Forever Amber

It’s taken four weeks, a lot of cursing and the last remaining shreds of my sanity, but at last – at long, freaking last – we have a fully functional, shiny new kitchen. You know, like normal people.

Photographing a really small kitchen = much harder than you’d think, which is why you get two pictures featuring more or less the same view. I promise we DID do the other half, too, it’s just that I couldn’t really get a decent picture of it without hovering somewhere near the ceiling. I did take a video of it too, but I’m going to take a wild guess that my kitchen isn’t of so much interest to you that you’d want to watch it in glorious Technicolour, even although it has consumed Terry’s every waking thought for the past four weeks. Mad props to Terry, by the way, for his kitchen fitting skillz, and to my dad, for giving up his Sunday to cut worktops: always a good way to spend a weekend, I find. (I went shopping while this went on, of course. So I can take no credit AT ALL for anything that’s happened in the house this month, but I DO have a really nice new coat.)

As well as the kitchen, we also have shiny new floors throughout the house, and will be moving into the garden shed now, so we can keep them that way FOREVER. It’s the only way, really. I mean, last night, for instance, after the final boards had gone down and I was lovingly cleaning the new kitchen, I happened to glance out of the window to see this:

Clearly someone had been digging in our long plant pot thingy (which, actually, I have no idea why we even have that, or what’s in it. That’s the old flooring beside it by the way. We don’t just have random bits of rubbish in our garden. Well, not ALL the time, anyway). Now, I knew the culprit couldn’t be far away, and sure enough:

Rubin then proceeded to walk around the shiny new kitchen, placing his dirty paws on the shiny new doors, and wiping his dirty face on… everything. And why had he been eating the dirt in the plant pot thingy? Because Terry put FISH OIL in it. It’s testament to how stupid trusting I am that I have no idea why he did this, despite questioning him about it twice now:

CONVERSATION 1:

AMBER: Terry, Rubin seems to be eating dirt from the plant pot. WHY?

TERRY: Oh, that’ll be because I poured fish oil into it.

AMBER: Okay!

CONVERSATION 2:

AMBER: Terry, Rubin’s still eating dirt from that plant pot. Why did you say you poured fish oil into it again?

TERRY: Well, it was better than pouring it down the sink.

AMBER: Oh! Okay!

And this is why no plant or flower we’ve owned has ever lived for more than a few weeks. And why Rubin’s been smelling of fish oil for the past few days, now I come to think of it.

Anyway, the house is now complete. And I promise that this is the last post you will have to read about my house decorating woes for … oh, how about forever? Because that sounds good to me round about now…

So, on Sunday evening, we broke the house.

This is, of course, the latest chapter in the never-ending-story that is our attempt to redecorate the bathroom. Sunday night’s installment started like this:

Terry: You know, I don’t think I’m going to get a plumber in to move that radiator. I think I’m just going to do it myself.

Amber (wearing her rarely spotted “Voice of Reason” cap): I don’t think that’s such a great idea. Isn’t moving radiators really complicated?

Terry: Nah, I’ve watched a few videos on how to do it on You Tube. It’ll be fine.

And so it was that, a few short hours later, as I lay on the bed reading and polishing off the rest of the Christmas chocolate, I heard a shout go up from the bathroom:

“CALL YOUR DAD! CALL YOUR DAD!”

Now, most people, upon hearing such a cry, would instantly spring into action. Not me. I took a moment to reflect on what was happening. Terry clearly hadn’t injured himself, because my dad’s not a doctor. He is, however, a professional “dad” (who has moved a few radiators in his time), and his advice was required to help Terry tackle the small but mighty FLOOD that was now happening in our bathroom. Our what used to be our bathroom Before The Flood Came.

I called my dad and asked his advice. “Build an ark and send the animals in two by two,” he said. Nah, I’m just kidding. What he actually said was:

“Stick your finger in the hole and keep it there until I get there.”

Which was less exciting, but more practical, you know? At this point, before Terry reads this, I should probably explain that the hole in the pipe was NOT TERRY’S FAULT. No, the pipe had a BROKEN BIT inside, and even if we had asked a plumber to do the job, the outcome would have been the same. Only probably without the phone call to my dad, I would imagine.

So, Terry stuck his finger in the hole, while I gathered every last towel in the house, and threw them into the bathroom, in a feeble attempt to soak up some of the water. Once there, they joined both our bathrobes, plus the towel we use to dry Rubin’s feet when he goes out for a pee. I don’t know how that got in there.

The water, by this point, had managed to escape the bathroom, and was making its way along the hall, headed for the bedroom. I started to try and add more towels to the mix, in an attempt to halt its progress, but as I did so, I became aware of a strange noise coming from downstairs, and realised that someone had left the shower on in the living room. This struck me as strange because, like most people, WE DON’T HAVE A SHOWER IN THE LIVING ROOM. Or we didn’t, until approximately 9pm on Sunday evening, at which point, the escaping water thought, “ah, screw it, I’ll just get out through the light fixture” and started pouring out of the ceiling light.

Well, I ran downstairs and started placing basins on the floor, and also a mixing bowl (Which, actually, I was wondering when we’d get some use out of that. Every cloud.). The water was coming thick and fast, and I had already emptied the basin twice before another, very pressing problem came to my attention. You see, I’d drunk a lot of coffee that day. And water. And hadn’t had access to the bathroom for a while. And had now been listening to the sound of running water for twenty minutes. Folks, I needed to go, and I needed to go BAD. There was a problem, though: the bathroom was filled with two inches of water, plus a Terry with his finger in a hole.

“Just go in the garden,” said Terry, through gritted teeth.

“No!” I told him, horrified by this. I mean, it was COLD on Sunday night!

“Why not?”

“Because. I. Don’t. Pee. Outside.” I said, totally forgetting for the moment, that actually? Sometimes I do.

There was only one option. That option was for Terry and I to swap places, and for me to take possession of the bathroom and its leaky pipe while Terry manned the mixing bowls downstairs. So we swapped places, amid a shower of water that would have made us look a bit like we were in some kind of body mist commercial or something, were it not for the fact that actually, I was about to try and pee in a flooded bathroom.

I will draw a veil over the next few,awkward minutes of my life, and leave it to you to imagine what it might be like trying to use the bathroom whilst at all times keeping your finger stuck inside a leaky pipe, at ground level. And now I’m just going to take a moment to reflect on this new low I have reached, in both my personal life and in my blogging career…

*   *   *

Not long after this, my parents arrived to, um, relieve us. (Boom Boom!) and my dad availed himself of the opportunity to stick HIS finger in the radiator, while Terry assisted him and my mum and I spread more towels upon the floors and walked around with anxious expressions, repeating the phrase, “Do you think we’ll need a plumber? Should we call a plumber?” at regular intervals.

Luckily, we did not need a plumber. Between them, my dad and Terry somehow managed to plug the leak, and my parents headed back home, taking with them three carrier bags filled with soaking wet towels to remember us by. Thanks, parents! I’m assured that the bathroom will be lovely when it’s finished. The rest of the house, though? Not so much, really. The wood floor on the hall and in the living room took a bit of a beating, mess somehow spread throughout the entire house, and, as I write this, the final load of towels is in the washing machine.

Our trials were not over yet, though, for that night, as I lay dead to the world, dreaming confused dreams involving towels and plumbers, Terry became aware of the sound of that living room shower starting up at full blast again. Yes! The water left in the ceiling had finally found an escape route, and was pouring out of it, forcing Terry to go downstairs and prod a hole in the ceiling, before the whole lot fell down. This was what we woke up to the next morning (It actually looks worse in real life):

So that sucks.

Also, at the height of the Flood, as we anxiously waited for my dad to appear and make it all better, I appeared at the bathroom door with the camera. “Sorry, Terry,” I said, “But I’m totally blogging this…”