Greetings From Lockdown

Hey so the apocalypse is defo happening, I’ve been saying it for years and there’ve been floods and locusts and now the pestilence. Still, we are remaining as cheerful as possible and hoping that from the ashes of this shitty world economic model rises a bold new economic model that works for all of humanity and the planet, leaves nobody starving or unable to access education or healthcare, treats our environment with respect and gives all these key worksers literally risking their lives to keep the world running the remunerative recognition they have always deserved.

Is that so much to ask?

I have this theory that massive world events like this can offer opportunities for human growth that weren’t possible the day before the apocalypse. Like the first world war gave women the vote and the second world war gave us the NHS. This round of end times is obviously scary and dangerous for the lives being lost and the chaos it is causing to the world of employment, but it’s such an excellent opportunity for us as a world (and for the first time it’s actually practical for us ALL to think about it together as a world) to talk about what the world economy is for. What is money? What is worth? Why do we pay bank bosses as if they were demigods and nurses and teachers as if they did nothing useful? Money is a completely invented thing at this point in economic history. Used to be gold. Then it was bits of paper promising gold. Then it was bits of paper promising gold that doesn’t actually exist. Now it’s bits and bytes promising not gold… just erm… worth… uh… wait, no, it doesn’t exist at all. It’s just a big lie we all continue to tell each other and agree to pretend we don’t know it’s not real!

So let’s reinvent the whole system! Let’s fix as many of the stupidities as we can! Let’s compensate nurses and cleaners and carers and delivery drivers with what they’re really worth, considering we literally can’t function without them.

Ok, soliloquy over. On to donated house updates.

First things first:

I made Death By Chocolate for the first time in approximately 10 years. It was amazing. Lockdown spurs all the creative energies into activity and some of the results are delicious.

Oh, here’s a blurry, shitty picture of that bed Ben and I were building in the last post. It came out great. Thanks to Anthony for the reclaimed wood and Ben for the carpentry skills.

We went on a holiday to Scotland just before we weren’t allowed to leave the house, and there was this amazing tourist attraction in the town.

A Victorian toilet block with the most ridiculously over-opulent interior imaginable, albeit in a badly coordinated mish-mash style that would make Billy Morris turn in his grave.

…in the men’s loos, that is. I went in the women’s first and was feeling very cheated, having been promised unparalleled toilet splendour, but then the attendant saw me looking glum and directed me into the men’s, whereupon my toilet dreams were realised in all their eye-watering glory.

Such a shame there was not a neat row of men in tailcoats and top hats having a piss. would have capped the experience neatly.

Anyway, more about tiles. It came time to put a floor down in the kitchen-to-be, and I had a few boxes of some really nice natural stone tiles (thanks Anthony) but not enough for more than about 5 sq meters. So the audit of the reclaimed tiles began. A lot of messing about with the random shapes and sizes I had resulted eventually in a pleasing layout.

Which, when filled in with the stone tiles and surrounded by the leftovers…

 

Turned out really nice. And is now ready for Ben to build the actual kitchen units.

In other news, we had a lovely stretch of nice weather which was quite inspiring for gardening. We’re going to plant up the front slope this year, with a bunch of stuff I started from cuttings in the last year or two. And whatever comes up at Lidl for £4.49.

Julian dug over a bunch of it and we put the black plastic back to keep it dry and friable for when we get around to it.

This cherry tree I rescued from that house clearance (thanks, Anthony!) will take pride of place.

So all in all, lockdown is not treating us too badly. Plenty of toilet paper. Plenty of beans and rice. Plenty to be getting on with. So I’ll go get on with building walls in the kitchen.

This entry was posted in Uncategorized. Bookmark the permalink.