30 degrees is the forecast.
Steve is in the garden next door knocking nails into the frame of the shed he is building – his ‘man cave’ – with Queen’s ‘Greatest Hits’ playing loudly.
‘I want it all, I want it all, and I want it now.’
I want a hammer, I want a hammer, to beat the brains out of his skull (and paint the walls of his cave with them).
Why doesn’t he just get a good plastic, easy to assemble shed from the garden centre? It would match his ASDA gnomes and fake grass.
The neighbours on the other side are having their garden landscaped. It’s been three weeks of dust, the rumble of the cement mixer, endless comments about the ‘fucking heat’ from the builders, the ear piercing cutting of paving slabs, and Radio 2 competing with Bohemian Rapsody.
Centre piece of the creation is a man-sized reproduction of Michelangelo’s David.
There was a disagreement about the placing or not of a fig leaf.
‘It is an accurate reproduction’, said John, who is a professor at Kent University, ‘and not a Victorian copy disfigured by the prudery of that age’.
Michael his partner, at least ten years younger (and the rest), thought that it should stay covered. ‘Someone’s going to complain about their kids going to school and being scarred for life at the sight of David’s genitals. And anyway, if it were a faithful copy, it would be at least seventeen feet tall.’
Beyond the garden fence they are building the last of the houses in phase 1 of a ‘tremendous new development of three, four and five bedroom homes for professional people’.
Covid has delayed the construction and benefited the builders in terms of the asking price. It was hit or miss at one point whether any development would go ahead. The tree huggers said they had found a colony of great crested newts – I think it was newts, it may have been some other endangered species that doesn’t stand a chance. It went all the way to court and was dropped. One of the key witnesses found out that her ‘green’ boyfriend had been shagging another ‘green’ from the temporary camp they had established. She spilled the beans and said that they ‘introduced’ the newts to the site because her ex-boyfriend’s mother ‘lived in the big house over the way and didn’t want the view spoiled by the new development.’
Bloody Greens. I’d burn car tyres in the back garden before I would vote for them.
The only good thing to come out of that whole sorry mess was when Huw Edwards from the BBC turned up to cover the story. I got his autograph. And I got my photograph standing with him published on the ‘development’ (yes, we have a development, not an estate) Facebook page.
Fame is fleeting.
My likes were soon overtaken by a photograph of two women walking with a horse.
‘WARNING. These two women were seen leading a horse through our development and talking to the children. DO U NO WHO THEY R?’
Really?
So the local child molesters are now wandering around enticing children with horses?
That story was quickly replaced by the next latest campaign. Plans have been submitted to build social housing, aka ‘affordable homes’, at the furthest end of the development, next to the soon-to-be-built-promised-for-three-years-and-its-still-a-muddy-hole-playing-field. Lots of residents are complaining on FB. ‘It will damage the character of the development’. ‘House prices will be adversely affected’ (you can tell we are a development of professionals). ‘They will mix with our children in the play park’ (between the abusers on horseback and the druggies from the new estate the kids don’t stand a chance). ‘The infrastructure can’t cope with any more cars’ (assuming those in the affordable homes can actually afford cars – no SUVs and definitely not electric).
I so love the hot weather.
One Pagers 