If you are not aware of my circumstances then you should catch up by reading some back pages. Suffice to say at this point that I have retired. What does 'Retirement' mean? Well I looked up the definition in the Cambridge Advanced Learner's Dictionary and it described it as "the period in someone's life after they have stopped working because they reached a particular age". Stopped working, that's the critical bit, can someone tell Christine.
As you should know we have just completed a major rebuild and extension of our cottage and every room requires decorating and the garden has to be completely restructured. At the moment I am laying a York Stone terrace outside the garden room. I have a mountain of York Stone at the bottom of the garden and two tons of sand at the other end and the terrace is in the middle. So which ever way I start to set the terrace out there is a lot of heavy work to be done.
Now look back to the definition of retirement "stopped working because they reached a particular age". Particular age that's the issue, I'm getting older. Unlike Christine who has been 45 for several years, I'm getting older each year. I accept this but still feel that this is a job within my capability. So I start setting out the edging strips, barrowing and levelling the sand, mixing sand and cement and laying the stones, picking them from the mountain as required. These stones are of course quite heavy to manhandle so doing this isn't easy but I make progress.
It is important to know that all the York Stone has been reclaimed from paths and patios that we had in the past and that Christine knows each one of the stones individually. Or so it seems. I am getting on OK when Christine pops outside from the warmth of the cottage where she is ploughing through another pile of design magazines no doubt thinking up more things for me to do.
She starts describing one particulat stone which used to be in one of our patios. "It has a sort of swimming pool for the birds in it" she says. This stone apparently has to be placed in the terrace at a point outside the Garden Room doors. My back aches, my arms ache, I'm cold, tired and quickly loosing the will to live. I ask how I can be expected to find one stone among the mountain. This didn't seem to be Christine's problem as she returned to the magazines. I stare at the mountain and consider getting the guys in.
Work in progress on the terrace:
The stone in question:
As you can see I found the stone. I calculated the cost of getting the guys in and decided to search the mountain. Only took a couple of hours, then again I have retired so I have nothing else to do. I learned a long while ago that Christine is usually right so disagreeing with her is pointless. I mix some more sand and cement and carry on laying stones. Soon be finished!
