When I was 19, I received a phone call on my birthday from my big brother. ‘Do you have a boyfriend at the moment?’ ‘No’, I replied.
‘Well be careful. You could turn into an old spinster living in a little house surrounded by loads of cats.’
Fast forward a few years and it is my (cough cough) birthday this weekend. And last weekend, I went and got a cat for my little house which I live in on my own.
Is his prophecy starting to come true? The cat and I have a good relationship so far. He doesn’t cause mess, he doesn’t take up all the bed, he comes home for dinner every night. Maybe I’ll happily embrace the prophecy!!!
However, the man and the cat get along well so far. Maybe I can just have half the prophecy. Live in a house surrounded by cats and with a man who loves me. Who knows what the next year has in store for me!
October 3, 2007
I am in agony today. My body hurts. Specifically my back, my shoulders, my arms and my legs. That doesn’t really leave much else does it?
What happened was as follows: I am having a housewarming party this weekend (assuming that we are not being hit by a hurricane!). While the inside of my house is well up for display, the back garden was looking rather pathetic. Depending on the weather, it was either a dust bowl or a mud bath.
So after investigating, I discovered that if you go to Bog Walk (about 1 hours drive from Kingston), you can buy rolls of grass. Great I thought, just buy the grass, roll it out and I have a garden. No planting of seeds, nice and simple. So I called up, ordered, borrowed my dad’s station wagon, roped him in to help in the afternoon and off I went.
Well, of course it’s not that simple. The grass merges together in the back of the vehicle on the drive back to town, becoming one big pile of mud and grass. Which is very heavy to move. You can’t just put this on the ground either, you have to break up the soil with a heavy pitch fork thingy. My dad helped – he carried the heavy stuff! However, I still did all of the earth breaking myself. And damn it was hot.
It’s on days like this that I realise the despite the fact that I grew up in Jamaica, that this is my home and where I want to have children one day, I will never truely by a middle-class Jamaican girl. As my friends all said to me today on hearing of my plight: ‘Why didn’t you just get a man in to do it?’
August 16, 2007
And this is what the place looks like now. Still a work in progress but a hell of a lot better than it was before. It smells clean. It feels clean. Wonderful.
This is the living room now, with the famous red wall. I need to get a bookcase to go under the lights, but that will come in time. Obviously, having 2 bookcases isn’t enough for me, I need another one! Note the lack of tide marks on the bottom of the walls, replaced by nice wooden skirting boards. The floor is the same floor, what a difference a good clean makes!
The kitchen now. Still tiny (hence the new breakfast bar in the living room) but everything has its place. And white tiles help make it lok a bit less cubbyhole-like.
And the bedroom, with fresh paint, new wardrobe doors, new floors etc.
Still some things to be done (need plants for the new big back verandha, need curtains in the living room, blinds for the kitchen window, some more paintings for the walls…) but it’s mine and I’m proud of it now.
June 18, 2007
I went out for a drink last night at a bar near to my new house (I love living in the centre of the city!! And yes, ‘my new house’ is going to be a common phrase around here for a while, am reckoning at at least twice per post for a month…)
A friend of ours had been for a meal next door so came in afterwards for a drink with his wife and daughter, daughter was about 15/16. I was talking to daughter when the guy from the band came around. They always have a collection for the band on a Tuesday night, and last night was no different. They approached daughter, who looked at them with that sophisticated look that only a 15 year old has (you know the one, they know that they are cute but are not yet too self-conscious etc) and said:
’Oh, but of course I have no money on me – I’m here with men.’
On another note: thanks for all the good house wishes – I’ll invite you all to the virtual housewarming party, all I need to do first is find where camera batteries were packed…
June 6, 2007
I have lived abroad for 8 years, many miles away from my parents. I have lived in student halls of residence, shared student flats, gorgeous apartments with a friend. I have travelled the world, sometimes on my own, sometimes in charge of other people. By the time my mum was my age, she was married with 2 children. When I came back to Jamaica, I moved back in with my parents but I didn’t realise that this cancelled out all of my independent living that I’d done.
I moved into my own place this weekend, last night was my first night there. It’s wonderful, great, exciting, and yes, a bit scary. If anything goes wrong, I have to fix it – no more calling a landlord.
So this morning, my mum called me from the car on the way to work to check I was OK. She had waited until she was out of the house as she didn’t want my dad to accuse her of babying me.
Then a little later, my dad called to check I was OK. He had waited until my mum had gone to work as he didn’t want her to accuse him of spoiling me.
I laughed to myself. And thought that yes, it is good being independent. But at the same time, it’s always nice to have people behind you just in case.
June 4, 2007
It seems like it will finally come to pass. I have booked a moving vehicle. The finishing touches are being put to the kitchen right now. The bathroom just needs cleaning. Lights have gone up. The electrician has checked everything. And the grill man is working right as I type.
Ladies and Gentlemen, on Saturday Kingston Girl will be moving to her new abode.
Her own apartment.
(Well, currently it’s a shares between her and the mortgage company, but that’s irrelevant at this point in time)
And damn, I’m excited. And if you have been reading for a while, you’ll feel the excitement with me. The place has been transformed from a major dump not fit for human habitation into something very cute. Basically, it’s amazing.
And I think I’d better stop now as I am running out of superlatives. But it’s very very cool!
PS To Leon and others on blogspot – I try and visit you, sometimes I even succeed on getting into your sites. However, commenting appears to be beyond the prowess of my computer. So you’ll just have to take my word for it – and i’ll just have to keep trying.
May 31, 2007
… Sent a parcel to my friend in England. It wasn’t a big parcel and as she reads here sometimes, I won’t mention what was in it other than to say that it’s not heavy. I had to stick 27 stamps on the envelope to cover the cost of posting this parcel.
… Drove behind a wrecker truck called ‘Lucky Wrecker Service.’ Does that mean you are lucky that you broke down or crashed so you can now have the pleasure of their service?
… Picked up my electoral registration card and realised how much my hair colour has changed in the last 4 months.
… And I designed the kitchen in my new house. I picked out the wood I want them to use, talked about where I needed electricity points and worked out what I wanted where. It didn’t take very long as the kitchen is so small that there are not many options.
And now it’s time to plan for the weekend.
May 4, 2007
The apartment buying is going ahead. All is in order from my side which is great. However, there is one slight problem – the apartment is currently being rented out and the tennent has no intention of moving.
The current tennent is a lady who lives there with her three dogs. Yup, 1 new apartment, 3 dogs. Not a good combination. Hence the plan was to do LOADS of work before I move in! But she has obviously realised that no other landlord will take her and her 3 mongrel dogs who sleep on her bed. So she doesn’t want to move.
Which means that the seller will be starting legal action shortly. So hopefully things will go ahead and work out ok so I can still have possession in mid-January.
But my friends have started thinking about the alternatives. Obviously we can’t poison the dogs as I like dogs – although that would make it easier for her to find somewhere else to live! And although the place is a mess, burning it wouldn’t solve anything either. The best suggestion so far is to find some men who will go and knock on her window in the night and hide. Several times in a night. Several nights in a row. i.e. scare her out. Which isn’t very nice… but may become necessary!!
Anyone got any better ideas?
November 28, 2006
1. It’s Friday! Which means I’m off to Ochi for the weekend – and I’m counting the hours. The plan for the weekend involves lying on the beach, sunbathing, drinking, eating, people-watching and sleeping. I can’t wait.
2. I went to Portland for work yesterday. That is such a cruel thing to do to someone. I had to drive all the way there, sit in meetings and drive all the way back. I didn’t get a chance to go in the sea, not even one toe, and I didn’t get a chance to eat any jerk pork. However, Portland did look it’s usual goregous self from what I could see through the windows.
3. I got another flat tyre this week. This is my third flat in 2 months. Basically whenever we get heavy rain, I seem to get a flat. I can’t wait to move off the hill and back into Kingston.
4. Following on from 3, I will be moving… valuation and surveyor’s report are done, mortgage is approved, all I am now waiting on is the money to be disbursed so I can get the keys and get renovating. When will this take place? Oh, apparently it will take about 2 – 3 months for them to disburse the money!
5. And finally, I bought a new phone! And got laughed at by the man in the shop. Basically, I used to have a baby pink razor phone. It was very pretty and was a gift from the ex, and it dropped calls. All the time. And as he bought it in the US, it would cost me a fortune to get it repaired. So I have replaced it with a phone which is worth less than 1/2 the price. At which the man in the shop laughed and told me I was dumb for changing from a razor to ‘that’. I explained about the dropped calls and he was like I should still keep the (crappy) razor over the new phone that works as it looks better! Oh well, obviously I misunderstand the point of a phone – i thought it was to make calls!
November 3, 2006
I’ve just tidied up my links. Some new people come along, some old people leave blogland and some people just get too annoying for me to continue reading (that would be you, you shameless self-publist!).
And I have no idea why it is that my links seem to keep falling to the bottom of the page.
On completely different news, I signed for the apartment yesterday!!! So it will be mine one day! All I have to do now is wait on the surveyor, valuer, mortgage company, tax office… to do their work. Hmm, I guess I’ll get the jeys one day!
September 6, 2006
