Why can I not be allowed to rest?
The building team are working hard and just two days in have made massive changes to the house, though none involve building and all involve destruction. Some people destroy buildings for their living and just move on, having wrecked lives, but at least these men (I hope) will rebuild and improve after the destruction. Because if they don't I will seriously think about not paying them.
I told the project manager about my jet ski dream. I couldn't have lived with myself if he'd driven a land jet ski into a wall. Now we may never know if the dream was a prophecy, although he didn't take me very seriously, so suspect he might still give it a go. I will be interested to see how they attach my parents' garden to the house first though.
I finally got to take my poorly car into the garage - the yellow light on my dashboard has stayed constant for the last month and I have gone about 3000 miles with it looking up at me. I had hoped to get the car back today, so that we could drive to our new home with our last load of possessions and I would wake 45 minutes up the road towards Harrogate, but predictably the mechanics found enough things wrong with the car to ensure that I'd have to pick it up in the morning. I have one more night in my crumbling and disappearing Shepherd's Bush home. When I next return to sleep here it will look somewhat different (the project manager will have driven a jetski into it for starters). Also if all the dream is to come true as my best man predicts, will the bit of the dream where he takes me into a room and explains that what has just happened was a dream, also come true - I may get stuck in a time warp).
My third Metro column
was in the paper today, coincidentally as it happened on the day I had to return to the tailors to check on the progress of my suit. I was pleased to note that when I put the trousers on I found them a little bit loose. I may confound a tailor's expectations yet, though he did ask me to tuck my shirt in, as if that was what was making the difference. The jacket and the waistcoat were further away from completion than the trousers, but I quite liked the look, with no buttons and one suit arm missing and thread and tailor chalk everywhere. It was like an archaeological dig in reverse. You got to see the layers underneath before the thing became complete and finished. If I was a pop star I would go on Top of the Pops wearing a suit that wasn't yet finished. I wouldn't be a very exciting pop star. I don't think Lady Gaga has much to worry about.
More wedding things followed as we met up with our photographer in the hotel we're having the reception in and chatted through what things we might want photographed on the day. I would quite like to record the moment where I finally lose my virginity, but don't think my fiancee would be so keen. Not I suspect would the photographer be. Or he might give us some money off. If you don't ask you don't get.
Then a bit of wedding preparation which wasn't stressful or hard work for once - we got to sample possible dishes for the dinner and choose which ones our guests would get to eat. Ha ha ha. We got to sample loads of posh food for free (if you ignore the actual cost of the wedding). Ha ha ha ha. No such thing as a free wedding meal... you might be right.
I think that the way things are going I might be personally responsible for spending this country out of recession. What with my wedding, my house and my car hemorrhaging cash, the wheels of industry must surely be turning fast and a little whistle will be shooting out steam. But I have found debt to be a wonderful incentive to work. The only time I got lazy and didn't get much done was when I had some money in the bank, but when I spend it faster than I can earn it, then I have to get off my arse and get to work. No time to mourn lost projects - I have to find others that will pay for some new walls to be built at the back of my house and for my pollen filter to be changed on my car. Keep spending and keep working. That's the way back to making us prosperous again. But alas we live in a country where the poor have nothing to spend and the rich (many of whom got us into this trouble) decide to sit back on the stuff they've got. And that is why, children, the poor rose up and smited down the rich and took the stuff that the rich were greedily hanging on to. And then the poor became the rich and the rich became the poor and it didn't take the new rich long to forget what it had been like to be poor so the same thing repeated with the regularity of a swinging pendulum until the selfishness of the variously rich people destroyed the planet. The end.
That's why I like to keep the money flowing in and out so I can pretend that I am neither the rich man or the poor man who will become the rich man. But I am having chocolate torte for pudding on my wedding day, so you might call it differently.
If only we could all destroy the old and rebuild something new and better. But in the end we destroy the old and build something that is the same. Or just destroy the old and lay our weary bones amongst it to die.
And is there anything worse than the man who tries to side with the poor, when he is only poor because he has a house, a car, a tailor and a chocolate torte all down his face?
