Decorating a tree on the unfinished minstrels’ gallery was an appealing idea if only for the health and safety violations. The little lodger was up for it and between the two of us we heaved the six-foot tree to the kitchen, preparing to hoist it aloft.
As things stand, the gallery above the kitchen doesn’t have a railing. Or floorboards. A railing would only have made it more difficult to get the tree up there. But floorboards are probably a basic requirement when one is planning to stand a tree on a three-foot wide mezzanine, ten feet up in the air.
So, as the little lodger watched in mute horror, I pulled out all the old reclaimed floorboards I had stacked in the cellar ready for the carpenter to fit and began pushing them up there.
She held the ladder as I climbed up and pushed the boards into place over the plasterboard and joists. I tried to drill them down but the screws wouldn’t go in. I tried nailing them down but I couldn’t drive the nails in.
‘Maybe they’ll be alright like that?’ the lodger said forlornly, as I brandished a drill in one hand and a hammer in the other like a menopausal version of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre.
‘Yes, you’re right,’ I said, passing the tools back down.
The loose floorboards actually sat quite nicely and only once or twice did I stand on them in the wrong place, flipping myself into the air when they slipped off the joists.
The lodger passed me up a square piece of MDF for a corner, which fitted quite neatly. Then it was time to heave the tree up.
The lodger is barely five feet tall but she pushed that wrapped tree up the ladder like a trooper.
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