Upbringing & Gardening

We are all conditioned by our upbringing. We inherit traits & genes. We are born with a blueprint from our anticedents. Our personality results from nature & nurture.

At 76 I think I know myself fairly well - good & bad traits. I can accept who I am, but I can, & have, modified my behaviour as the years have passed. Experience has led to subtle shifts in the central traits.

The thing is, some patterns are so deeply ingrained that I haven't achieved much modification. I still hear my inner, mothers voice telling me that I need to work harder, do better, be conscientious, succeed at everything, put everyone else first...I now know these are not messages beneficial to my well being. But I can't shake them off. They were learned too well - too early - too regularly.

So, this week I ended up almost unable to walk. Each weight bearing step was very painful. The combination of Fibromyalgia & Osteoarthritis finally won. I spent hours & weeks working on the front garden of my new house pruning shrubs which were completely overgrown. Long leggy growth with all the foliage on top & nothing below. Dense bushes burying completely dead, old shrubs. It resembled the Prince fighting his way through to Sleeping Beauty, (that is what my garden is). But I am no young, handsome prince. I am too old for this sort of hard physical work.

The thing is there is a time pressure. It's already rather late to be doing this. It's best done in Spring or immediately after flowering. But it needs to be done so that it will look better next year. I don't need a highly qualified landscape gardener. I need a young, fit person with a bit of common sense who will do what I tell them. If they have got some knowledge & aptitude that would be good though. 

How do you find someone like this? If you know, please tell me. Both I & my garden will be very grateful.

Neighbours

I have a huge amount of work to do on the garden of the house I have bought. I suspect it will be several years before I get it under control. Nothing much has been done for years. But the good thing is that although I can do very little towards the refurbishment of the house itself & the building of the extension, I do know how to prune shrubs & perennials.

Just as well, because most of the hedges, shrubs & trees need regenerating. They are mostly either very old wood, or all the new growth is at the top of very long, leggy branches. Drastic measures are called for, resulting in masses of stuff to get rid of. One brown bin a fortnight just isn't enough. The shredder I've ordered won't arrive for weeks, because there has been a run on them & now there is a shortage.

But the bonus of all this very hard work, sore muscles & exhaustion, is that I already know the two families opposite & the neighbours on either side of me from working in the front garden. The three families seem really friendly. It will be so nice to have children & teenagers, not to mention their parents as neighbours.

The neighbour in the semi I am joined to seems very anxious about my refurbishment & extension programme. I have tried to inform & reassure her that nothing I am planning should have a detrimental effect on her. But workmen being there for months is bound to have an impact on weekdays between  8am & 4pm, so I am sympathetic. I am trying to be considerate. I don't want ill feeling before I have even moved in.

Lots of people don't like change. Better the "devil you know", even if he didn't do anything in the house & garden, than someone new who wants to bring the house into the 21st century & make a garden you can actually use. I get that - really I do. Workmen will be noisy & disruptive. But at the end of it all the house & garden will be so much better. Loved & cared for.

I would have thought that would be better than an extremely unkempt house & overgrown garden full of weeds & ivy. My house is a Cinderella - I just want to awaken her to her full potential. That's why I have a team of 4 to help me achieve that. I can't do it alone.

Architect - Structural Engineer - Party Wall Surveyor - Builder - The Dream Team

Today is a very special day. Oliver, my architect, & I have agreed the final plans. So he has sent them to the other members of the team so they can do their jobs. He has also sent them to the Council Planning department, although I don't need permission to go ahead. I just need to comply with building regulations.

When I started all of this I didn't think I needed an architect - I knew what I wanted to do. I thought all I needed was a builder & maybe a structural engineer for the RSJ's to support the walls. How innocent & naive, not to mention over confident! Oliver has moved my thinking on light years.

The extension I am building is something that is more in keeping with the 21st century, using modern materials & techniques. We are being true to the original 1930's house, just bringing it up to modern standards, & also true to today. We aren't creating a pastiche extension mimicking the 30's. It is more risky. There is a big difference between a 2 dimensional plan & a 3 dimensional building. I hope I love the real thing as much as the plan!

We are trying to be as environmentally aware as possible. So stuff will be recycled. We will use eco friendly materials as much as possible. The house will be well insulated to save energy.

It has taken 6 weeks to get to this stage. Several different options to consider. But it has been time well spent. What I have ended up with is so much better than what I started out to do. 

The time hasn't been wasted at my house though. Trees which blocked light at the front of the house have been cut down & I am working on the long overdue pruning of shrubs. Further necessary tree work will take place in the autumn. The gas & electricty companies have finally given me dates for moving the very old meters from inside a tiny cupboard under the stairs to outside the same wall. My lovely builder Richard has started stripping out the interior.

It is all really exciting.When I am faced with the reality of the house as it is, stripped out, I just have to keep the vision in mind. The brickwork revealed in the bathroom is shockingly bad! There is thick lime plaster & lath & plaster walls. It will get worse before it gets better. I can't wait till everyone is working on site.

Will take photos - Or possibly a video.

Working with an Architect

I have never done this before. I have always seen potential in houses I have bought. The plan is more important to me than glossy photos. I have bought 6 houses in my adult life. All but one had work done on them, two were completely re-done in work that took months - About a year.

My dream has always been to start from scratch and build my own house. Renovating and building an extension is the next best thing. It is so exciting to have an architect draw up proper plans of my ideas and improve on them. To have the input of someone creative and experienced in what is possible is a joy. It makes up for the quite major frustrations of organising basic things like the moving of gas and electricity meters to an outside wall.

I have several iterations of plans. The design of the extension has moved from a conventional brick and tile, pitched roof, bigger version, of what was already there, housing a larder, outside toilet and sun room, to an all singing all dancing 21st century extension. It will have a sedum and wild flower roof. The cladding will be a standing seam metal finish painted a lovely green. It is designed to let in as much light as possible and have the garden as its focus. It will be as eco and future proof as possible within cost limitations. 

Meetings with my architect raises my spirits. It is a deeply satisfying collaboration. I think we spur eachother on. The danger is that I am so carried away I don't keep costs in the forefront of my mind. I think we are both trying to create something exceptional.

This house will be my last home. It will outlast me. I hope other people will enjoy living there benefitting from the work I have done. Most of all I hope that I will have several years to enjoy living there myself.

This gives you an idea.

Being Human in a "Mass Extinction"

I've just calculated that I've lived for approximately 27,925 days (I'm 76.5 years old). Lets not quibble, call it 28,000 days. That's a lot of life experience.

Do humans learn from experience? Am I a better person now than I was as a child, a teenager, a young adult? I really hope so - I do believe I am. "We 'construct' our knowledge through experience – by doing. The human mind is better equipped to gather information about the world by operating within it than by reading about it, hearing lectures on it, or studying abstract models of it" - https://www.changelearning.ca/get-informed-understanding-human-learning-how-humans-learn-best.html

If you accept my premise, then as long as the learning is beneficial for the individual & for the society in which the individual lives, everyone benefits from "good" learning. "Humans have changed the world tremendously in the past centuries. They have invented technical devices, institutions that regulate cooperation and competition, and symbol systems, such as script and mathematics, that serve as reasoning tools"- https://www.nature.com/articles/s41539-016-0003-0  Learning results in long term change - for everyone. Humans are capable of becoming better people as they learn from experience & age. 

Unfortunately the opposite is also true, we live in a world of opposites. Why do humans become bad, cruel, evil? Is it because we dehumanise our victims? Or do we "see other people as blameworthy, as morally responsible, as themselves cruel, as not giving us what we deserve, as taking more than they deserve"? https://www.vox.com/science-and-health/2017/12/14/16687388/cruelty-border-immigration-psychology-human-nature  History is full of the appalling things humans have done & continue to do to eachother.

Is it simply good & evil, God & the devil, right & wrong...?

I don't know. But I do know that in my lifetime, humans have created a completely different world, which I have had to adapt to & live in. In doing that I too have changed. It is a world which is infinitely more complex, more populated, more demanding of resources, simply more everything.

That model is not sustainable. Humans are living longer. Population is growing - "world population increased from 1 billion in 1800 to 7.7 billion today". "Life expectancy, which measures the age of death, has doubled in every region".

 

Humans are voraciously using up everything in the world larder of resources. In doing so they are destroying their own habitat. Ultimately humans will destroy themselves if they don't stop. It isn't that we don't know what is happening - We don't truly see. We don't internalise. We don't want to change. 

It's on a knife edge. Will humans draw back from the brink of extinction? Have they learned from experience? 

It probably won't happen in my lifetime. But unless there is radical change it will. "Evidence shows that a sixth mass extinction is occurring now. Unlike previous mass extinctions, the sixth extinction is due to human actions". https://bio.libretexts.org/Bookshelves/Introductory_and_General_Biology/Book%3A_Introductory_Biology_(CK-12)/06%3A_Ecology/6.26%3A_Human_Actions_and_the_Sixth_Mass_Extinction

The Holocene extinction, otherwise referred to as the Sixth Mass Extinction or Anthropocene extinction, is ongoing as a result of human activity.

That's you & me. 

 

Continuing Semi Chaos

 I wash up by hand - yes I know...! I live alone, so I can wash up once a day rather than waiting for enough crockery etc to collect in the machine. I only use the dishwasher if I have friends or family for a meal. The first time was on Tuesday. Lovely day, lovely friends, reasonably good lunch. Loaded dishwasher - brand new dishwasher didn't work!

The landlord came round & checked that it wasn't me or the fuses. The electrician came this morning. There is power but no one at home in the dishwasher. It's not a cheap make. Don't manufacturers test? How could it be sold? I also thought that was what the Inventory person was supposed to do - make sure everything is OK?

Then there is the garden. I made it clear at the outset that I am not able to mow & weed, etc. There wasn't a mower or any tools anyway, (but the landlord did get one). I couldn't stand the state of the garden by yesterday, so I mowed. I had also done some weeding in short bursts. My main problem was the weight of the grass box & the difficulty lifting it. Getting the clippings into a bag is really awkward. The thing is it's a very small garden & there is nowhere for a compost heap to put clippings. So I suggested that the landlord gets a brown bin & I will do my best to keep the garden tidy as a goodwill gesture & so I don't have to look out on a wilderness. For some reason I don't understand you have to pay for a brown bin. He told me it was my responsibility - I don't agree. Yes, obviously, I should pay utilities & council tax. But a brown bin? Really?

Switching Utilities is meant to be easy. The government wants everyone to have a smart meter. I want smart meters in the rental - (Really don't want the PayGo electric meter!) I also need the gas & electric meters moved & changed from very old fashioned meters in a totally inaccessible cupboard under the stairs, in the house I have bought. The wires / pipes literally have to be moved from the inside of the side wall to the outside. "Simples." No! 

SGN & SSE are both involved. SGN have been amazing. I only set things in motion this week & the gas surveyor did the survey yesterday. He asked me if I am a pensioner & so I told him that I am also a "Welfare Case" & theoretically have priority. The quote arrived in the afternoon & SGN are not charging me for the work because I physically can't access the meters. They do all the work so that my energy supplier can install the smart meter & SGN provide the new external box. So totally efficient & really nice with it.

SSE on the other hand don't seem to be sending anyone to survey. They just want me to supply all relevant information by email - e.g. the type of meter, the serial number, a photo of the meter etc. (The SGN gas man had to lie on the floor, half in & half out of the understairs cupboard to see the gas meter! There is no way I could do that.) They asked me to do that after I had told them about my medical conditions.

SSE don't provide the box, I have to source that. On the day the work is done I have to arrange for my electrician to be there with my utility provider to all do the installation simultaneously. I know from the situation at my rental that there is a long wait time for fitters to install smart meters. There is a backlog & not enough trained fitters. So getting 3 people from different companies on site at the same time is going to be tricky. Nothing like the seamless & helpful way SGN operate.

Finally there is my money. I sold my house for more than I paid for my new one. The surplus, after the huge bills, is in a bank account paying virtually no interest. I tried - 7 times, to transfer money into an account paying a slightly bigger pittance of interest. You have to do it from the receiver bank website for some reason. It kept telling me the transaction was declined & to contact my source bank. I changed the amount several times because I know that banks have different amounts they will process. I phoned my source bank many times. That involved lots of menus, lots of different people working from home, lots of security, lots of dreadful music & huge amounts of time & frustration. My source bank assured me that they had sorted the problem - many times. They hadn't. To cut the story short, I've ended up having to do 4 small transactions from the source bank, one every 24 hours, to get my money from one bank to another. Apparently it's because it's an unusually large transaction. It's ridiculous. I proved it was me & where the money came from. They must know I'm not a money launderer.

I keep telling myself life is complex - Change is hard to manage - It will all be OK eventually - I am actually a very fortunate person. I keep the vision of what I am trying to achieve at the forefront of my mind. 

But I haven't even started renovating my house & garden & building an extension yet. 

I really need to maintain a Zen like calm & remember my Buddhist teachings. Or I might just go completely potty!

 

Disorganised Chaos.

Never again! Apart from eventually moving into my renovated house at the end of the year, I am never, ever, going to voluntarily put myself through this again. It has been, exhausting, time consuming, frustrating, irritating & utterly beyond my control. I will go out in a box to the great beyond.

All my "control freak" best efforts at having a plan & a system failed miserably. I packed everything apart from fragiles. I had sorted the fragiles into storage or rental groups. I had clearly marked boxes with a S or R. I had put a green sticker on furniture etc to go to the rental & a red sticker on stuff to go to storage. It didn't work. Stuff has disappeared into the Big Yellow storage room & will never be seen again until my house is ready for habitation. Even food! Nothing fresh though I hope.

The rental is very nice, as is the landlord. The area is in a quiet rabbit warren & the neighbours I have met are lovely. There is a garden, with birds! Headington is a bustling & lively area of Oxford.

There are just so many ongoing issues, mostly related to switching.

I am used to a landline. Yes, I know the world has moved on & I do have a 4g mobile. But I am used to broadband & access to the internet on my desktop. Yes, I know I can get all that on my mobile. (Except when the transmitter goes down with an unplanned outage - Must change my provider. Their customer service is dreadful.) 

The switch to Plusnet didn't happen as it should have done the day before I moved in. The rental had Virgin who appear to have disconnected the BT line to the house. Presumably they don't want people to switch! So I had to wait for Plusnet, Openreach & a private contractor Dig Team to communicate effectively to put a line to the house & a phone master socket in the house. The delay was mostly the Dig Team, who are obviously very busy. I'm finally on line, & have a landline phone for my care alarm today - 17 days after I expected. 

I am, delightfully, a "Welfare Case" because of my medical conditions, my age, my Careline & the Monitor which connects my pacemaker directly to the hospital when I'm in bed. Plus the fact that I live alone. That supposedly makes me a priority, urgent case. It didn't seem urgent to me as I waited day after day. Had I fallen or had a stroke, no one would have known.

Similarly, with my energy provider. I switched to Octopus 8 days after moving in. I hadn't realised how much notice you have to give to switch - So my fault. I also didn't realise that the rental has a PayGo meter for electricity. There is a plastic stick you insert in the meter. Topping up is a pain. There aren't many places you can do it. Now I have to wait until the 2nd July for smart meters. Obviously they are very busy too.

Moving into a new home means dealing with little problems like not being able to get the heating or the cooker to work. I didn't have very much information to help. There is an Inventory, but I couldn't read it on my mobile - That's a job for this weekend. 

I discovered that the back door wouldn't lock. It was open when I collected the keys. It took a locksmith an hour & a half to sort out this week. He wasn't impressed with the door. 

The cold water pressure downstairs suddenly soaked me, then the water turned brown, then the pressure disappeared. Then, when my son in law moved the cleaning materials around under the sink looking for a tap, (there isn't one), suddenly the pressure reverted to normal. None of us understand why. I'm just glad it's working.

My point is that all of this was very time consuming & quite stressful. I seem to be "fire fighting" all the time. I spent hours on my mobile going through phone menus & security questions, holding to dreadful music, being transferred from one department to another. But speaking to, generally, very nice helpful people - eventually. Some companies are actually unreachable if you don't have internet - iD Mobile & Openreach for example. On the other hand some companies have stopped online chat & don't have an email address. The reason is Covid. But surely by now they should have adapted? It has been with us for 16 months.

The customer journey is not what it should be. For example I have 5 separate ID numbers for my internet / landline problem with Plusnet & have spoken to several different departments & numerous call people working from home. The amount  of information on the system each person has to assimilate about my issue is massive. I'm amazed they do so well & stay so calm & helpful.

It will all be solved, eventually. I know that. I can deal with it all. It has just been quite difficult.

It's a good job I've done it now when I'm 76 & reasonably "compos mentis". I do get quite tired though & there is definitely a limit to the amount of energy, mental & physical, that I have. I'm like the Duracell bunny advert - the one with naff batteries!