The pool muppets

Warning bells should have gone off in my head when I chose our pool company. The overly brown skin, the shock of blond hair (head, chest AND eyebrow) which made it difficult to actually look directly at the pool provider should have alerted me to the fact that these men probably spent far too much time outside, staring at swimming pools, their skin turning to leather as they rubbed their chins, a look of bewliderment inching across their faces.

The saga started about 2 months ago. I was up to my neck in nappies at the time and (my brain dulled by a lack of sleep) and not very reactive, when our swimming-pool suppliers decided to spice up my world and show me that you don't have to have a newborn baby to suffer from debilitating brain fog.

2 years after signing the contract for the pool we were pleased that the liner was finally going in. It had been delayed for a few months due to the usual weather/gardener/illness...

After the liner had been put in place I called the owner of the pool company who said with great gusto and in a 'I'm a hero' voice,  'fill it up!'

After borrowing the neighbours hose (ours was the length of a ruler too short to reach the pool) and 3 days and 3 nights spent filling the pool up) we were almost bouncing off the walls with excitment at the thought of getting in!

Until... the pool man scratched his chin and said 'ah the pool lights have not been put in'...'you are going to have to empty the pool. The tubes for the wires are empty and lead straight down into your 'salle techniqie' have you checked if your basement is flooded! Oh no not again!

The pool man took great delight in telling me that all the cubic meters of water in the pool were pressing down on one small quivering valve, so to jump in the pool would be 'the straw that broke the camels back' and our basement would probably be flooded (again). It was a good thing he warned me of this as it was the only thing that stopped me pushing him in and holding him under.

The next day the boss of the pool company, let's call him... Senior Pool Muppet, called me to say I didn't have to empty the pool after all. I didn't bother asking why but was only half surprised when the doorbell rang the following morning and a pool boy clad in a scubber diving outfit presented me with his back and said 'Zip me up Scotty'.

They fitted the lights in place (well 1 of the 2 - the second one didn't have a long enough lead) and left saying I could fill the pool up to the middle of the skimmers (admitedly with less gusto then the previous day)

I did

The next morning the pool had lost about 50cm of water. The garden surrounding the pool however was swimming with water. It was like 'Wet and Wild' for the cats. Sadly cat's hate water so no one benefited.

The PM scratched his chin (it was starting to get quite white compared to the rest of his brown face) and said he would come back next Wednesday (because they only seem to work on Wednesdays between 10-11 and 2-3) but for us to watch it between now and then and report on any changes...

So we did...

TBC

Baby room

Ok so I dreamt that my baby had woodworm.

This was followed by fitful sleep mumblings with self about 'sending him back' and 'getting a refund' or 'would they send me a new one in time'... ?

This little 'nocturnal-molotov-dream-cocktail' must be a sign of the apprehension I'm feeling about the imminent arrival of our baby (in about a week) and the fact that my dad commented on our brand new table having woodworm holes all over it... and the fact that Maisons du Monde would not fix a mirror that they delivered with a missing hook because I waited 4 days instead of 3 to let them know about it...

After a few nights fitfull sleep I'm not sure which I prefer - the dreams of popping the baby in the microwave to warm him up or dreaming about looking at renovating huge $264 million mansions on lake Geneva which are dilapidated and in desperate need of doing up and turning a profit on A.S.A.P! Both leave me with a light coating of sweat on waking.

Feels like a lot of things have been 'under construction' inside and outside my body over that last year and I guess it's sinking in that they are now culminating and coming together - ready to be lived to the full and that the dust is settling yet there are still so many loose ends left to tie up!

At least the nursery is ready. It's a bit pink for a boy... but I'm counting on the fact that he won't notice that until he's old enough to be playing in other boys more appropriately 'boy-coloured' bedrooms. Failing that I can buy time pretending not to understand him until he can properly enunciate in the queen's very best english 'Yuk mummy what were you thinking when you were decorating my bedroom - change it, change it NOW or forever call me Wendy!

And considering he will be learning at least 2 languages from day 0+, I'm guessing that this will buy me about 4 years before I need to get the painters in and have to deal with the actually living nightmare of having them work their 'magic' on our walls again!

There is an evil genie in my house!

It's a new year! whoppee!

But then why does my laundry smell like it was washed in 18th Century Thames water?! Every time I put on a load to dry a mouldy smell seeps out, under the buanderie door in the sous-sol and even graces the 1st floor thanks to the laundry shoot which goes straight up from the buanderie up into our bathroom, ensuring every inch of our house smells like an old sponge.

After a number of bothersome events I can only conclude that there is an evil/bored genie roaming freely around the house who was bothered when it's little green house was knocked down and is now intent on testing my patience in the house that took it's place.

The Miele man has been called for the 3rd time to sort the washing machine smell out - last time he told me I shouldn't use softner - as modern machines couldn't handle it and it goes mouldy. I must have spent too long putting up christmas decorations to have a functioning brain and so I nodded vacantly and stopped using softner. But 15 'softner free' washes later my clothes still smelt mouldy and now that the christmas haze has lifted from my brain what he said has actually clicked - I finally feel like I've been hit in the face with a wet smelly sock when I recall his moronic explanation and (more worryingly) my lobotomised reaction to it!!!

I have also called the service des eaux - with a sudden fear that maybe all out water has been badly channeled (thinking back to the flood which has still not been sorted out under the house) and that our drinking water is in fact waste water... and our infant is going to emerge looking like something from Shrek...

I've put on load after load of washing this morning because I want the house to REALLY STINK so as to make my point clear without having to speak too much when they come over this afternoon.

The other thing the genie has gone and done is put a charm on the light switch in the loo on the ground floor. On Christmas eve she put a spell on the switch meaning it could not be turned off, thus ensuring that the statue of buddah (perched in his niche in the back wall) is eternally illuminated.

It feels too wrong to repeatedly bash the light switch with one's fist, making small screeching noises with buddah looking on, so this practice in meditation will have to be exercised until the cheeky spirit or the project manager reappear - (and I honestly wouldn't be surprised if the genie materialised first...). We'll just have to make the most of the permanent light being on in that particular loo and being enlightened in all possible ways in the process, hopefully having reached a state of the ultimate zen before being handed the whopping great big electricity bill at the end of the month!

While I'm at it I'm also going to blame the genie for putting my one and only Ralph Lauren woollen dress in a hot wash and shrinking it to the size that may fit our newborn - were it not that he is a boy...  though after consideration babies look gender-free for the first few weeks so maybe there is still some mileage in it after all...

Any mantra's to appease evil genies welcome... before I call Ghostbusters!

Building home: Happy thoughts...

Building home: Happy thoughts...: 'Tis the season to be jolly and grateful and look back fondly over the year and draw from it the positive wadding, the soft and fluffy compo...

Happy thoughts...

'Tis the season to be jolly and grateful and look back fondly over the year and draw from it the positive wadding, the soft and fluffy components which we will use to stuff the pillow on which we will lay our heads on new years eve in anticipation of the coming year.

So I'm doing positive boot camp... especially as Karma has a way of noting where our energies lie and throwing us more of the things we obsess about... so that's me done complaining about the house for 2011 - I will turn my thoughts to positive notions - in the hope that those will multiply instead, leaving me in 24 days with the makings of one very full soft 2012 cushion on which to rest my head!

So I will not complain about the flood we had downstairs after the rain... that seeped up through the floors of our 'salle technique' and crept through the carpets and up the freshly painted walls, leaving them to bubble like the Jokers face after an acid face mask... I won't even go into the fact that it didn't turn out to be Sweet Rain Water but Dirty Waste Water instead... from our neighbors very own W.C.'s... speckled with loo paper...

or the fact that the (previously much loved) gardener stopped the garden wall 8 meters before the edge of our land because in some confusion (known and understood only by him) he had changed the measures in the budget estimate from 'linear meters' to 'square meters', reached the agreed budget about 8 meters short and decided to stop there without pointing out the 'pink elephant in the corner' of a mistake.

I will look upon the painter not protecting the floors as he waved his white paintbrush about as a blessing - allowing me to now have to do quite as much xmas decorating as it already looks like it's been snowing inside!

I will however look at my cute white fluffy cats sitting on the sexy new kitchen stools we bought and think how kittens are everything that is right with the world, how lucky I am to have them around to make me laugh when things are getting tough (as they chew on the painters socks as he asks me for the 90th time what's left to be done), to remind me that the interior furnishings are comfortable as they lay there on their backs, their eyes half open and rolling into the back of their heads in bliss... The fact that each time I see them lying on the floor I am reminded that someone did finally manage to come and turn the heating down and they are no longer suffering from singed paws. That though things go wrong - they eventually come right again (after a little graceful shouting).

I will go to bed mindful that every bump in the road is a lesson on how to handle the difficult things in life, each issue a wave you ride differently every time, taking from each trough and crest lessons on how to deal with the next one. That the most important thing is to make sure you keep your eye on the horizon.

And with that thought in mind I will keep focusing on my little cute felines and hope that karma will keep throwing tiny balls of white fluff at me, of the feline (not the toilet paper) variety...

Building home: The electrician has just left the building...

Building home: The electrician has just left the building...: The electrician has just left. He managed to come on the wrong day, put the lights up incorrectly, not manage to put one light up at all a...

The electrician has just left the building...

The electrician has just left.

He managed to come on the wrong day, put the lights up incorrectly, not manage to put one light up at all and disconnect the internet while ON the phone to the Swisscom helpline trying to sort out my internet connections issues. He then announced he had to go as it was late and left me sitting on the floor of my entrance hall - connected to the outside world by nothing but a weakly pulsing disfunctioning yellow internet cable.

Last week his boss (the chief electrician) came over and proceeded to tell me that he was in hospital the day before as his heart is about to explode due to all the stress - and that he could literally have a heart attack or stroke at any given moment.

It didn't seem like the best time to challenge him on the estimate he had sent me which had inflated 3 times the quoted amount between our telephone call and the written estimate I he had sent me by email. Despite my anticipated new years resolution for being more gracious, I defaulted to the route of lesser tact and said that actually his price quote had very nearly had the same effect on me and could he give me the name of his specialist.

He kept smiling which I put down to the great drugs his Dr. must have put him on - but as soon as I had said it I made a mental note to enter the 'Be Gracious 2012!!!' memo into my phone, once and for all...