast with helpful men.

January Gift Horse... meat

It is an unseasonably sunny Monday on the seventh day of Thirteen, birds sing as if it’s late March, it’s not like grim January at all, except all sorts of out-of-body appointments have been made. First that interview at 9.45, I might as well tell you, in UCD. My first official job interview in about twenty five years, well I did say Thirteen called for dramatic change. The worst part of this plan was being told by recruitment agents that I had to reduce my achievements on my CV, it was overpowering.  Well it might be, but it wasn’t making me employable. The moment I parked near the Arts block, I smiled, and didn’t stop smiling, so great were the memories of my time there, as a young mother. This job had absolutely nothing to do with my qualifications yet I really enjoyed the interview, the last thing I expected. Especially, as I was sworn to secrecy about the lab facility. It was maternity cover, which suited my writer aspirations.

Next was a meeting with a lawyer, well if you’ve got to do one of those, something is up. Two useful outings of the suit in one day. 

Absentee boyfriend duly arrives by lunchtime, dismantles the door handles and assesses my requirements. I hasten to add, this is an off-shore financier I wouldn’t have thought knew one end of a Phillips screwdriver from another. He left with a promise to return in the evening once I got shiny new locks and longer screws. I don’t think he meant a visit the hairdresser. Reader, he is not called absentee boyfriend for nothing and he’s only called boyfriend because he’s not a girl.

The owner of the local hardware is fascinated with my plans, says he’s been renting rooms and bedsits for years, goes on and on about all the trouble he has ‘and you’re going to be living with them?’ he asked incredulously, as if tenants are a subspecies to be avoided. He went on to describe his tenant nightmares, ‘screw them,’ he said, ‘they’ll wreck your house. And keep away from students, they’re the worst.’ He explains about the new bedsit laws, how landlords are calling their properties hostels now, rather than upgrading or offering decent sized accommodation.

Undeterred and delighted with my lock and long screws I walk home with the dog and CC#2 slots it into his bedroom door only to find the tongue facing the wrong way, we wondered if there are left and right-hand locks. Well, I was glad I hadn’t driven all the way to Woodie’s and only had to nip back to my local expert. Back I went in the car, wondering how people who work in an office all day get these things done. While the owner, I’ll call Rory, looked perplexed and fidgeted around for a replacement, two game and cheerful men came in, ‘ah, the very man’, exclaimed the relieved Rory, ‘Can you give this lady a hand with her lock,’ the man nearest me turned and before I knew it said, ‘Oh give me a hug.’ That was a first, but I suppose it was a sort of New Year thing to do, as I needed the lock sorted, I gave him a hug without thinking. Next I knew he had efficiently opened it up and reversed the tongue. Then Rory asked him ‘will you not just follow her home and put it in, she needs a deadlock in her front door as well.’ 

‘I do,’ I confirmed, ‘there’s been a few burglaries near me lately and my neighbour (wise husband again) said I’m mad not to have one. ’ Turning to Rory I said, ‘I also need something to screw into a marble tile, some sort of putty,’ I said knowledgably.

Noddy, we’ll call the hugging builder, took a drill bit from a shelf and said, ‘that kind of thing has to be done very slowly, are you far?’

With that, I hopped into my car and he followed me home, leaving his colleague scratching his head. I quickly calculated that all was above board, it was broad daylight and most of all I had a strapping rugby player at home, and a fiercely protective collie.  I also realised I would be saving absentee boyfriend a lot of time, the more to enjoy his dinner.

What will I be when I grow up?

I ponder on the interview I have coming up on Day 7 of Thirteen, what do people wear in offices these days? Pinstripe suits are probably only worn in the Four Courts. The D&G suit with leopard lining was fine for client meetings, a bit strident for an academic institution perhaps. If only, I muse…

It must be at least two months since I sent my manuscript to an agent and a month since I sent it to a publisher. It’s pretty bad, this waiting, while the book is out for reading, even with friends, it feels like my soul is exposed on the side of the road, with passersby glancing idly or worse, walking by, not noticing it. And here I am, now writing about writing, doubly exposed.  

I told Adam, my new lodger, I’d have his door handle fixed by the time he returned from England. ‘Don’t worry, I’ll leave it open,’ he smiled. Yes and Tess, the human border collie will snuggle up on your bed, I thought.  A few other DIY issues had to be tackled and despite having persuaded my sons to study construction technology, neither could repair the dangling handles they’d reefed off each other’s doors over the years, in pursuit of stolen items of clothing, match of a shoe, or holy grail, thick unguent hair putty.  Most of you will recognise that a young man will always say ‘he can’t’ no matter what the request, but once they’ve been established in corporate life for long enough, they will insist they can do all DIY, that nobody need be appointed to fix a leak, as they dream of the toolshed/workshop they always wanted and you only get the job done when a neighbour lends you their handyman.

Proof of this theory, the moment I mentioned these minor carpentry issues to an absentee boyfriend it prompted him to insist on visiting with his toolkit. That would mean dinner too. Well, gift horse and all that, how could I refuse?

Closet Melancholia

The zeal with which I despatched the finery to a swap shop was bound to end in tears. They estimated my possible return on the fashion investment, would be in the region of minus 95%. ‘Well do you want us to sell them?’ the woman asked admiring my toffee shearling she’d just tried on. I suppose I had no choice, not only making more space but it would bring in some income.

You’ll always meet an expert after an experience like that, I was urged to put them on eBay by let’s say, a stylist. Everybody else seems to ‘make a fortune’ on eBay, I only seem to lose money and time with the effort of photographing clothes and uploading them, and all the STUFF that goes with it, the labyrinthine Paypal, for instance. As well as DAFT.ie, I’ve joined Easyroommate.com – yes it’s been an eye opener, there are thousands of people looking for a room. Not too many in my area though.  Between all these websites and registrations, looking up ‘career opportunities’ on jobs.ie and re-inventing my CV for said opportunities, I seem to be at the keyboard for 24 hours. It’s only a click away from match.com or eHarmony to complete my on-line life. I've yet to negotiate Airbnb - a sort of personalised hospitality service in your own home.

A lesson seriously learned is buy no more. Nothing ever again, only food. The boardroom suits and cocktail dresses have remained. The key is to stay the same size (if anything was easier said than done, that is) and there will be enough to wear for a lifetime, especially when I need suits and dresses for some mysterious future career. If I’m having a writing day, there’s not a lot of point in dressing up, though dressing of some sort I find is essential, rather, staying dressed from desk to bed and desk again.

Eve of Adam

On Day Two of Twenty-Thirteen I made my way through the flotsam of sales, trawling duvet boxes, pillows, mattress covers and what was left of the matching linen, floral yeuch. I wanted the bedooms to look and feel so good that I’d love to sleep in them.  I came home to find the boys were taking it very seriously, having found old Playstation games, they were re-bonding over Grand Theft Auto or FIFA, whatever, both in a catatonic state.

While walking the dog to de-stress us and attend to her ungainly girth, my pocket hummed, a stranger calls, a Dublin man who wanted to see the room that evening. An insistent sort of man who explained he liked the area, he worked in the UK and it wanted a base. Well that’s not so bad I thought.  Let’s just see if we can tolerate the look of each other. He arrived that evening in a black and red tracksuit with a samurai badge on it. Channelling Bruce Lee when you visit your proposed landlady is a bit of a risk.

It was certainly a first for me to interview a strange man in my kitchen, without the assistance of music, low lights and wine, that is. Perhaps 'grill' might be a better word. He seemed plausible and keen. I couldn’t see a problem.  Those last two sentences suddenly explain quite a lot about my search criteria for the dream man. He declined my offer of coffee, he was on his way to the gym, a brownie point.

I found myself probing the most awkward of questions about marital status, parenting status, profession and social habits, as we sat on high stools at the breakfast bar, a vodka tonic wouldn’t have gone amiss. He quickly told me his tale, construction related like my own.  I lead the way to the bedroom – yes, I said it was a strange scenario!

I began to see this was very much a two way thing, by now I was hoping he’d like to move in, I trusted my instinct, not always a reliable one when it comes to men. He said he’d sign whatever I wanted, up to a year if I liked, I had nothing prepared to sign. Then I remembered the all important advice the neighbour-husband had given me. ‘Oh yes,’ I said, with great humility and not a small degree of cringing, ‘a few people have advised me on house rules, there’s just a couple of things, I’d prefer if there’s no cooking late at night.’

‘You won't have to worry there,’ he says, ‘the most you might find is a chip bag in the bin.’

I laugh nervously, ‘and no overnight guests.’ There, I said it. He looked at me as if to say, ‘we’re in our forties, what kind of nonsense is that?’  He said nothing. I have an image of me with a scarf tied round my head, rollers sticking out, a fag hanging from the corner of my mouth, wielding a rolling pin outside his door.

So, Adam arrives the following Saturday morning with a few bags, leaves his rent, and tells me I won’t see him for another week. Suddenly this is a great idea, I can pay some bills. As soon as I feel the pressure easing, I get a bill for the must-have black-out blinds in Cost Centre #1’s attic-penthouse; 400 euro for three pieces of beige plastic! The search for lodger No. 2 begins. 

Goals by any other name would tell as much

They were Heston and Jamie for an afternoon and figured how to bake a ham for New Year's Day, yes I know it's not that difficult, but it’s good to delegate, and boys like ownership or, rather competition, one wanted to boil it in coca cola, thank you Nigella. They need to compete on who did what part of the dinner and what turned out best. Similarly with the turkey at Christmas, one did the stuffing with a concoction of cranberries and apples. The elder did the vegetables, if they have to compete, believe me, I don't care what it tastes like, the joy of shared cooking is not to be underestimated.

After dinner on New Year’s Day we have a tradition of writing our goals for the year, nothing as negative as things we’re going to give up. Rather, I have a tradition of giving them paper and pens and goading them to dream of what could be. I made up these categories to help them while they were still in school. Surprisingly, when I find my own piece of paper at the end of the year, the goals have been somehow inadvertently achieved. Maybe there's something about visualising and writing it down that affirms it for us. Anyway, I'll share some random goals to which they aspire: Personal: Growing a beard; Financial: Saving 10 euro a month; Academic: Getting a merit/2.1; Charity: Earning enough to support myself; Sport:  Using my bike; Health:  Putting on 6lbs (certainly not one of my goals). Mine: Getting published!

Twelve is Sooo OVER

It was New Year's Eve, but not as we know it, a build-up of dust-cloud coupled with a small sense of de-cluttering achievement, dampened the desire to go out. The novovirus or even just a common cold had laid low many friends. My neighbours, with two pre-school kids, invited me to join them for a drink, no taxi required, a great solution to a little bonhomie and home early to a new dawn.  The neighbouring husband listened earnestly as I told him of my lodger plans, he dispensed some wisdom on tenant contracts, house rules, things to get out of the way immediately like ‘no overnight guests’.

‘Can I really say that?’ I asked. ‘Of course’, he assured me, ‘you’ve got kids living there’. That is true, though I’ve heard enough creaking floorboards to know there are possible nocturnal visitations when girlfriends are staying in the guest room. Never confirmed, but best not to go there.

CC#2 came home that night at 10.30pm, he told me earlier he didn't really like NYE. Strange, I thought for a handsome, social 20 year old, but this boy has become another person. I sometimes say it’s like having brought up one child who transformed into a complete stranger, a delightful one. He had the terrible-twos until he was about sixteen, when he discovered concentration and a singular goal, making the senior cup team. It was only when they were in the final that he remembered his Leaving Cert, four months in advance. And got the results he wanted. Our children become big people overnight without our noticing it. The midnight hour chimed and we hugged a happy wish to each other. There was a strange calm to that moment, the anxiety of what we were about to do, bringing strangers to live in our midst, abated.

Detritus De-Clutter

There is something about that time between Christmas and New Year, when the tree is still lit and full of magic, the presents have been exchanged and thankfully its 365 days before it comes around again, when there’s verve to get things done, a promise of renewal.  No mean task when there are three Olympian hoarders in the house. I should have got a skip.

Next best idea is to get a girlfriend, preferably from primary school, to ruthlessly rifle your wardrobes and laugh uncontrollably at the sequinned, slinky numbers you are still holding on to, the leather zippy things that should have gone ten years ago and asymmetrical Issey Miyake that belonged to a more experimental era.  The pile grew high on the bed, sorted into charity shop and swap shop categories. Psychedelic straggly designer knitwear is suggested for eBay. Elsewhere, the boys cull their own swag surreptitiously into black bin bags, I double my efforts by ransacking them later and removing ‘perfectly good’ hoodies and jeans, baby books, copy books, gifts they made in school, now in a quandary at whether precious mementoes should be despatched or stored.

The day went on with size 8 girlfriend, screeching hysterically ‘what on earth were you thinking?’ as I produced one vintage buy after another. It was the sound of two unrestrained mom’s with sons, who have managed to avoid a daughter’s sharp stabs at their unwitting sense of youth and basically getting  away with all kinds of purchases and forays into boho-chic, librarian chic (a Prada look we think), toffee shearling hippie-chic coats,  air hostess couture (anything tailored and navy with a Louis Vuitton limited edition scarf tied at a jaunty angle) and floaty silk/satin/chiffon for red carpet dressing (on which neither of us have ever knowingly appeared – just give it time).

The following day the beds were freshly dressed and the neat piles of detritus were arranged to give an air of order. I could at last take carefully angled photographs and see how this Daft thing worked. It seemed easy enough, I took a photo of the front of the house just in case the interior gave the impression of a squat. My location was suddenly within walking distance of everywhere you could possibly need, specifically our largest university. I uploaded and submitted, now I just had to wait for the clamour of eager tenants.

Thirteen was looming

THIRTEEN was looming like a big hag, long bony fingers beckoned beyond the midnight Twelve, so bad was its reputation that the entire car industry colluded to pretend it didn’t exist. No matter how many people said it had to be better than the swift Twelve, it wasn’t looking great, they said the same in glib Ten and long Eleven – remember? It seemed that the only way to face this number down was with dramatic, if uncomfortable, change.

It finally looked like the threat I wielded at my great big sons was coming to pass, if they didn’t keep their rooms vaguely fit for human habitation, I was going to rent them out (the rooms, that is, not much of a market for lads) and get good money at that. ‘Hah, sure,’ they’d smirk as they’d kick another pair of boxers and mismatched holey socks under the bed.

No, this time serious action was called for, not I might add, entirely due to Cost Centres#1 and #2[1] errant approach to household management. Banks new SME austerity policy and a minor issue of mortgage repayments were a consideration. What with the poor timing of the recession and all, my construction-related profession was no longer the much sought after consultancy it once was.

In the previous two years I was getting used to the bus instead of taxis, hardly ever going out (or so it seems), wearing four layers instead of putting the heating on during the day and writing my first novel (note, not yet published), I was running out of recession-proof solutions.

Many friends had resorted to taking in students and even long term lodgers, I just didn’t think I had the ability to live with a complete stranger under my roof, or worse, toss a coin for which son would forfeit his room for the linen cupboard and bear the lifelong disgruntlement. Plus the house was a mess of clutter. As Christmas drew near I thought about the idea more, the box room was full of winter clothes, that never get put away (we’re not called the land of winter for nothing) and we had an attic conversion, that looked crisply Gustavian on its first day, all bleached pine panelling and minimal chic, but quickly morphed into a man-crib.

I offered this solution to the boys, that if we were going to do it we might as well rent both of their rooms, best to spread the pain. The elder finance and marketing student, having been volubly resistant to moving into the arctic attic den suddenly saw the benefits of a tv, sofa, sound system and bed all in one big, draughty space. That left the economics student in the linen cupboard, forfeiting his en-suite if you don’t mind. ‘It’s to save our house’ I said, quietly. We imagined who we might live with, male or female? one of each? being used to sons and brothers I was inclined to think men might be easier, the boys agreed, not that they’d be cleaner, just a bit easier, for which, read: out most of the time. On the other hand, female company could be great for a change, balancing the house. We would wait and see.



[1] I admit Mrs Moneypenny got there first, whom I was delighted to see unveiled on University Challenge as Helen McGregor and very good she was too.