#Replacement Conservatory Roof Southampton | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

daves-challenge40 · 6 years ago

Text

“What separates hope from despair is a different way of telling a story from the same facts.”- Alain de Botton

January 2017 and I am sitting in our fresh new space. The clean lines and glossy finishes are the product of months of hard work and years of planning. We have finally replaced our tiny galley kitchen, dining room and dysfunctional lean-to conservatory, opening up the space to create a modern kitchen-diner; a large, bright space in which we can relax, eat, entertain and enjoy family life. We have transformed our environment and changed the way we live for the better. The expansive bi-folding doors and high roof lantern flood our magnificent white kitchen with light and reciprocate a wonderful panoramic vista out onto our little slice of Eden.

I feel elated, fortunate, and relieved that the work is complete, but I’m also struggling with an uneasy sense of discombobulation. I feel like a stranger in my own domain. The whitewashed walls have yet to be adorned with the personal ornaments that will make it a home. Like a brand new pair of shoes, it looks perfect, but it does not yet feel comfortable. It needs wearing in. I am also wrestling with the inevitable sense of anti-climax, and already with every day that goes past I find myself monitoring the inexorable decay; a chip off the paintwork, a stain on the work surface, a scratch on the real wood floor; each tiny blemish irritating like an insect bite slowly eroding my mood.

When we moved into our house six years ago, we knew that we were taking on a long term project. The previous owner had been in residence for 50 years, and while he and his family had kept it clean and tidy, they had also kept it locked in the 1960’s. The whole place was like a museum, a faithful remnant of the patterned wallpapered, swirly carpeted house-scapes I remembered from my childhood. Retro, but certainly not in a cool way. We knew we had a huge job on our hands to haul the place kicking and screaming into the 21st century. With little money at our disposal, I was forced to throw myself into DIY for a year. I taught myself how to strip and re-fit the original doors which had been clad in awful chip-board. I redecorated throughout, fitted skirting boards, boxed in pipework, and created a cupboard under the stairs. I was, and still am secretly very proud of my efforts, even though every now and again a tradesman will uncover an exhibit of my botched handiwork and recoil in horror as if they’ve found buried remains in the garden. “What idiot put these skirting boards on?!” exclaimed a recent carpet fitter detecting one indiscretion. “Yeah, it was like that when we moved in” is always my stock reply.

It took a further six years for us to save up the funds and courage to alter our living space in a more fundamental way. As 2016 dawned I began measuring the dimensions of the house layout with pinpoint accuracy and began mapping out a series of design options ranging from the simple to the wildly ambitious. Top of the range was a double extension and complete reconfiguration of the first floor. While it was fun playing with the possibilities, it became obvious early on that we would never hope to recoup the outlay on such a far reaching project, and if we needed to change the house to that extent, we’d be better off moving. Over a period of several months we whittled down our preferences, finally deciding, as is often the case, that the simplest choices are the best.

With a basic design agreed we then had to get the thing built. Finding a tradesman that you can trust is not always an easy task, and again in this respect we were fortunate in living two doors down from Stu, an excellent and experienced builder who has also become a good friend over the years. As we could not afford to move out of home for the four months it would take to complete the work, it was hugely reassuring to have a friend taking a lead with the work and guiding us through the technical and aesthetic options along the way, and as a perfectionist, we knew Stu would do an excellent job.

Work started on July the 11th and finished on the 17th of November. During that time, I’m not going to lie; life was a strain at times, having to eat our microwave dinners huddled in front of the television in a stripped and undecorated front room, and then doing the washing up in the bath. The kids were magnificent, they never complained about the mess or the cramped conditions, having to also cope with starting school and pre-school for the first time during that period. But towards the end Emily and I were getting increasingly fraught and willing every day for the work to be finished.

Now, slouched in our new Ikea sofa, I am soberly ruminating about my new environment, and the new world we find ourselves living in. And I am melancholy. I have been since the start of the New Year, and it has been a struggle to get myself in a positive frame of mind for the year ahead. There are several reasons for my funk, but the most prominent has undoubtedly been the unravelling of global stability since the political upheavals of the EU referendum and the American presidential election. Now, I am well aware that some people don’t share this pessimistic view of recent events. To many these undoubtedly seismic shifts in world politics mark a well overdue jolt to the old order that will reinvigorate democracy. If that’s you, and your sleep has not been unduly disturbed by our nonsensical and entirely self-destructive exit from Europe, or a clearly unstable narcissist, signing away our children’s futures for the sake of his ego, then well done, I’m pleased for you. But I’m afraid I don’t share your optimism.

When I was growing up I remember watching government information films about what to do in a nuclear attack and feeling absolutely petrified. I would have only been a young child at the time, but could sense the acute world tension and anxiety as the cold war of the early 1980’s escalated and a nuclear holocaust grew imminent. I can also recall the unease I felt as I questioned my parents on what it meant to be at war with Argentina in 1982 and Iraq in 1990. Watching recent world events unfurl has brought back those eerie feelings of disquiet and foreboding, emotions it now seems my children will also have to endure.

It should be said that I am new to such left-leaning feelings of angst and despair. My political stance has always been pragmatic and moderate. In the past I have watched approvingly as our main political parties squabbled over the centre ground in the expectation that this is where the ever more rational and increasingly educated masses will inevitably congregate. But it is hard to get excited about temperate political ideals. And then seemingly overnight came the paradigm shift; The Internet. That huge sprawl of unfettered information and social connection, at once a repository for unlimited hope and unlimited despair; a macrocosm of the ying and yang of the human condition. It has brought humanity together on a global scale, and like a huge swaying crowd at a football match, one shove can send a ripple of panic, one pull can create a seismic surge. And so it proved in 2016. A small group of religious fanatics with murderous intent have a media platform to sow hatred and fear. A billionaire huckster with no political experience can hoodwink a nation with jingo and lies, and then have the chutzpah to claim he is the victim of fake news.

We live in a crazy and unsettling world all of a sudden, so it is in a sense no surprise that people are scuttling back to the comfort of tribalism and responding to the clarion calls of former glory.

The world is in tension. The old systems of government and belief are creaking as they struggle to hold back the tide of the information age. This in turn has had a polarizing affect as people either try to shore up the old guard or rush to tear it down. But this disunity is frustrating coming as it does at a time in human history when life on earth itself is threatened by alarming rates of climate change and pollution.

On November 11th 2016, a few days after our kitchen was completed, and three days after I stared in incredulity at the television as it revealed the results of the presidential election, I attended a talk given by a Professor of Climate Change at the University of Southampton. Although I now forget the name of the speaker, what he said had a profound effect on me. He began his speech by demonstrating that global warming is spiraling out of control and that even the most optimistic projections show that we will not meet global targets to limit warming to 1.5 degrees –seen by most scientists as the tipping point towards catastrophic climate change. Only an immediate, monumental global response could hope to change this inevitability. This was pretty sobering news coming from an expert, and just days after the world’s most famous climate change denier had become the most powerful man on the planet.

The Professor did his best to end his talk with some positivity; that we as individuals can make a difference; that collectives in Southampton and elsewhere were changing council policy on the environment etc, but it was very difficult not to take away anything other than the plaintive Caledonian cry of Private Fraser that we’re all doomed.

Over two years have passed since I listened to that talk and in the intervening period I have struggled to make sense of what is happening in the world and my place in it. I have lain awake at night wracked with guilt that I have brought children into a world on the verge of self-destruction. I’ve then witnessed those same children, in a remarkable act of parody; begin to destroy my environment – in particular our lovely new extension. There are now cracks appearing in the plaster, chips in the doorframes and bogeys smeared in a variety of patterns across the walls.

We have a choice whether to focus on the ravages of time and yearn with dewy eyed nostalgia for the triumphs of the past. Or we can get busy living, enjoying the ride of life, accepting its bumps and detours, striving for change confident that hope comes with renewal.

I have been guilty of falling into some not insignificant despair over recent months. But I’m also beginning to become aware of some green-shoots of hope for humanity. Whether it is 29 year old Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortese laying out at an elemental level the blatant corruption inherent in the US system of government, or 15 year old Swedish student Greta Thunberg speaking truth to power with disarming eloquence and sparking the student demonstrations for climate change action we have seen today, there is a feeling that social media can play an important role in allowing individuals, young individuals, a platform on which they can help to change the world. Perhaps this strange new world of technological possibility does not have to lead to a dystopian future after all. Perhaps we are on the verge of a new unity, with the ability to alter our environment for the collective good.

The List •1 Write a blog •2 Have a non alcoholic month •3 Put ON weight •4 Improve my diet •5 Go to the dentist •6 Go for a dip in the sea on New Years Day •7 Run every day for a month •8 Start a new collection •9 Run the Southampton Half Marathon •10 Cycle around the Isle of Wight •11 Climb Snowden •12 Take a ride in a hot air balloon •13 Climb Scafell Pike 14 Play a set at an open mike night •15 Take the lead on an African adventure •16 Run the Southampton Marathon 17.Take up public speaking 18.Design a kitchen extension 19. Climb Ben Nevis. 20. Build some garden decking. 21.Spot 40 birds in one day. 22. Have a baby! 23. Get a new job. 24.Record new music 25.Raise £2000 for charity. •26. Give a gift to a stranger 27. Organise a school reunion •28 Re-create 5 old photos •29 Write my family history •30 Beat my “keepy-up” record •31 Swim a mile •32 Pen a children’s story •33 Take up wildlife photography •34 Cultivate a veggie patch •35 Take up painting •36 Appear on a TV game show •37 Walk the Southampton “V” •38 Start a campaign •39 Spend a month saying “yes” •40 Learn to play the piano

0 notes