Furniture Jigsaw Puzzle

Furniture Jigsaw Puzzle ©

By Michael Casey

You can buy anything on the Internet and have it delivered to you, and you get a good price. Though there is one snag, certainly if you are buying furniture, it does not arrive as you see it on your screen, on the Internet, no it arrives like a jigsaw puzzle. What I mean is its all flat-packed and you have to grunt and groan and curse your way through it till it is assembled.

As I have a funny stairs I had to have pine beds as ordinary beds just would not fit up the stairs, I did want a pine bed anyway but to have to assemble it was a small challenge. A pine bed is one thing as it is just a rectangle with slats in the middle, however when you move to different items of furniture it does get more complicated.

My bed was a success, and I remember my mother launching herself onto the mattress, all 15 stones plus of her, to prove we had built it properly. It was only 3 days later that the shop discovered they had forgotten the central support. Other than that the bed lasted over 20 years, my children were conceived in it. I can remember as a child how you used to need a spanner, as the beds were made of metal with a spring section attached with enormous and very heavy head boards.

So we have all progressed with our pine beds that are nice to look at and to sleep in. Though I must say the mattress should cost at least double the cost of the actual bed, I am heavy so maybe I’m prejudiced, but as a rule of thumb I think I’m right. As my dad used to say, buy rubbish and you end up paying more as you buy twice. So save money by buying quality, and you can get quality from the most unexpected sources, so don’t be a shop snob, though having said that I do have my favourite store.

So the thing arrives and you tear open the box, I used to use a pen from my computer desk, here in front of me from where I’m talking to you from. Until I kept on breaking the pens, so I advanced to a box cutter, you can open anything in seconds.  Then you spill everything on the floor and kick something under a chair, it takes half an hour to find it, you curse and curse and blame the cat, until finally you find it.

Or that used to be the way I did things, nowadays I’m like a surgeon, I open and lay out the bits, the screws and Alan Keys , the wood and metal bits. The long and the short and the round bits, and any other weird and wonderful parts to my set of drawers or office chair or bed, or whatever it is. Once laid out, a bit like cutlery at a state banquet, I begin. At a banquet I believe you start at the outside and work your way to the inside, and remember not to wipe your mouth on your cuffs.

As for making an office chair you just follow your nose, and never read the instructions, does anybody ever read assembly instructions. They may as well include a bag of sweets instead of the instructions, nobody ever reads them. Until things go wrong, or at the very end to see why you have 4 extra screws and where on earth should they go. Or just to hold up the instructions defiantly and spit in them and throw them in the bin, you are a winner, who needs instructions, or pictographs that only Egyptians from 4000 years ago would understand, and was it them who invented Ikea in the Valley of the Kings.

Carpet Buying for Beginners

Carpet Buying for Beginners ©

By Michael Casey

We have decided we have, as in have to buy a new carpet. I carpeted the whole house six months after I moved in, but that was 28 years ago, when I was single and without any wife and kids. When I could both do as I pleased, and could then afford to. Kids and a wife do shrink your life and lifestyle, and your wallet, so now approaching 2016 a new carpet just has to be bought.

You can cheat by buying a rug from Argos, a ½ price rug, then throw it over the worn out Axminster where lazy feet and elephants have made a hole in you lovely carpet. I did do this, only I quickly realised the rug wasn’t big enough, it was like a badly fitting wig or rug that  Nick from down Bingo has as he holds the microphone close to call out the numbers, as if he were some famous BBC reporter. Anyway our floor is bigger than Nick’s head, so I improvised and put the small rug in the other room in front of the computer, where there were far smaller wear marks.

I then went online, with the small rug under my feet as I surfed Argos and bought a bigger rug. Perfect to cover all the wear and tear, and elephants in our living room. Then I reserved my purchase before going up the road to Argos. Luckily it wasn’t too heavy so I could carry it on my shoulder down the road to our house.

And have it installed as a fait accompli on our living room floor before the wife got home from church. If I was lucky she’d drive to Waitrose so I’d get a free Sunday newspaper and a luke-warm coffee, which I could spill on our new rug.

This was a year or so ago, so now another wear or almost tear mark has appeared in the traffic area next to our fridge and galley kitchen. So there is no alternative but to buy a new full wall to wall carpet, you cannot put elbow patches on carpets and say its trendy, though an old coat of Prince Charles’s may do.

I trawled through the Internet and finally decided on one, now I had to persuade the Shanghai wife, this involves going all around the houses until she decides that her decision is best. Then you point out that her choice is 50% dearer than yours, then she notices the price and colour of mine is almost the same as hers. So she accepts the decision I made 3 days previously, just changing the colour, otherwise we are in agreement.

Now the debate over who is to pay, I pay, you pay, no I pay, no you pay, no I pay, yes you pay, ok I pay. And so she will, with my money. We should have a Chinese chancellor, the Shanghai girl is always good with money, it must be true she always tells me so.

So now we await the man to measure up. The thing to remember is that underlay must be bought with decent carpet. And underlay may cost £6 a square metre  and higher, which some people may only pay on their carpet on the floor price. Never forget the carpet fitter and all his gripper too, the fitter is £90 or so.

I remember sitting in a new dentists once, the carpet has grooves and hills in it, more like a sand dune which had been blown by the wind. It was almost paper thin too with no underlay, and it was on top of concrete, neither the carpet nor the dentists lasted very long.

I have laid a carpet or too, and romping on carpet is nice too, provided there is enough support beneath. So if you want to spare your bum use a good underlay and fitter.  

Christmas 2015 and I'm still here

Christmas 2015 and I’m still here ©

By Michael Casey

This is the Christmas I could have missed, but the heart people at City and QE hospitals sorted me out. So I’m still here to bore you all. I can remember chasing DM and Vincent up our road after we had served Midnight Mass. Throwing  snowballs at the pair of them. Vincent was a happy man though a little slow, he died early. But that night he used his umbrella to protect him from the snow balls.

DM raced away and nearly fell on his bum, we chased after him, Vincent was just relieved that he was not getting any more snowballs thrown at him, so he put his umbrella down only to get hit in the face. DM got to the sanctuary of his front door, put I shot a final snow ball at him as the door closed, it bounced off the wall and hit his mum in the face.

Those were the days 45+ years ago. Danny and his sister both went on to Oxford, their dad was a Labour supporting bus driver. Danny later joined the Diplomatic Service and went to South Africa before later running for Parliament, and only just losing by a few 100 votes, he was a Tory by the way. My big brother was already at Oxford, and my other brother later went to Cambridge, our dad was a blacksmith and spent 40 years in the steelworks in Smethwick.

But then it always seemed we had cold and ice and snow. I’d go to bed and listen to A Christmas Carol on the World Service, tears streaming down my face. Our mother would be stitching up the turkey ready for the feeding of the 5000 in the morning. Really it was only 13, the family plus the lodgers. Through Jean the cat once stole a bite from out huge turkey, so mum cut a bit  out and the turkey went in the oven.

Another Christmas, I was maybe 25, a week or so before perhaps, the snow was heavy and part of the chimney came down, so we called the Fire Brigade. I had made a big snowman, so the Brigade put their spotlight on top of the snowman and pointed it up at what was left of the chimney. Just like 20^th Century Fox at the start of the films. Then dad punished a bottle of whisky and gave the fire crew Irish tea and Irish coffee. They lost track of their lump hammer in the darkness, so came back the next morning to collect it.

Christmases were full of such memories, as we got older mum or dad would not come to the Midnight Mass as they were too tired. Then we had moved out so I’d hitch a lift with my sister, and go to Midnight Mass together. Afterwards we’d have late night fish and chips and exchange good wishes. Simple innocent things, age reaching out to us, now I have children of my own and they sing as we have sung in our youth.

The presents don’t matter a damn, it’s the chasing your neighbour up the road throwing snowballs which is important. Its hearing the carols at Christmas, and remembering your dead parents, it is The Silent Night, it’s the smell of the incense and the candles.

It’s getting a hug from old  Mrs D & Mrs M, your mother’s old best friends, both now over 90. It’s thinking back to your old innocence and faith, to your hope beyond reason. Its asking God to polish you as you are in need of cleaning. And most of all its realising every morning is a new dawn, and yes there is no need to ask as the Light is always switched on.

The Washing Line

The Washing Line ©

By Michael Casey

See number 29 she always hangs her bloomers next to the hedge hoping nobody can see her droopy drawers, how can her bum be that big? I suppose its age, she must be 60 now. Though she puts so much makeup on she looks like a china doll in a Christmas stall. She still loves her fish net tights, she hangs those right in the middle so all the neighbours can see. There’s still life in the old girl yet.

Then there’s no.35 he’s so sad, everything droops, his moustache, his eyebrows his baggy trousers, I wonder what makes them droop so much. Probably stones, he’ll  throw himself in the canal, I’m sure of it. All his clothes are so drab, doesn’t he know how to use the washing machine, his mother must have taught him before she died.

His neighbour next door fancies him, she’s always putting out her enormous bras for him to see, like a trap. And those things just like laces with a small handkerchief attached, she always has them on the line. Why she fancies Mr Drab I’ll never know. It’s just like Jack Spratt and Mrs Spratt. If ever he looked up and saw her longing for him, they’d break that 4 poster bed she has in her back bedroom, the one with the sexy red lacy curtains. I can’t quite see what see has on the walls but I’m sure it’s something bad, in a good way if you know what I mean.

What about Mrs Mean who has one of those spinning washing lines, I really hate her, she looks like that woman in the cartoon about the hen house. She wears lots of shinny jewellery, the Magpies are always dive bombing her trying to get it off her. They should just pooh on her, she’s so cruel to that little dog of hers.

Well the sun is shining and the wind is blowing, it’s a good day for the drying. Hey look what’s happened, that big red bra has broken away, it’s flying like a kite in the sky, it’s landed straight in Mr Drab’s face. Miss Big Bra is clambering over the fence, he’s handing it back to her. She’s kissing him on the cheek to thank him. Mr Drab is smiling, she’s inviting him in for tea.

Finally at last he has noticed her, his mum always said she was a good girl. They’ve finished their tea, she’s taking him upstairs to her boudoir. Move over let’s look through the window. She is a good girl, a very good girl, but when she’s bad she’s even better. A match made in Heaven, all it took was a bit of wind.

So we’ve spied on everybody, shall we do something else now? Yes let’s swoop down and pooh on all the washing, we are pigeons after all.      

Ballet and Life

Ballet and Life ©

By Michael Casey

Well I hope you all liked last night's middle of the night post. I got a good few views on my other site, but if sex is in the title that tends to happen even if it’s not about sex after all. I’m not in such acute pain today, the Saturday before Christmas, so we had a family day of eating Toblerone and watching a docudrama about Rudolf Nureyev. It was really good and follows on from my girls seeing their first ballet.

We also heard the sad news that a neighbour has died of a heart attack, he was a couple of years younger of me.  His kids are the same ages as ours and go to the same school. Made us think of my situation almost a year ago now. I suppose it was not my time to go. I told my wife she should treasure me, or think of the insurance money. If I had known the pain levels after a triple bypass which turned into a quadruple I may have taken my chances without having it. Though it’s the arthritis which is the biggest bastard coming back to tease and haunt me.

My big daughter, who wants to be a doctor, say’s I have to wait around for her little sister to get her PhD in English or something. Their cousin got a double first in English in York and is now doing her Masters in Birmingham, any job offers for her direct to the University. Though I prefer if you go to www.michaelgcasey.typepad.com and help me seek my fortune on the radio and teaching English via comedy, I really want a nice house and a dog before I do die.

It is nice that me and the girls have found another thing to share, ballet not Toblerone. I can see my small daughter’s mind growing at such a fast pace, it’s wonderful, she will outpace me in 3 or 4 more years. Intelligence is speed of thought, not age or how much you know, it’s the speed of your engine. My wife’s uncle who was a Political Editor in Shanghai and then worked in USA, he said my small daughter really was so quick, and he’s right. So it’s my job that she stays Silly too, never be so serious that you forget to have fun too.