Lockley: Plenty of bright sparks in our house

Nov 9 2008 Sunday Mercury

EVERY evening I wander through our house switching lights off, which irks me greatly.

The family finds this routine eccentric and have dubbed me, ‘The Nightwatch Man’.

“Who was last in the bathroom?” I’ll bellow from upstairs.

When our son confesses - and it is always our son - I’ll snap: “You left the light on - again.”

Sometimes he’ll put forward a lame defence, such as, ‘I was going to go back in there’.

It doesn’t wash.

We’re all going to go back in the bathroom at some stage.

Most of us, however, have sufficient energy reserves to perform the mammoth feat of switching the light off and switching it back on again.

In years to come, our son will tell his kids about mad grandad’s habit of inspecting each room to ensure the ‘black out’ wasn’t breached.

If there is such a thing as ghosts, I’m going to return from the after-life to switch HIS lights on.

See how he likes it.

“It’s no big deal,” soothes my wife.

On its own, it is no big deal.

But it is one of a number of little deals that are pushing me towards mental meltdown.

I’m currently concerned about how much loo roll we’re using.

“You’re not going to start rationing it, are you, Dad?” mocked our son.

I’m concerned that a family bag of crisps purchased this morning was demolished by the afternoon - except for a single ‘salt and vinegar’ packet.

“You know I hate salt and vinegar,” I near sobbed.

I’m concerned that someone will leave the water heater on all night.

Sometimes I wake up in a cold sweat at 3am in the morning and inspect that too.

And I’m concerned that someone will fail to flush the toilet after them.

Eco wise, it’s swings-and-roundabouts, I suppose.

The energy squandered by letting the lightbulbs burn out is being saved in the bog.

“One day you’ll have something to really worry about,” chided my wife.

Like what?

“Like the fact the black mould on the bedroom ceiling has come back,” she blurted.

I held my head in my hands, rocked gently and whispered such grave news should be broken a tad more gently.

“Sorry,” she tutted in a display of false sympathy.

“You know our bedroom? You know the ceiling? You know that bloke we paid £300 to get rid of the black mould on it? Well, I think you should ask for your money back.”

I HATE committed home owners who helpfully point out bits of our house are wonky.

“Excuse me, did you know your fence panel is about to fall down?”

“Did you know some of your rooftiles are missing?”

“Did you realise there is a constant flow of water from that pipe over there?”

Of course I did, but I’m doing something about it. I’m taking Valium.

Why don’t you take it, too - then you won’t care, either.

I suspect there’s a poisonous brinkmanship behind the kindly acts: a veiled, ‘excuse me, I couldn’t help noticing you’re living in something of a hovel while my own property is in pristine condition’.

Yesterday him-over-the-road, who is so good at DIY he knocked up a bookshelf, then wrote seven novels to put on it, asked if I knew four saplings were growing out of my roof guttering.

I thanked the nosey neighbour, assured him I was fully aware of the situation, but pointed out I’m trying to gain a place in the Guinness Book of Records for the world’s longest window box.

If he purchased a pair of binoculars, he’d be able to take full avantage of the delightful array of mooning gnomes I’ve strategically placed in the piping.

That shut him up.

In truth, I was blissfully unaware.

In the rush to get from my car to the evening’s first glass of wine, I forget little things like conducting a comprehensive survey of the drains, pipes and guttering ouside our property.

“There are trees growing out of our guttering,” I babbled to my wife.

“What kind?” demanded my shocked Better Half.

Does it really matter?

“Well,” she explained, “if they’re oaks, they’ll need tree preservation orders. We’ll be stuck with them forever”

“YOU’RE riding the clutch! You’re riding the clutch! Listen to the bloody engine...fourth gear! Fourth gear!”

“Will you stop hitting the top of my leg, Dad.”

The hours spent teaching my son to drive have been among the most fraught of my life.

I experienced the same level of panic during a school trip to Ironbridge when I couldn’t find a toilet.

I didn’t sweat quite as much, though, but the gurgling in my nether-regions was the same.

Once I demanded to be let out of the vehicle, declaring: “I think I can walk to the pavement from here.”

The pine air freshener has been replaced by rosary beads and I’ve taken to clutching a St Christopher key ring.

Perhaps there’s a patron saint of learner drivers - a kind of St Christopher Jnr?

I’ve spent white-knuckle weekends on some desolate industrial park, accompanied by the hellish ‘musak’ from Joe’s CD: ‘drum and bass’, he calls it.

The metallic noise confuses me. It sounds like a forklift truck reversing.

“I think,” I hissed from the safety of the back seat, “we would do a lot better with that infernal racket switched off.”

Surprisingly, the teenager - somewhat ‘spooked’ after almost hitting a stationary conifer (I pointed out most conifers are stationary - it’s a ‘roots’ thing) - obliged.

“Don’t put your iPod in,” I snapped.

Joe reckons I’ve confused him by using technical jargon, such as ‘manoeuvre’, as in ‘mirror, signal, manoeuvre’.

He wants me to say, ‘mirror, signal, pedal to the metal’.

I tried it once, but the G-Force made me sick.

Today we are taking our first drive in the country.

I know this because we’ve past less panic-stricken people, and the women with pushchairs aren’t running for their lives.

The sound of crunching gears made quite a few sheep stampede, however.

“God - that was close,” I hissed as the car juddered to a halt inches away from two ashen faced pensioners and their Yorkshire terrier.

“As a matter of interest, why did you aim for that elderly couple?”

“I was avoiding a pheasant,” said Joe.

“Fifteen...sixteen,” I counted, mouthing apologies to the line of waiting vehicles on both sides, as our Astra again bounced off the kerb. “You are aware it’s supposed to be a three-point turn?” I asked the Learner.

“See that bloke with the beard in the first car?” I enquired of my son. “He was clean-shaven when we started this manoeuvre. And his dog wasn’t dehydrated.”

The problem with Joe is that he’s not relaxed: I can tell because it needs two of us to prise his fingers from the steering wheel at the end of a lesson.

“Breathe out slowly,” I urged him. “shake all the tension from those shoulders...that’s it. Now gently hold the steering while - that’s better.

Look carefully in the mirror. Indicate to the left...owww, what the hell did you strike me across the face for?”

“Sorry, Dad,” mouthed Joe, “I thought I was on my bike.”

I wiped the blood from my nose and regained my composure. “Now, let’s smoothly move onto the carriageway.”

Noooo!” I bellowed, “you’re in reverse.”

The Astra stopped inches from a parked car. “That was close,” said the vehicle’s relieved owner from the safety of his garden.

Not really. The incident with the sheep yesterday was close. I’m still plucking wool from the grill.

We also almost struck a pony last week, too, but I managed to veer our car away from the entrance of the gymkhana at the very last minute.

Those little girls looked frightened, I can tell you.

“Let’s try that again,” I urged my son. “But this time, I think I’ll deliberately inflate the airbags as a precaution.”

Julie reckons I need to show greater patience. “We’ve all had minor collisions,” she reasoned.

Not many with the backside of a sheep.

“Well, what was it doing on the road?”

It wasn’t. Joe took a wrong turn into its field - at 40mph.

If we hadn’t struck that water trough, we may have mown down the entire flock.

Joe fears he’ll never get the hang of driving.

I’ve assured him he will - he will demolish a number of landmark buildings and terrify individuals who once enjoyed gentle strolls in our country lanes in the process - but he will. One day it will be second nature.

“What? Hitting things?” he asked.

Last night I was ticked-off by the bloke who owns stables in our parish.

“May I remind you,” he boomed. “Of the courtesy motorists need to show towards people riding horses on roads. Yesterday you startled one of my animals.”

Red-faced, I apologised profusely and pointed out my son has just embarked on driving lessons.

“Your son’s driving was only part of the problem,” he sniffed. “It was the blood-curdling scream you emitted through the passenger window that caused my horse to bolt.”

BOMBSHELL news that I was ‘eyed-up’ by a Latin lovely during a recent working trip to Italy has concerned Julie greatly.

Friends claim I should not have told my wife, but we have no secrets: she’s too good at going through my pockets.

Thankfully, I managed to thwart the unwelcome advances before things got really serious... before I had to buy a round.

After weighing up the pros and cons, Julie has concluded any woman who finds me mildly attractive must harbour mental health issues.

To that end, she wants the locks changed in case the ‘bunny boiler’ - her words - pays an unexpected visit.

“Italian woman are very attractive,” I pointed out, “but tend to get fat bums in later life.”

“That would explain,” spat out she-who-must-be-obeyed, “why she was pursuing you.”