Now I know how the Karate Kid felt. Two hours after I began oiling the newly laid deck in my garden, I could barely move my arms.
Wax on, wax off, I kept repeating. I knelt until I had rib marks in my knees so deep they looked as though they might never come out.
After eight boards, the muscles in my right arms were bulging. I tried swapping the brush to the other hand, but that took too long so I gave up. Wax on, wax off. I would have to have one big muscled right arm and a scrawny left one. As long as someone attacks me from that side, I can block them with my right hand.
The hours passed, the sun went down. I oiled my way to the door just in time for nightfall. ‘Start at the far end and work to the door,’ the keeper had instructed me before he left me with the pot of oil.
‘Yes, Mr Miyagi,’ I said.
I have decided to finish the house myself. Or rather, to be more specific, I have decided to ask the keeper to help me do it myself, which the keeper says means something else entirely.
I made a list of the jobs outstanding. Re-point the front of the house. Paint the front of the house. Colour? Get samples. Patio?
The keeper sent me to B&Q for sand. I already have 25 bags of cement stacked in the front garden. No one knows why I have so much. No one knows why I have 35 breeze blocks, or 50 engineering bricks or 100 soft reds.
After the Albanians left, I had 25 giant plasterboards stacked in the dining room and about 50 sacks of British Gypsum. No one knew anything about those either.I
Comments
Join the debate for just £1 a month
Be part of the conversation with other Spectator readers by getting your first three months for £3.
UNLOCK ACCESS Just £1 a monthAlready a subscriber? Log in