Two
A bit more background...
We write our planning application out. In triplicate. Or is it quadruplicate? Whatever, my new printer/scanner/copier comes into its own and we are able to duplicate lots of lovely colourful plans and send them off. And wait. After a week or so a Planning Notice is attached to the fence opposite my house. Which makes it look like the local farmer wants to ‘change his use’ to garden. We pin the notice to the oak tree instead. Nobody understands it. So we write an explanation and pin that to the oak tree too. Everybody understands the explanation but can’t understand why planning is needed. Don’t Get Me Started, is all I can say…
We wait the statutory three weeks for objections, and none come. Probably because nobody can understand it. We email Keith The Shed to say ‘slight hitch with planning, bear with us’. And wait. Then we have a phone call. The planners and Countryside Section don’t like it. The ‘garden’ will be an inappropriate size for the cottage and they don’t like it. Given that they have just approved five enormous and (weirdly) yellow houses at the bottom of my garden which have gardens so small you can’t even put up a whirligig washing line, who decides what is appropriate? On that basis my little two bed semi cottage should have a garden I could fit one foot in. Bah. We remain incredibly nice to the planners and a site meeting is suggested…. It is set for a Thursday after work. Haven’t a clue which Thursday now, as the weeks are all blurring into one big soggy Awaiting Planning Mess. On the Thursday in question I get a phone call at lunchtime. Planner’s mum has been taken into hospital, how about next Tuesday instead? ‘Yes, of course, fine, I’m so sorry I do hope your mother will be ok’.
We wait.
Tuesday duly arrives, and so does the planner. I rush home from work and change from ‘girly city typist’ into my ‘at one with the country’ green sludgy trousers and top. Guy has had the same idea (not that he had to change from being girly city typist) and is also in sludgy green. We look like Howard and Hilda from that sitcom years ago where they always wore the same jumper. And Were Very Dull. We find we’re doing this increasingly often at the moment – and having the same thought at the same time too. Aah, sweet. Spooky, more like… Anyway, back to the planner… he is lovely. No, really, he is very easy to like, and very reasonable. We wander round the garden (sorry, scrubland) and discussed what we want. He seems to think it is all very sensible and that we are looking after the countryside very nicely. See, those green sludgy outfits aren’t wasted at all.
He suggests we amend our planning application (only in triplicate this time) to reflect a smaller area of garden, and to apply properly for the shed. With pictures. Then announces he’s off on holiday for 10 days and will look at it when he gets back…
While he is on his hols we get busy. We build Phase One of our Squirrel Assault Course. Does anyone else but us remember the Carling Black Label advert in the 70s (80s?) with the squirrel doing an amazing assault course to get to some peanuts, and the tag line ‘I bet he drinks Carling Black Label’? We are overrun with them here (squirrels, not adverts) and have decided that they may as well entertain us. Phase One is a pole in a bucket of gravel with a squirrel feeder on top. The squirrels have to shin up the pole, lift the lid of the feeder and find the nuts. Easy. We bury a fence pole in an old plant pot with rubble and gravel and then screw the feeder to a flat piece of wood on top. And wait. Remarkably quickly the blue tits find the nuts…. Thick squirrels round here, obviously.
And we re-do the application. We write a lovely letter and draw a pretty plan with lovely colours on it. And submit it. The planner comes back from his holiday and says it’s lovely but there are a few problems. We’ve coloured things in the wrong way (so why don’t they give us a little key saying what the right way is?) and we’ve included the wrong bit in the wrong colour. And we need to include drawings of the shed (which we had done before but now it’s an Amended Application they need them different). Apart from that it’s fine… I promise to get all the amendments done and in to him quickly. He says not to worry, he’s about to go off on another week’s holiday and he’ll look at it when he’s back. In September. We can see us putting the base down at Christmas at this rate…
We re-draw the plans. And make pretty pictures of a shed. And measure from the house to the new shed. From the pool shed to the new shed. From the lane to the new shed. From the house to the pool shed. From the house to the lane. Anything we can think of, we measure. We draw out another plan (with measurements) colour it in the right colours with crayon and then copy it. My printer runs out of ink half way through and the air is BLUE. It’s a new printer and I haven’t changed the cartridges before… there are no instructions. It is obviously So Simple No Instructions Are Needed. Yeah, right… eventually it gets done and off we go again. The crayon doesn’t scan well, so it’s out with the red felt pen and re-colour all four, five or whatever copies… The blue doesn’t scan either, so it’s out with a blue biro (no blue felt pen) to re-colour the blue. The biro runs out and the air is BLUE. Which is more than the biro is. Guy brings gin. Brave man. We re-submit the amended plans.
And wait.
On Thursday I have my second appointment with Mike the Physio who is trying to see if he can help my weird stomach. He seems to think that my body has been living at ‘red alert’ since the ME and needs to learn to chill. Has he ever submitted a planning application? Chill???? He does various tests which show I’m quite fit but tend to lurch to the right… that could be the gin, of course. Anyway, he teaches me (this is my first visit of 5) a simple meditation technique to calm my body down.
On Saturday we deliver a cake to a customer (the yellow three wheeler Reliant from Only Fools and Horses – odd things some people want) and finally spend the wedding present vouchers from my old college girlfriends. That’s my pals from college, not necessarily that they’re old. We buy beautiful planters and two stunning clipped boxes (tree things, not cardboard) to go in them. This is for Our New Shed. Which we don’t yet have planning permission for… We are, as usual, Jumping The Gun.
On Sunday morning I lie in bed thinking I’ll give the meditation a crack. I relax, breathe and begin to concentrate. CLUNK. That’s a squirrel dropping the lid on the nut feeder outside. I try again… relax, breathe and think pleasant thoughts… CLUNK. Relax, breathe and … CLUNK. Relax, CLUNK. Bloody hopeless. I’m sure meditators (or whatever they’re called) don’t have to contend with squirrels. I give up and go outside to remove the pool cabin doors to paint them. When Keith the Shed built our lovely cabin we asked him to primer the stable door. He not only primered it, but undercoated it too, and we’ve never got round to putting the gloss coat on it. Oops. Now it’s likely (planners permitting) that he will re-visit to put up The New Shed (in 2011 at this rate) so we want to make the cabin look as beautiful as it should, so we’re painting the door at last. It’s been such an appalling summer that this is really the first chance. So I whip the doors off and paint them before going to the farmer’s market….
Achieved: An amended application. An amended amended application. Can we stop now?
Progress: Naff all.
Hours worked: Lots on planning, nothing on building anything that could reasonably be construed as a shed.
Shed plans: Do we really want a north facing verandah?
Purchases: Two beautiful planters, two beautiful clipped box trees to go in them. Now all we need is a SHED to stand them in front of.
Gin bottles: Serious inroads after the amended amended plan and the little hiccup with the printer. And the biro.
Plan: Wait patiently. I’ll wait. Can’t promise ‘patiently’.
We write our planning application out. In triplicate. Or is it quadruplicate? Whatever, my new printer/scanner/copier comes into its own and we are able to duplicate lots of lovely colourful plans and send them off. And wait. After a week or so a Planning Notice is attached to the fence opposite my house. Which makes it look like the local farmer wants to ‘change his use’ to garden. We pin the notice to the oak tree instead. Nobody understands it. So we write an explanation and pin that to the oak tree too. Everybody understands the explanation but can’t understand why planning is needed. Don’t Get Me Started, is all I can say…
We wait the statutory three weeks for objections, and none come. Probably because nobody can understand it. We email Keith The Shed to say ‘slight hitch with planning, bear with us’. And wait. Then we have a phone call. The planners and Countryside Section don’t like it. The ‘garden’ will be an inappropriate size for the cottage and they don’t like it. Given that they have just approved five enormous and (weirdly) yellow houses at the bottom of my garden which have gardens so small you can’t even put up a whirligig washing line, who decides what is appropriate? On that basis my little two bed semi cottage should have a garden I could fit one foot in. Bah. We remain incredibly nice to the planners and a site meeting is suggested…. It is set for a Thursday after work. Haven’t a clue which Thursday now, as the weeks are all blurring into one big soggy Awaiting Planning Mess. On the Thursday in question I get a phone call at lunchtime. Planner’s mum has been taken into hospital, how about next Tuesday instead? ‘Yes, of course, fine, I’m so sorry I do hope your mother will be ok’.
We wait.
Tuesday duly arrives, and so does the planner. I rush home from work and change from ‘girly city typist’ into my ‘at one with the country’ green sludgy trousers and top. Guy has had the same idea (not that he had to change from being girly city typist) and is also in sludgy green. We look like Howard and Hilda from that sitcom years ago where they always wore the same jumper. And Were Very Dull. We find we’re doing this increasingly often at the moment – and having the same thought at the same time too. Aah, sweet. Spooky, more like… Anyway, back to the planner… he is lovely. No, really, he is very easy to like, and very reasonable. We wander round the garden (sorry, scrubland) and discussed what we want. He seems to think it is all very sensible and that we are looking after the countryside very nicely. See, those green sludgy outfits aren’t wasted at all.
He suggests we amend our planning application (only in triplicate this time) to reflect a smaller area of garden, and to apply properly for the shed. With pictures. Then announces he’s off on holiday for 10 days and will look at it when he gets back…
While he is on his hols we get busy. We build Phase One of our Squirrel Assault Course. Does anyone else but us remember the Carling Black Label advert in the 70s (80s?) with the squirrel doing an amazing assault course to get to some peanuts, and the tag line ‘I bet he drinks Carling Black Label’? We are overrun with them here (squirrels, not adverts) and have decided that they may as well entertain us. Phase One is a pole in a bucket of gravel with a squirrel feeder on top. The squirrels have to shin up the pole, lift the lid of the feeder and find the nuts. Easy. We bury a fence pole in an old plant pot with rubble and gravel and then screw the feeder to a flat piece of wood on top. And wait. Remarkably quickly the blue tits find the nuts…. Thick squirrels round here, obviously.
And we re-do the application. We write a lovely letter and draw a pretty plan with lovely colours on it. And submit it. The planner comes back from his holiday and says it’s lovely but there are a few problems. We’ve coloured things in the wrong way (so why don’t they give us a little key saying what the right way is?) and we’ve included the wrong bit in the wrong colour. And we need to include drawings of the shed (which we had done before but now it’s an Amended Application they need them different). Apart from that it’s fine… I promise to get all the amendments done and in to him quickly. He says not to worry, he’s about to go off on another week’s holiday and he’ll look at it when he’s back. In September. We can see us putting the base down at Christmas at this rate…
We re-draw the plans. And make pretty pictures of a shed. And measure from the house to the new shed. From the pool shed to the new shed. From the lane to the new shed. From the house to the pool shed. From the house to the lane. Anything we can think of, we measure. We draw out another plan (with measurements) colour it in the right colours with crayon and then copy it. My printer runs out of ink half way through and the air is BLUE. It’s a new printer and I haven’t changed the cartridges before… there are no instructions. It is obviously So Simple No Instructions Are Needed. Yeah, right… eventually it gets done and off we go again. The crayon doesn’t scan well, so it’s out with the red felt pen and re-colour all four, five or whatever copies… The blue doesn’t scan either, so it’s out with a blue biro (no blue felt pen) to re-colour the blue. The biro runs out and the air is BLUE. Which is more than the biro is. Guy brings gin. Brave man. We re-submit the amended plans.
And wait.
On Thursday I have my second appointment with Mike the Physio who is trying to see if he can help my weird stomach. He seems to think that my body has been living at ‘red alert’ since the ME and needs to learn to chill. Has he ever submitted a planning application? Chill???? He does various tests which show I’m quite fit but tend to lurch to the right… that could be the gin, of course. Anyway, he teaches me (this is my first visit of 5) a simple meditation technique to calm my body down.
On Saturday we deliver a cake to a customer (the yellow three wheeler Reliant from Only Fools and Horses – odd things some people want) and finally spend the wedding present vouchers from my old college girlfriends. That’s my pals from college, not necessarily that they’re old. We buy beautiful planters and two stunning clipped boxes (tree things, not cardboard) to go in them. This is for Our New Shed. Which we don’t yet have planning permission for… We are, as usual, Jumping The Gun.
On Sunday morning I lie in bed thinking I’ll give the meditation a crack. I relax, breathe and begin to concentrate. CLUNK. That’s a squirrel dropping the lid on the nut feeder outside. I try again… relax, breathe and think pleasant thoughts… CLUNK. Relax, breathe and … CLUNK. Relax, CLUNK. Bloody hopeless. I’m sure meditators (or whatever they’re called) don’t have to contend with squirrels. I give up and go outside to remove the pool cabin doors to paint them. When Keith the Shed built our lovely cabin we asked him to primer the stable door. He not only primered it, but undercoated it too, and we’ve never got round to putting the gloss coat on it. Oops. Now it’s likely (planners permitting) that he will re-visit to put up The New Shed (in 2011 at this rate) so we want to make the cabin look as beautiful as it should, so we’re painting the door at last. It’s been such an appalling summer that this is really the first chance. So I whip the doors off and paint them before going to the farmer’s market….
Achieved: An amended application. An amended amended application. Can we stop now?
Progress: Naff all.
Hours worked: Lots on planning, nothing on building anything that could reasonably be construed as a shed.
Shed plans: Do we really want a north facing verandah?
Purchases: Two beautiful planters, two beautiful clipped box trees to go in them. Now all we need is a SHED to stand them in front of.
Gin bottles: Serious inroads after the amended amended plan and the little hiccup with the printer. And the biro.
Plan: Wait patiently. I’ll wait. Can’t promise ‘patiently’.
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