Home on the Mange

We live in a mad old Eighteenth Century farmhouse with ivy smothering half it's features like a Green Mannish Veronica Lake,   flowers round the door  (triffids I think),   and an amazing array of native British wildlife at every turn.    My children being the wildest.     Naturally.

It has its charms and quirks.    As do we.    And its darker side.    As do we.    And bulls for neighbours.    As do they.

It's not all chocolate box.    There are a few orange creams in the ointment.    But there's always a way of finding one's hazelnut cluster.
      
We really can't open our front door now.    I've finally given up with the grunting and heaving and  'Be there uh in just a  uhh minute...can you push from your uhh....?  and now have to run round the back singing   'Coming Round the Mountain....'  at the sound of the Postie,   leaving them to face the sight of gurning naked paint-streaked demons pressed up against the windows.    But not feeling very Maria Von Trapp-like yesterday I decided to just open the blinkin' window.    It fell out.    Mostly.    Hanging on by one rusty hinge.    Had to bomb round the front anyway to wiggle and shove it back in with Minx on the inside hanging on to the dangly bits.

'OK.    Let's not open that again.'

Gurning  naked paint-streaked demons back on the bill.

We're also missing several kitchen cabinet doors.    Which is really much more colourful.

There are more broken window panes than complete ones.    Nice patterns through which to peer at erupting mole hills.    Kind of trippy.

The brown-ness under the kitchen lino,  and around the toilet and... well  -  the downstairs -  is growing and growing and growing.........    Brown  IS  the new black.    Well soon.... black will be the new black.   We stay on top of interior trends.    And always growing........

As is the mould on  -  yeah everything.    It has faces.    It's company when everyone's asleep.

The back gates are beyond worrying about.    I like to think of them more as a welcoming embrace  -  throwing their arms around the car as we scrape through into Larkin Land.

The walls keep.... sort of falling off.    No point hoovering really.    There's a comfort.

And the toilet has started refusing to dispose of poo again.    Probably something to do with the ancient drains that have had many a chin scratched about.    Entertainment with every visit.

But the slugs and the bugs and the kids seem happy.

  

The nice lady at the bank offered to try for a better Homes Insurance quote for me.    I pay about £8 or £9 a month roughly.    She rang me back later with a quote for about £33 a month.

'Is your house listed?'  she asked sweetly.






Yes it's in the Top 10 Most Fucked Houses of East Sussex.






'Let's go out.'




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The demolition appears to be catching.    Now even the car is joining in.    Down to me last hubcap.

Better hang on to my knickers.    Lord knows what else will collapse.