I'm temporarily overhoused

and life will be complicated for a while as I shuttle between a south London house with no pets and the ongoing north London house of marauding all-shapes-and-sizes cats.

both homes are loaded with terrors - in trying to balance which is the most terrifying I came up with a point system:

North London

cats that I need to keep alive - 50

pirate cats that want to come in and pee on my stuff - 20

shaky stacks of stuff that could avalanche at any time - 20

knobs and handles that drop off when I touch them - the toll so far includes the fridge handle, 2 X light switches, 2 parts of the lavatory flush system and the lavatory seat  which is trying to make up for it's wobbliness by being fluorescent - 20

levels of extreme unhygienic uncleanness that I keep noticing in my peripheral vision  - 50

terror toll = 160

South London

super neat squeaky clean (like in a hospital) - 50

highly burglarable - 50

a neighbour who is prone to run through the hallway and jump the fence into his own garden in his dressing gown  if the front door is left open -  minus10

there is no kettle here: the hot water tap does that function and will spurt steaming-boiling water if  you use one hand to pump the middle of the tap three times then twist the pumpy thing while holding a mug under the spluttering stream of lava - 500

terror toll = 590

when i placed my jeans inside the freezer yesterday

   i discovered a tub of christmas pudding ice cream ...   

it's not there any more

First thing this week

I was in London visiting a woman who wanted someone to take care of her house while she went away - we got on like a house on fire - it seemed that we had an arrangement ...

... but then her girlfriend turned up and did not like the look of our house on fire at all, no ma'am. Cigar clamped between her teeth she made sure that I would not like to be in this house one moment longer.


Second thing this week I found myself painting two bathrooms for money, one is the colour of dulchey de lechey and the other is mermaid-tail-shiny-green

Wax Print

Callooh! Callay! the owners of the Val Doonican house returned and, finding it unburgled, I was rewarded with a length of African wax printed cotton - one I can eat should I get hungry.

Plant Protection

 

The Val Doonican house was too disturbing after I dissolved through the neighbour’s walls last week so I went back home to resume the fight with my own burglars.

I took  my paintings to a place that said they wanted paintings to hang up but the guy there didn’t like them,  I started leaving but just before I had my coat on properly I said to the guy, ‘I make photographs too’ and  showed him my photographs on my phone and he said ‘I like those, let’s have them’.

My friends are returning to the Val Doonican house soon so I went there with bread and cake and took my rotting macaroni cheese out of their fridge.

Today I received a gift of purple sprouting broccoli – too pretty to eat I have placed it in a vase on the table.

Burglars vs Neighbours

My friends have gone on holiday and I am guarding their house - any burglars will have to fight me before making off with the Val Doonican record collection. This is a relief from having to be at my own house fighting burglars wanting to steal the submarine propeller that I foolishly told the world about last weekend.

The novelty of someone else's home - how long it takes to find a bottle opener/saucepan/spoon and of course I fingered all their lovely things - occupied me for the first couple of days but as I got settled in I became increasingly aware of the closeness of the neighbours; initially I just noticed the tantrums and door slams but then I could hear sneezes, conversations, door clicks ever more clearly.

Last night I went to bed and sleep and woke with a start and ran to the kitchen sure that I must've left the oven on because I smelt burning but I hadn't and then back to bed I smelt that smell even stronger as though the walls had dissolved and I had actually moved in with the people next door.