It would be fair to say that I don’t generally have much sympathy for our current prime minister. Rich white male middle aged bastards have life sweet, I don’t care what they’re whining about: taxes; how tough it is to be a landlord; business owners are the real victims here; etc etc. But the fact that the prime minister’s official residence is an expensive albatross that’s going to cost the taxpayers $30 million or so to fix is too close to the bone right now.
Do you remember our tiling travails? I’m sure I’ve mentioned it before, but to recap: for the past few years, the tiles on the outside upper floor of our house have been falling off. Not all at once, but at the rate of several per year, and from the subtle little patch up jobs that you can see if you take a closer look, it’s not a new issue. The house is coming up to a hundred years old, after all. The builders report made no mention of it when we bought the place back in 2016, in any event.
We’ve been trying to organise a fix for years, enriching our architects considerably in the process. After several false starts, we’ve finally got the right team sorted, and we got the definitive quote to retile the entire top floor this week. It’s going to cost half a million dollars. Just typing the numbers brings me out in a sweat. It’s a horrific amount of money in anyone’s language, and will be completely borne by us as it’s not something insurance will cover, fabulous though our insurers are.
I’m struggling to get my head around it. Part of me wants to shout and scream, drum my heels on the floor, throw my toys out of the cot, and all those other toddler tantrum metaphors. If a bomb dropped on the house; if it collapsed in an earthquake; if it was engulfed in a mysterious midnight conflagration and razed to the ground; as long as there was no collateral damage, I wouldn’t be sad. But I don’t think we have any options. We can’t sell it like it is without making a big loss, and demolishing it and rebuilding would cost even more. So, we’re just going to have to suck it up. Yes, I have every right to be angry and upset, but what’s the point? I think my best approach is to pretend it’s the fabulous renovation we’ve always dreamed of. And really, when a large percentage of the population are struggling to put food on the table, maybe I should stop whinging. Certainly I’m helping not only our architects, but also innumerable builders, tilers, scaffolders, and other associated workers feed their families, and that’s a good thing, right?