Where Do I Start With The Dysfunctional Paving Company?

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, the dysfunctional family are whirling themselves up a dust storm of trouble.

For anyone unfamiliar with our set-up, we have No 2 Son (quite possibly on the Autistic Spectrum) living with us, The Baby Angel (my only progeny), also living with us, and No 1 Son, recovering drug addict and tormentor of his bro, back with us for an undetermined length of time, having been forcibly ejected 5 years ago and now here for a 'holiday'.

Himself also has two ex step children from his relationship with the mother of Small Boy (a child who no longer speaks to me and is stirring himself up a mess of trouble over at his mother's place where he has been wagging school and handing up no work despite changing schools at his request, having had an assessment last year which showed he has a dyslexic profile and having had a Support Plan put in place. But I digress).

One of the stepchildren, I'll call him Lance, is a reasonably skilled young man who quit school at 16, because he could, and has tried a variety of jobs over the last 7 years most of which he tossed in because they required him to get out of bed before midday. Recently he has decided to start up a little business himself, doing landscaping. Himself, out of the goodness of his heart, asked him to quote on the paving of our yard.

Does this have disaster written all over it or what?

He came over initially, took measurements and sold Himself on these pavers >. He then went away to do his 'calculations'.

Three weeks later, Himself told me to look for other quotes. He also told his ex that Lance hadn't got back to us so we were looking elsewhere and lo and behold, there was Lance on a Friday afternoon, with his quote. It was for $7000. A further few measurements were taken,  we discussed the direction of laying the pavers, the placement of some beds to break up the corridor like appearance of the patio and off he went to finalise the quote. It came in at $13,000!!! When queried about the sudden jump in price he replied,
"Oh, well the first time I forgot to include labour costs."

Are the alarm bells now ringing loudly??

Himself was keen to give them a go. He had also assigned the task of building garden beds and levels on one side of the new retaining wall, to No 2 Son.

This photo was taken at the end of January, after No 1 Son had weeded out a stubborn shrub and No 2 Son had thus been shamed into weeding out a slightly smaller but no less gnarly nandina. The quote was in, the job was scoped....everything was set to go. The pavers arrived on the 28th of February.

As of yesterday, this was the progress.

The general work hours seem to be 11.30am til 12.30pm followed by a two hour lunch followed by an arbitrary hour, or not, afterwards....followed by knocking off at 3pm.

There has been some discussion over the slope of the area. The lads want to lay most of the pavers horizontally across the corridor with a vertical row running parallel to the roof-line of the house, draining any rainwater into the basin under the tap (see first photo). I have mentioned to them that it is illegal to run storm water into a sewage drain (not to mention the fact that I do not want a row of vertical pavers dissecting the already narrow patio!) but have heard no response. I see no reason why the patio cannot slope towards the retaining wall, and if a drain is necessary, an in ground channel could be laid along the wall to take run off toward the storm water drain over near the pool equipment. Anyway, whatever they do with it....it better not be contrary to building regs!!!! >:-( I feel this battle is one we still need to have. Himself has a limited knowledge of all this sort of thing and as a result feels quite resentful that I wish to have a say in it. It's a man thing.

So as the days grow short and the working hours of our 'contractors' grow even shorter, I am left wondering whether we will have to engage some professional pavers to rescue us from the mess these two renegades may possibly leave us in! The whole thing needs to tie in with the pergola (commencement date 22nd April) and the BA's 18th birthday which we hope to hold on the 11th May. Fingers crossed.

Oh well, we always have this......

Behind the Barricades

Recently, whilst looking back over posts to find a picture I'd lost in the tangle of changing machines and corrupted external drives, I found this post.

It made me sad because I used to be quite funny.

Sure my job was a nightmare and my stress levels through the roof, but I was observing things with a keen eye and I hadn't lost my sense of humour. Now, as I look back over the last few months here at The Sword, I see superficial posts with a hat tip to reality and with dwindling attempts at humour and insight. Of course, it's indicative of where we are in life but it still makes me sad. Hell, I wouldn't want to read me.

So, in an effort to clamber over the roughly proportionate brick walls of malaise and life demands which tower threateningly over  my creativity and humour, I'm going to fill you in, as tactfully as possible, on the recent vagaries of life at The Sword although, to be honest, it isn't tact that's stopped me writing around here; I was never overly blessed with tact. :-)

A number of things have happened recently, some good, some bad, some a little ambiguous (we shall see how they turn out). Himself and I are struggling with health issues, No 2 Son is unemployed again, Small Boy doesn't come by any more and the Baby Angel is in the throes of her final year at school. Even without recent events, we have out hands full.

The good thing that's happened is that Himself's uncle has left us what looks to be a sizeable legacy. The bad thing is that the two of us now have to agree on how to use it! I would like to reduce our mortgage as much as possible, as well as replace that retaining wall which has been causing us grief for some years now.
Himself would like to put a sizeable chunk of it into the business. *Sigh*
Business is the big issue of course. Being self employed in this economic climate is not a comfortable thing. Of course, as the economy bunny hops along, people want websites to promote their business and whilst there is no problem in attracting the clients,  many don't actually have the readies with which to pay, at least not within our '14 day payment' terms. This leaves us with cash flow issues and naturally when there's not enough to go around, it's the Boss who misses out.We seem to have been standing still financially for as long as Himself and I have been together. So whilst Himself sees the inheritance as an opportunity to invest in the business, I see it as throwing wads of bank notes into a black hole.

The ambiguous thing is that Himself's business partner sauntered into the office a month or so ago and announced he was moving to the UK. Has had already sold his house. With a creative partnership stretching back nearly 15 years, Himself was gutted by the bombshell delivery of the news.

I suppose we should have seen it coming. With the employment of a couple of super hot young programmers in the last few years Business Partner, as the technical arm of the partnership, has been feeling more and more inadequate and disempowered. Add to this the fact that his wife wants to live in a cooler climate and his son to attend a european university and it was really only a matter of time. I guess we just wished he had discussed it before it became a fait accompli.

Naturally, this has produced a flurry of restructuring, not the least of which was our recent sojourn to Kangaroo Island for a 'Restructuring Workshop'.

The remaining 'gang' gathered at our favourite island resort to see how roles could be re-organised and tasks re-allocated. It was good to do this away from the somewhat claustrophobic confines of the office and the continual interruption of phone and emails.

This:

Versus:

The interesting thing about the whole exercise is that it included me. Up until now I have had a fairly remote input into Himself's business activities. I have provided voice-overs, proof read content, tested new sites and occasionally collated print materials but I have not been involved in the day to day running of the office or in the strategic nature of the business. With the departure of BP this looks set to change.

Himself ran a very tight workshop over the one and a half days. I minuted, drew up a framework of aims, goals and objectives and helped to run through the 'who' and 'when' of an Action Plan. Apparently they thought I did a wonderful job because they also want me to come into the office on my one day a week off to chase payments, pay accounts and organise the filing system!

I am not sure how I feel about this.

*********************

Also behind the barricade of doom and gloom are our health issues which are at once debilitating, depressing and expensive. Mine of course is the old shoulder problem which has surprisingly lain dormant for three and a half years. On re-reading this post I am shocked by how similar my symptoms are to this time, but how quickly they were cured by an injection last time. According to latest ultra sounds, I now have a full thickness tear of the tendon although, unlike in this picture, mine is probably more towards the front of the supraspinatus. It was sustained in the incident I described here although, it is likely that I had a pre-existing superficial tear (even though I can't remember any specific trauma) which has just ripped right through. Whatever the pathology of the thing, it ain't going to go away by itself and impacts on my ability to do many of the heavier manual tasks about the place that seem to fall to me. Strangely, it is my sleep which is most affected.

Lying still in one position for any length of time seems to cause nerve irritation and I am waking up in the early hours with intense burning pain down the front of my arm. Ack. Talking about it is enough to bring the shadow of those twin brick walls back over my head. My immediate inclination, right now, is to stop writing, get a large glass of wine and do something vaguely organisational like, oh I don't know, re-arranging deckchairs on the Titanic.

Himself is suffering with major dental issues which affect his quality of life and, like all dental issues, threaten to be hugely expensive. He wants to go the cheap route but I don't want to be married to someone with full dentures! :-( Bear this in mind any of you who still struggle with smoking. It is another aspect of the revolting habit which will come to plague you in later life!!

Stepsons are my other heartache. As briefly as possible I will mention some of these issues, as they do impact on me, although I know they are not actually my issues to discuss. No 1 Son is traveling a very dark path at present with addictions, money problems and even physical threats to his safety. He has been out on his own for 5 years now so we only see and hear about these things as the situation deteriorates. Himself is determined that No1 Son's problems will not impact upon the others.
No 2 Son is still living downstairs in his 'Pit' and we have some hope for him, if he could only get a direction in life. He is unemployed again at present and lacks the resilience to hammer on doors and flood businesses with his 'resume'. I feel strongly that if he could just find his passion and be given a break, he would blossom. OK it may turn out that he's more of a Patterson's Curse  than a Forget-Me-Not but hey! there's nothing like a big field of blue in the Spring. He often has good intentions.
Small Boy is breaking all our hearts at present. He has started High School and has simultaneously decided that he has better things to do than spend the weekend with a busy dad and two boring girls (The BA and I). In some ways, it is to be expected that his life will revolve less and less around the family, as indeed has been the case for the BA as she stretches her social wings; but I was just not expecting it so soon. And I strongly feel that his parents could be making more of a stand. And his first secondary school report reflects the state of play.

So that briefly (hah!) is life here behind the Barricades. I am hoping to recover my humour and energy and start writing, I mean really writing, again. I'm just not quite sure how to go about it.