Body and Soul, Heart and Home

Let’s get the landlady bit out of the way first. Lodger No.2 is still here but we’ve had the start of ‘the talk’. Thankfully, I didn’t have to bring it up. On Saturday he told me he needed the heating on during the night because his kidneys were delicate, he pointed at a place on his side, I reckon he meant kidney. And he can’t afford to get cold. I began to feel like a Valkyrie, not in the Brunhilde sort of way, but like a really strong woman who can withstand the privations of an Irish winter. Plus we all know that constant central heating is DREADFUL for your skin, never mind the lethargy. If it comes to my skin or his kidneys, well, you can guess. I kept the heating on all weekend and feel like a prune today.

By Sunday it was a case of, when all else fails, consult the last-hope oracle, my horoscope read 'insights emerge from overwhelming unfair situations.... ' I felt an insight beginning already, the problem was the house, not totally the cold-blooded tenant and his marathon cooking or me and ‘my kitchen to myself’ issue. It’s too open-plan, not only hard to heat but foul-smelling cooking will fill the place with fetid fumes for hours. Lodger No. 2 needs a small, well insulated apartment, like the one he had in Latvia and tells me about all the time.

I took myself to a Body and Mind or Soul or something class in UCD, not recommended after a late Saturday night, a lot of downward dog involved, so I was pretty pleased with myself for staying in the night before and finding the movements were manageable. Even better, I met a friend who just joined the gym, seeing as she’s the artist-in-residence in UCD, she’ll be out there quite a bit. I look forward to seeing what comes from her year collaborating with a geo-physicist on a theme she’s explored recently, quite beautiful pieces evocative of Icelandic volcanoes.  http://www.siobhanmcdonald.com/

Back to landladyland and I hope I can find Lodger No.2 the ideal alternative accommodation or hope he’s started to search already, because last straw was taking over the kitchen for two hours on Sunday evening. At least it was after the Scotland match, which wasn’t worth watching anyway.

I’m going to have to re-think this whole second bedroom rental situation. Much to my bank manager’s chagrin, but even she said she wouldn’t share her home. Six nights bed and breakfast would yield the same as one tenant for a month. I rang Huggy the builder and asked if he had any rooms in his houses. When we worked out the cost of extra heat and gas, the rent works out at 15 euro per day. That just doesn’t add up.

I’ll soon be back looking for a co-habitable tenant, a busy travelling man or woman who doesn’t like to cook. And just needs a base where I’ll happily wash and dry their clothes, seeing as I have to do it for my sons. I saw an ad for the perfect tenant, she travels to India a lot, the only problem was she wanted to move her two cats in as well. If there is one thing my dog and I are agreed on. Cats not allowed anywhere near us.