After several years of family get-togethers, gatherings for sporting occasions and destructive testing by the grandchildren, our three piece suite was beginning to exhibit signs of wear and tear. The groove I spent years perfecting had become a chasm, the springs designed to give maximum comfort morphing into the clapped-out suspension of an Arthur Daley second-hand car and the colour fading faster than the Tories lead in the opinion polls following Dominic Cummings little walkabout at Castle Howard.
Although joint shopping trips with Liz usually result in a communal loss of the will to live, we both agreed it was time the lounge furniture was given an urgent upgrade. From the male perspective, top of the list for the new sofas was a 'Lazy Boy' reclining feature with a built in drinks receptacle to accommodate a couple of cans of lager to watch the rugby/football/cricket on TV, whilst the female perspective tended to err in favour of colour, material and matching accessories. Honours remained even, with the final choice incorporating a full reclining feature (sadly without the accompanying drinks receptacles), but with the added bonus of power assistance instead of the bog-standard manual. Balancing features included mink coloured fabric treated with a repellent to proof it against accidental staining (which probably wouldn't be needed with the addition of a suitable drinks receptacle), a matching footstool and coordinated scatter cushions.
Orders were taken by the manager of the shop and forwarded electronically to the Head Office at Sunderland to arrange the construction and delivery of the furniture. Fingers were mutually crossed that the delivery service would be more effective than that of the local football team who are, as we speak, languishing in the third tier of English Football. With their current lack of accuracy when delivering the final ball into the oppositions' penalty area, our furniture could end up literally anywhere in the UK.
As a projected delivery date of six weeks was given, it would appear we were on the final straight, but no! It was about this time in a previously unknown place in China called Wuhan that a virus either jumped the divide between animals and humans, or escaped from a laboratory via a fridge with a dodgy seal. Irrespective of which conspiracy theory you adhere to, what followed was the largest unwanted export from China as the virus spread to the outside world. You could be forgiven for thinking that after traveling across two continents and clocking up over eight thousand miles the virus would be completely knackered by the time it arrived in Gloucester, but if anything it seemed to have arrived even stronger than ever.
It was just as we were creeping towards the end of the six weeks' delivery period that the decision to get rid of the old suite to make way for the new was made. Remembering the problems we had getting the furniture into the house did not inspire confidence and true to form it took the loss of several layers of paint from the door lintel together with several layers of epidermis from the knuckles to get it as far as the front door. It was here it got firmly wedged. We actually got to the stage of considering whether we should just leave it there as a novelty feature for the passing public to admire. In the end it was only a furious, full frontal attack together with a good kicking that loosened its tenacious hold on the door-frame and tumbled it onto the road outside. Here it resided for the next few days until the Council came to pick it up. During this period our house stood out from the rest in the street with two rather large, well worn sofas and an old armchair, resplendent in the front garden. All it needed to complete the picture was a burned out Ford Cortina and a liberal sprinkling of dog turds and if could have been used as a TV set for the front garden of Daisy and Onslow in the comedy programme, 'Keeping up Appearances'.
Ironically, clearing out of the old furniture dovetailed precisely with the start of the lock-down period and the six week delivery period disappeared into the ether. In true British tradition we stocked up on the essentials (ensuring we had enough wine, gin and beer to tide us over the dark days to come) and started tearing up newspaper to counteract the shortage of toilet paper. To alleviate the shortage of lounge furniture the outhouse was raided, yielding a summer deckchair and a previously decorative rocking chair which were drafted into front line duty as a back-up measure. What followed was many weeks of uncertainty until eventually the measures put in place to contain the Coronavirus were eased. Luckily the severely stretched supply lines between brewery/distillery/vineyards held firm and the possibility of sitting on something that didn't rock backwards and forwards, or numbing the buttocks completely, became a distinct possibility.
There was subsequent great joy in the household when an e-mail was received saying production of the furniture had resumed and that is was scheduled for delivery the next Saturday, between 07.00hrs and 12.00hrs. This was subsequently fine tuned on the Saturday to approximately 10.09hrs (which seems to me, to err more on the side of specific rather than approximate). As is the way with these updates, they proved to be as accurate as Neville Chamberlain's, assertion of 'Peace in our Time' and it wasn't until a good hour later that the van materialised on the horizon.
Following a ring on the doorbell, we were confronted by a rotund, agitated Welshman, waving a tape measure and shaking his head vigorously. Ignoring traditional forms of greetings such as 'Good Morning', or 'How do you Do', his opening gambit consisted was to inform us the doorway was too narrow and they could not get the settee through it. Obviously this guy must have been a Celtic relation of Victor Meldrew, as his gloomy observations resulted in him suggesting that that the only avenue open would be to return the furniture to the warehouse to be dismantled. As we had waited nearly two months for them to construct it and with the possibility of the deck chair becoming a permanent fixture, we entered into a discussion on other viable means of installing the long awaited furniture.
After luring him into the front room with offers of cups of tea and a biscuit, an alternative route was offered via the adjacent dining room and the double doors of the patio, into the back garden. Further coaxing with an electric cattle prod got him into the back garden where the tape measure was again flourished triumphantly as the width of the side door, leading to front, proved to be less than that of the new settee. Grasping at straws, we suggested that we could use our neighbours' side door and pass it over the fence, resulting in a flurry of reasons why this could not be done. These ranged from the usual 'more than my job's worth', to current Trade Union guidelines and ultimately to the much misquoted Health & Safety legislation. Agreement was reached only after he was made aware in no uncertain terms, that Health and Safety was close to being compromised with the resulting insertion of a cattle prod in a place where 'the sun don't shine'.
After knocking on Alan and Janet's door (our next door neighbours), they were indeed more than happy for us to use their side gate and proceeded to step back to watch the fun. Much to the whinging Welshman's disappointment his final effort to deny delivery was shot down in flames, when his tape measure confirmed access was possible with plenty of room to spare. He cut a disconsolate figure as he and his mate eventually produced the settee from the bowels of the van.
Helping them carry the settee through to the back garden I was somewhat surprised when they chose the highest point of the fence (above head level) to lift it over, as opposed to further down the garden where it was only waist high. Janet admitted afterwards that she too was somewhat taken aback and was mentally taking side bets as to whether the fence would disintegrate under the weight as it balanced precariously on the top, or whether it would succumb to the forces of gravity and tumble over into our back garden. With this in mind I sprinted back to our house as it teetered on the edge like a lemming preparing to jump off a cliff. Grabbing hold of the end on my side of the fence, I heard the dulcet Welsh tones from next door, shouting, 'Have you got it?', before it was pushed further over to my side. I ended up supporting the full weight as they slowly ambled around to my side of the fence. I was just about to give up the ghost and collapse under the strain when they arrived to help me finally lift it over.
Eventually, and perhaps with a hint of ill grace, our friends managed to get the rest of the furniture into the front room before finally disappearing back to Wales, but not before leaving us with a dent in the wall next to the door as a permanent memento of their visit. Being left on our own with the new, comfortable settees we spent the next half an hour playing with the reclining seats and savoring the novelty of having somewhere to sit. After much experimentation with the buttons to recline the seat, it was thought to be prudent not to mention them to the grandchildren when they came round. Needless to say the first words uttered when they saw the new furniture was Max exclaiming 'Oh look, a button', followed by much pressing and excitement, before Ellie shouted 'and I've got one at my end too'. For the next ten minutes the settee took on the appearance of a large, fat pigeon, flapping its wings frantically as it tried to take off.
Luckily, the novelty is beginning to wear off and it now possible to sit down without being flung backwards as little fingers press the recline button. Time to relax now until next time, when I will be relating further stories of events in Gloucester...
