Bathrooms and Barbeques
The bathroom at Hannen Road was on the second floor but after spending a second or two treading the boards you got the feeling it had an unnatural urge to join the kitchen on the first. I've never been one who's been much into architecture but this place was old. At a guess I'd say over a hundred years, but judging by the sickly blue paint job it could quite easily of had another fifty years on top of that. Does that make it Victorian? Buggered, if I know, but I made a mental note to read up on these things. The bath was a baby room blue although the mildewy residue all but covered the original colour. The water pressure came in two categories - off and trickle. I pumped it up to trickle and set about my morning tasks. I've never been a shower singer in the past but this morning I mysteriously broke into the chorus of 'somewhere over the rainbow', before realising it's significance. Spooky!
As I toweled myself off, searching the mirror for a semblance of my former self, I came to the realisation for the first time that there was carpet on the bathroom floor. Yes, carpet, in a bathroom. The whole definition of bathroom reeks of water and general wetness, so what sort of sane people would think it wise to lay carpet. The Brits, that's who. Sure, they've got comedy down pat, Monopoly gets the big thumbs up and their record in two world wars is undeniable, but fucking carpet in the bathroom. I needed a lie down. I was thinking far too much. Too much time alone will do that to a man.
Although feeling remarkably better than when I went in, I emerged from the bathroom a confused man. Rainbows, carpet, it had only just passed nine.
After another cup of coffee I set about my task for the day - finding a job. This time I went straight for the TNT, a weekly publication aimed at the Antipodean traveller market, that listed amongst other things, a hell of a lot of employment agencies.
I spent the next five hours dialing, chatting web design, listening to soft rock ballad holding music, faxing from the local library and generally coming across as the most employable man on earth. It was now simply just a matter of time. The waiting game. Personally, speaking as a procrastinator, the waiting game is one of my favourites. It's right up there with Scrabble and Pictionary. I was good at it and the longer it went on, the better I became.
Tut came home around four thirty and decided it was barbecue weather. The day had picked up markedly from its ominous beginnings so who was I to argue.
'Shall I do beer run?', I asked, as Tut set his mind to slicing spuds.
'Think we're right for beer mate. Still got four cases left over from France. Bit light on in the Alchypop department though, might want to stock up.'
'What about tucker?'
'Could do with some snags, chops and burgers and you better get a tub of potato salad or something for the vegos.'
'Ten four good buddy'.
And with a twenty in my pocket from the kitty I headed off toward the supermarket. It was a lovely sunny afternoon and with my hangover a distant memory and at least a dozen employment agencies on my case there was a spring in my step.
I made a beeline for the butchers thinking that I might be able to do a good deal on the meat and therefore win respect and admiration from my new flat mates. I came away with a mound of flesh high enough to right off a small Japanese car if it where it placed in a pile on the road, and the realisation that butchers are perhaps the most friendly people on earth. I think I'd find it hard to smile with my fingers two knuckles deep up a chickens bottom, knowing there was three dead pigs and half a cow hanging from hooks in the room out back. But that's just me.
