Yard Sale!
I may run a mile from "Negotiating with Nippon", but I love a cleaning job from the bottom up. The store room 'neath the kitchen has needed a going-over - and duude, we're talking a des res basement apartment-size space here, perfect for an illegal immigrant family on good speaking terms, or a bachelor curmudgeon (who? where? what?). So I pin up my Greek lesson cues on the walls and strip down to posing briefs and bare tan-needing pot-belly and start work. First off, I am not alone. My dear, the rats who've been living there rent-free, not to mention the skeletons of their ancestors; also dead birds and all sorts of creepy-crawlies and snakey thangs - all v sulky at being disturbed after 10-yrs' spongeing off mama. Out they slither or run, to be met by Sam posing as hunting dawg, who scampers after them with convincing yelps and hollers. Benefits of Ignorance: I know nowt about what's to be kept, so out it all goes for a Yard Sale to be presided over by Yours Truly and a brace of Yorkshire Lassies who 'know about these things'. There's also a gang of cowboy recyclers who turn up, cast an eye over the junk, offer you 17/6 for the lot and off they tootle. It's actually huge fun and I've unearthed all sorts of goodies from way back: "Jul 12. 1530hrs. Light fair. Long shot to #15th. Wood, aim 2 o'clock bushy top tree left of yellow house." "Friendly 4some. Self, P vs TD and L. T unreliable on sand and water shots. Conceded water but accompanied him to next sand shot." If that's not nailing a guy for cheating, swallows don't dive to drink from the pool. I have nothing of my father's by way of his writing and now I do. Is not all golf: even on the fairway he was thinking (Oh, dad! You so rocked; why did we never talk?) Out with the old, in with the cleaner stuff and scrubbing. Back of top shelf, Magnavox stereo set, 2 massive speakers and tube amp like they don't make no more. Quick clean and it's booming. Thinks: Rent out cottage for mega rent to tourist suckers (never liked the idea of a whole 2 mins trudge up to home cooking), nest in basement. All this while, lugging and wheezing stuff in and out, glancing at my Greek lingo cues: Here in siesta country, between noonish and 2ish one bids 'good snooze'. I bid Ioanni and Pauline kalo ipno the other day as he dragged her off with that lecherous curl to his lip and she looked back pleadingly with a "Dunno how much hypno I'll fit in. He's a bit of goer." Life in Greece!
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