A peaceful evening by the sea once more. The sound of the seagulls in the dusk, something that feels like an ancient sound, but of course there are more of them here now than there would have been before the invention of chips.
I don’t think we would have driven up to Stanmer had we realised that Brighton were playing Ghent tonight, but we did so and went for a late afternoon walk up a hill and into some woods. It was only when we were about to drive out through the university that we saw all the football shirts and turned around just in time to avoid the gridlock outside the stadium.
I’ve enjoyed this peaceful day or so with Lou, more for her company than anything else. And Tessy, who is extremely boundaried but carries peace with her. There are workers in the block and last night they were full of vodka using power tools in the flat below us at ten pm. I can hear them now down there again and it’s coming up to nine. I’m hoping we don’t have to go downstairs and look stern again. They’ll just ignore us anyway. But they’re behind and they’ve got the new landlord on their backs about it. They live in the block for the refurb so their hours are elective. It’s a strange life but they’re handy lads despite the vodka. And the late night power tools.
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Reflecting back, something of a new moment today regarding my mechanical prowess or lack thereof. There’s something weird going on with the push button ignition in Lou’s car. It has been since she’s owned it. I don’t like these arrogant electronics, like the fact you can’t lower the windows manually in modern vehicles so you’re fucked if you drive into a lake. All these YouTube videos telling us how to break the windows? Or a handle you can turn.
Lou’s vehicle is lovely but it’s trying to do it all for you. And it all goes wrong sometimes. I had to force the back window down in Wales once when the key ran out of battery and wouldn’t open the door. We pushed the ignition and the engine tried but wouldn’t catch. It’s a common problem. Apparently all you have to do, Lou tells me, is get your hands in that bit and fiddle with those wires.
Reader, I fiddled with the wires and lo and behold the car was fixed.
I once had a plumber teach me how to reignite the pilot light on the boiler using a match. Never blew myself up or poisoned anyone, saved us thousands on callouts as I did it about fifteen times before finally replacing the thing. Lou had an AA guy point those wires out. Good on him. I’m always up for fixing things. We don’t do enough of it these days cos the market doesn’t want us to, and that’s another contributing factor to the world turning on us. I’m sure those idiots are already saying the Nepal thing is just an isolated incident and not pointing out any trend, just as they did with the heatwave, just as they still will play that fucking fiddle as we sink.
