Yesterday my mum made May Blossom a playhouse out of the box from the new barbecue. By sheer coincidence, it is an exact, full-scale model of our own flat, right down to the squashed grapes and bits of Vegemite sandwich on the floor.
But this squishy little flat will soon be a much-improved palace, because the Michael the Bathroom Man, Saviour of Hearts and Minds, is coming to see us on Saturday. He is going to quote on replacing our Emporium of Mould and Dryer Fluff with an actual bathroom. We might even get a toilet that flushes properly and that doesn’t have a wonky plastic seat so flimsily attached that if you don’t sit down very carefully you skid off the pan and out the door on it like it’s a bobsled. Sheer luxury. And two competing teams of air-conditioning installers (that is almost definitely the pitch for a reality show on Channel 9), are coming to decide who gets the honour of chilling out this little hothouse of ours.
Also on the to-do list is a replacement windowsill in the bathroom, which is more of a mushroom farm and less of a windowsill, thanks to the insane position of the showerhead. We’ll also be buying a lot of smart-looking white boxes from Ikea into which we shall shove all our belongings. Out of sight, out of mind.
In the midst of my most recent clutter-related meltdown, H coined the phrase ‘clutterfuck’ to describe our house. I like it: it’s when you have so many things littering every surface of your life that you just cannot cope any more. We were there on the weekend. I ruthlessly culled my collection of books, which made a big difference. It made me feel ever so slightly less like I am in one of those scenes in a movie where the heroine is trapped in a vault that is rapidly filling with water.
I put about fifty books out on the front wall on Sunday afternoon, and by the next morning all were gone except A Child In Time by Ian McEwan, which is sad because it’s very good.Where Did My Libido Go?(which, I’ll have you know, snickering reader, I got for free because I edited it) disappeared first. I hope it went to a good home. I hope it went to a good home several streets away, because the last thing we need are noisily rutting neighbours.
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