A Measure of True Friendship & a Busman's Holiday

After I'd left Yorkshire the plan was to meet up with a couple of friends - one in Rugby and the other in Clacton.

Unfortunately, due to a mix up in text messages and voice mail I missed the meet up in Rugby and so headed to Clacton to see Steve.  Steve is a dead ringer for Tony Hadley but likes to consider himself looking more like Steven Seagal, although I can't imagine why anyone would want to emulate that moron.  

I arrived at Steve's fairly late and although I haven't seen him for going on 7 years it was like picking up where we left off.  We had a few drinks in his house and chatted and reminisced about our working time together on the railway and the many, many good times and great laughs we had.  As the booze took hold Steve showed me his second most prized possession, which for legal reasons it's probably best if I don't mention what it is and the fact he wanted to demonstrate its operation.  Despite being a drunk as I was, I knew it would be rather reckless to do so and I managed to convince him otherwise.  In the end, he settled for letting off a flare in his back garden that went off with such a bang I went to bed with my ears still ringing.

The following morning and feeling somewhat rough from the previous night and with my ears still ringing we had breakfast and then Steve showed me his most prized possession, his Porsche 996.  He needed to take his work car to the garage so asked if I could follow him in the Porsche to pick him up.  Would I?  Now that really is a measure of true friendship: you don't see a mate for going on 7 years and the day he turns up you let him drive your Porsche.  Fair play to him.

Off we went, with me pootleling along like a little old lady through the town.  We dropped his car off then, still allowing me to drive, we went for a wee burn up on the bypass.  It was tremendous.  For me it's not the top end speed but how it gets there.  The acceleration.  It's having the power on tap and the seemingly endless surge when you put your foot down.  It makes for a very intoxicating mix and I WANT ONE (hence the need to build up my insurance NCB)!  When we arrived back at Steve's house there was a terrible smell of a burning clutch.  I was mortified.  Steve seemed to take it in good humour but he hasn't let me forget about it since.  Okay, so I'm not used to driving a manual.  The clutch pedal was awfully light.  And in an odd position.  My balance was affected by the flare and the ringing in my ears.  I was hungover. Or perhaps I'm just a crap driver?

After leaving Steve I headed back to my place and had the joy sitting in a massive traffic jam at the Dartford crossing.

I still had many other people I wanted to meet up with but first there were chores and urgent tasks that needed doing around the house.  Some obvious, others not so obvious.  

The drains had been blocked, with solidified fat as it turned out, and was forming a stream past the back door every time someone had a shower or did the washing up.  I'd cleaned them the week before but in the process a chunk fat had been washed down the drain and blocked it further down in the "dirty" section so out came the drain rods.  That's a job I love doing on my holiday.

Attempts to Purge the Moles!

The outside tap was leaking and water was leaching into the brickwork causing the exterior paint to peel off and become unsightly.  Without a doubt, the leak had occurred when the tap had frozen in the winter so it had been leaking for quite some time and probably explained the infestation of slugs and snails in the kitchen.  In order to do a proper repair I would have had to chop out the rendering to get to the offending connection and that seemed like too much of a task to undertake, which had the potential to turn into a major project so I just turned the tap off at the isolating valve.

Leaky Tap

I needed to create some space in the garage so I could park my car in there, which meant hiring a skip and filling it up with rubbish left by the tenants.  This included a huge amount of carpet off cuts (I tried burning most of it - probably not the most environmentally friendly thing to do), some of which were nothing to do with the carpet that had been fitted in the house but clearly the carpet fitter had taken advantage of the opportunity to off-load all his rubbish on someone else.  I'd made an attempt to tidy the overgrown garden somewhat and so there was also a fair amount of garden waste too.  The two rolls of insulation I'd stored in the shed had become a favourite nesting spot for the rats that infested the place when the previous tenants decided (unbeknown to me) to keep chickens.  

Barely Room for the Car

Following this, I had to treat the wood of the garage/workshop with preservative.  I'd managed to do half of it the last time I was home but nothing more had been done in the time since and it was in urgent need of completing, especially with the winter looming.  This meant doing a fair amount of clearing of the trees and bushes around the building so it wasn't a 5 minute job.  Whilst doing so, I noticed that some of the tree branches had damaged the the roof sheets so that led to another job, and the need to temporarily repair the roof.  It would be wonderful to just pay someone to do all this for me but it just doesn't seem to happen.  In addition, the garage/workshop doors hadn't been painted and were in dire need for repainting.  But stripping the paint is hugely time consuming (despite buying a propane stripper masquerading as a WWII flame thrower) so I managed only to do one small door.

Door Painting

The wood of the conservatory hadn't been treated since it was built 8 years ago and was in desperate need for a fresh coating (it was entirely stripped off at the eaves), again before the winter set in, so that was another task to undertake.

Al-Fresco Breakfast Between Tasks

Not to mention the perpetually leaking taps in the kitchen, the leaking toilet pipe and the ongoing battle with the moles destroying the lawn (with considerable assistance from the dog digging holes in it) as well as a myriad of other jobs.  If people think that living in an old house in the country is easy living then they should stay living in the towns.  Especially if you have a large garden, the work involved is huge (unless you take joy in sitting in a tangle of brambles and lawn looking like the Somme).

What with these jobs and various other bits and pieces my holiday just slipped through my fingers and I seemed to end up doing more work than if I'd stayed at work.  On leaving and going back to the Philippines I was feeling somewhat frustrated that I hadn't been able to meet up with everyone I had wanted to meet up with, that I hadn't had the time to properly enjoy my photography and review and process the photos I wanted to digitise and I hadn't completely done all that I thought was necessary to the house.  I did manage a day trip to Beachy Head and Rye but it was small compensation.

Beachy Head - One of My Favourite Locations

So I left the UK with a dark cloud hanging over me and ongoing concerns over the maintenance of the house.

Once back in the reclined, wide seat of the aeroplane, with a glass of champagne in my hand I closed my eyes and just tried to think of the wonderful friends I have: those who I did meet with and who were incredibly generous and wonderfully hospitable and those I was unfortunate not to be able to meet and who were so understanding.  

Next time.