Tales From a Hovel - Floodwaters, Candles and Slugs

The second installment of living in a hovel on the side of a mountain in Madeira.

It’s easy to tell that autumn is upon us, it’s not the colder days or the hint of festivities to come but the fact that the dreaded floodwaters have returned to the bathroom. Yep it’s now a quick hop, skip and a squelch as yet another bathroom mat floats gaily past. Although this is not a severe problem, and you get used to most things when you live in a medieval hovel, having to mop out by candlelight, is taking my medieval sensibilities a little too far.

So after the damning warning from the electrician hinting that if I want to use anything with an electrical current I should stand outside, my bathroom light switch decided that it was time to retire to that electrical heaven in the sky or Dixons.

Unfortunately, my DIY skills are non-existent, but on hearing of my dilemma, my ever-handy, ever-loving dad sprang to action and armed with a pair of pliers, a screwdriver that was bent (I hadn’t told him that I’d used it to lever off the lid of a tin of paint and in the process subsequently bent it — but he doesn’t need to know about little mishaps like that), bit of black tape and uttering the immortal words “this won’t take a moment!” I just had to stop him.

Now I love my dad, and countless women have tried to adopt him over the years but if it’s a toss-up between battling with obstreperous candles and soggy matches that refuse to light at the merest whiff of rain or a) having to hit the wall in a strategic place to connect the current, b) having flashing lights that in effect burn out the rest of the electrical system or c) having to stand on a wooden box in the middle of the lounge while poking the switch with a wooden broom handle, well I think I’ll just settle for a box of matches, especially as perms take so much looking after!

However, there is one creature which I could quite happily give a short dose of electrical therapy, and that’s the 5 inch slugs that are competing in a relay race across my dining room floor at the moment. Not content with sliming their way into the kitchen and snaffling the cat biscuits, they’ve decided to ooze their way up my lounge wall deflecting my attention from the one that’s just about to streak across the floor. They’re persistent little devils as no sooner do I give them free flight with optional snack than they’re back again squelching their way into places that I really wish they didn’t. And the cunning of these little blighters knows no bounds, as they’ve taken to hanging from the ceiling, knowing all to well that I can’t reach them. And they have no shame, because even though the wind whistles between their ears as they shoot over the garden fence I can hear them shriek that they’ll soon ‘Be back!”

Happy reading, and if you see a free-falling slug don’t worry, they’ve started demanding an in-flight movie……I thought ‘Gone with the Wind” would be appropriate.

Tales From a Hovel

THE BEGINNING

The first installment of living in a hovel on the side of a mountain in Madeira...

A Freshly Painted Hovel

You may think that I am exaggerating; but please believe me; this is all true. So, take one aged, dilapidated and semi-derelict property, very little cash, a quirky sense of humour and absolutely no DIY skills and what do you get? A nervous breakdown? Or a set of tales that could make the stoutest heart quail.

I won’t go into the dramas that accompanied us when we bought the property. I bought it with my parents who remained in the UK — lucky them! But I digress, purchasing the house wasn’t fun or easy, and with my lack of basic Portuguese I probably said yes to more indecent proposals than I’ve had hot dinners, but this could be the reason why my Portuguese has remained so bad; there were just so many people willing to help me!

Anyway, after several traumatic months of strife and tears, the property became ours, or at least mine as I am the one living here full-time. The view-magnificent, the weeds — the size of triffids and just as deadly, a collection of very rude four-legged residents and of course the house. A solidly built structure with many charming features, although I can’t think of them at the moment. Oh yes, high ceilings to keep it cool in summer and freezing in winter, and it was while I was lying in bed one night shivering under the duvet that it struck me. I had Hogwarts all to myself. I didn’t need to perform charms or spells to recreate an enchanted ceiling to reflect the celestial skies. All I had to do was look up, and more often than not I could see the stars twinkling back at me through the cracks in the ceiling and roof or feel the sudden gush of water as it ran through the many holes.

‘Ah’ I was told, ‘it hardly rains in Madeira’. I’ve often thought of those words when the wind has howled through the broken window panes, while the rain has oozed and dripped into various pots and pans that lay permanently dotted across the floor.

It was while my parents, who were safely tucked up in their lovely warm three-bed semi that I realised that I had another unique feature — running water, and not just from the taps or ceiling. Every time it rained a puddle the size of Lake Windermere would appear and engulf the bathroom floor, and if I wasn’t quick enough it suddenly performed acrobatic stunts down the bathroom steps, through the lounge and out the front door. And I had laughed when the previous owners had said that they had a river running through the main room! Now I know that Feng Shui states that running water is auspicious and it probably is, but not when it’s in danger of taking your furniture with it; it also means I have more mould growing up my walls than any penicillin factory.

Then, of course, there is the floor! When they laid the floor, the builder obviously decided to be creative as it resembles a lunar landscape as its pockmarked with ravines and crenelations that I almost expect Neil Armstrong to pitch up at some point. Cigarette butts aside, the foot or boot prints make an exciting feature and talking point especially as they all lead to the bathroom and don’t come back! Of course, walking through the house at night has its disadvantages, especially when you stub your toe in the middle of the night on one of the many artist lumps that decorate my lunar landscape, and I have spent many a frustrated and angry hour hacking off pieces of concrete only to trip over the chisel an hour later.

A promising start? Well I love the house, the fact that I have drawn daisies around the window frames shows how much I care for its health. Of course I’ve got used to the fact that none of my pictures hang straight and that when the rain clouds gather I have to run outside and do the odd rain dance, oh and did I mention that the ceiling in my middle room is on the verge of collapse. No! Well I live in the dread that I will be cogitating or more likely snoozing and the whole ceiling will fall on top of me, which is marginally better than the shock my friend got when he tried to put in a new light bulb. Metal ladders and dodgy electrics don’t mix as he well found out! So it’s a room you walk through quietly, only talk in whispers and definitely don’t bang the door, it just so happens that the only interior door that exists in the house, is the one adjoining this room. Lucky me!

Of course, you probably think that I am mad and I probably am, but I love it because it’s so awful and it appeals to my whacky sense of humour. Anyone can live in a beautiful house, but a hovel? You have to be a special person, although I agree with my brothers’ recent comments that a cave would not only be warmer, but drier and lighter’ and he’s right, but where would you find a cave that has a new green and white stripy canvas roof?

Well, that’s about it for the moment but when it rains, think of me.