After rather too many years of neglect, we're having the house repaired and redecorated in stages. New fence: tick. New gutters, soffits, and fascias: tick. Now it's the turn of some of the internal cracks, stains, peeling paper, and general wear and tear of decades of family life. An extremely thorough and competent Polish decorator is currently tackling the job, which has meant a certain degree of disruption for the past two weeks, and possibly more: it's dusty, noisy, and distracting.
My partner has departed for the Bristol flat, sensibly, and I am left lurking in the couple of rooms we have reserved for another time. That is, the ones too full of stuff – books, mainly – that it would be too difficult to move out of harm's way before the other rooms are finished, and which are currently stacked with all the stuff moved out of the other rooms; furniture, "archives" of various sorts, and yet more books. It will be great when it's done. But having to skulk in one over-crowded room most of the day and negotiate ladders and other decorating paraphernalia at night – not to mention the coating of plaster dust settling over everything – is a nuisance, to put it mildly. In my next lifetime, I intend to become a keen exponent of DIY; this time round, though, not.
N.B. For a photographic exploration of plastic pollution in the ocean, you should check out the work of Mandy Barker, in particular the beautiful book Altered Oceans. Highly recommended.
When I took down the curtains in the room formerly occupied by our son, some ancient window stickers of birds were revealed on the south-facing side of a bay window. They must have been there for twenty-five years at least, slowly losing their colour and breaking down in the sunlight, then gradually flaking away from the gummed plastic substrate onto the windowsill behind the curtain, forming drifts of tiny translucent beige fragments. Caution: entropy at work. No wonder microplastics have become the problem they now are: similar self-destruction has crumbled away some of the ancient plastic bags containing more stuff stashed under beds and in cupboards. However, what is now left of the stickers has actually become rather attractive, in a wabi-sabi kind of way, and worth recording.
On the same bay window there is also a seagull sticker which has fared rather better. Like the bird it represents, it seems to be an indestructible survivor. Sunlight? You'll have to try harder than that! Although I believe our infusion of everything with microplastics – not least the oceans – is not doing the real thing any good at all. Not to mention the assorted chemical additives we have thrown in for good measure. We – as in us human beings – are just an all-round bloody nuisance, aren't we?
5 comments:
Let it be known, DIY'ing doesn't keep down the disruption and dust when renovating. I've done over our whole house by now. The dust at various stages was nearly interminable. And then there was the move from our bedroom to the middle bedroom while the spare room had new floors installed, into which room we moved so the two baths could be torn out, necessitating our using the bath in the basement for six months. All the window and door trim was replaced, the floors were refinished, the walls and ceilings repainted, the baths torn down to the studs and the floors ripped up to move plumbing. It only took 20 years to make the commitment during which one child was raised and sent away to school then across the country for a new life of her own. Better to move out entirely, as your partner has. But at least I had some control over the schedule and the quality of work performed.
Kent,
That does sound like a nightmare...
In the end I was glad to be around, as something set off the carbon monoxide alarm near the gas boiler, and I was able to get the right people in to deal with that. Who knew that once triggered a CO alarm doesn't stop, even when thrown into the garden? Argh!! I had to break it open and rip out the internal battery...
Mike
You definitely want to be present during such projects. Subs always have questions. And CO and smoke alarms have to be tossed into the garden and smashed open to shut them up!
This book by Mandy Barker is overwhelming. It reminds me of photographer Chris Jordan's photos, also from Midway Island. At least The Ocean Cleanup appears to be having some impact, as they are also working to intercept some of the plastic before it enters the oceans.
Yes, it's a great combination of imaginative photography and eco-activism isn't it? Worth getting a copy, assuming it's still in print.
Mike
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