When we arrived at this house, 25 years ago, the dark and spiderous loft was billed as ‘boarded’.
This may have been a big fat lie, depending, as so many things do, on your point of view. If you were the seller, a person who had thrown eight planks of wood up through the loft trapdoor, so that they lay, under the influence of gravity, on the rafters, then ‘boarded’ may have been an adequate description. If, however, you were the buyer, putting stuff up through the trapdoor by means of one of you standing on a ladder handing heavy things to the other one balancing precariously on exactly the middle of a loose plank, then ‘boarded’ did not really cover it. In fact boarded did not cover it in the same way as the boards did not cover the loft much but instead clustered in the middle square metre of the random rafters.
So, a mere quarter of a century later, we finally got round to doing something about it, encouraged by the knowledge that the Son and Heir to all this junk may need to come back home temporarily and cannot get into his former bedroom, which has been a store room for the detritus of ten years of flat life, ever since he left.
When he and his dad were happily laying new flooring on Saturday over the far end bit that we insulated a couple of years ago, all was well because I just let them get on with it. Where I went wrong was in responding to the the plea of my other half yesterday. The S&H was working, so it was just one lone sad, puzzled little voice that drifted down from the roof.
‘Jane, can you come and look at this?’
The correct response is ‘No.’
So it was that I found myself five minutes later, balancing on the floor boards, giving advice. Taking a step backwards over the mare’s nest of electrical cables, saw horse, power tools, boxes of screws, metre long rulers, bits of paper with drawings, levels, squares and both my garden kneelers, that inevitably accompanies DIY, I fell foul of the loose boards and, under the twin influences of leverage and gravity had a very interesting moment or two.
How glad I am that I work out and have useful muscles and well developed balance!
How stupid I am that having mercifully failed to plummet through the ceiling, I did not retreat through the trap and keep mine shut.
‘Oh,’ said I, suddenly appointing myself the health and safety at work expert, ‘this is dangerous. You need to screw the old floorboards down first, so there’s a stable base to work from.’
Oh hush my flapping mouth, when will I ever learn?
You see, for 25 years we have been popping stuff up through the trapdoor on to the so-called boarded loft. Therefore, in order to realign the randomly-chucked boards, cut them to fit and screw them down, one of us, or me as it’s sometimes known, was going to have to balance on a loose board holding three suitcases, two duvet boxes, two bin bags of baby clothes and a Victorian fireman’s helmet, whilst balancing three (big) boxes full of toys and board games with a knee against the bookshelves.
Did I mention the library we have up there? No? It’s overspill from the wardrobes, in the normal way.
I will not touch upon the brown plastic executive 1970s briefcase, except with an elbow.
Or the mouldy cot mattress, except with the other elbow.
Suffice it to say that while I was standing like Eros, with the helmet, on one leg but festooned like a Christmas tree I responded less than cheerfully to the usual enquiries: Have you seen the ruler? Can you hand me two number two screws? and (my favourite) Can you stop this plank going up in the air when I stand on the far end? (Answer: Of course I can! Gravity is a myth, the earth sucks.)
The thing that really got me was the treasure trove under the floorboards, which I offer for consideration and to brighten your week. Please remember these things have been found in a loft. Up in a roof.
The item at the top is one of a matching pair. It is made of white plastic, complete and not broken So handy.
The thing at the right is lovingly hand crafted from chicken wire. It may or may not be a device for keeping pigeons off the top of waste pipes but I’m thinking of offering it to the Tate Modern anyway.
The other thing is…………
What is the other thing?
It’s a suspender. Circa 1960.
In a loft?
A loft built in 1971?
You see, for some of us, fitting floorboards in the midst of spider webs, assorted filth and luggage from the seventies, two deep desires are aroused. The first being to stop and not ever do it again. The second being to scrape all the cobwebs out of our hair and wash everything in sight.
In others, wearing anachronistic suspenders, in a loft, in the dark, on loose floorboards, the desires triggered might be…………otherwise.
Was their only chance of privacy the loft?
Was she an air hostess who felt insecure on the ground?
Just what was she wearing anyway that she had to abandon one suspender out of four? (If it was a woman.)
Did she/he go round for the rest of the day with a silly smile and a sagging stocking?
And, most of all, how did the suspender get into the space between the rafters, under the boards? And why was it there snuggled up to a chicken wire sculpture and two plastic …………handy… things?
There you go. Thought for the week.
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JaneLaverick.com – up to all sorts.