After the storm - A garden
You may recall that quite some time ago there were storms and some of our wall fell off...you may not recall this as it was quite some time ago.
Naturally, we phoned the insurance company.
We got our instructions about estimates,organised them and had a visit from the loss adjuster (Storm in January, visit in February)...not too much delay there, considering half the country had storm damage to report to insurance companies.
Now that it's April you might imagine that all was sorted and paid for and forgotten.
Well no, not quite.
I was going to list the phone calls I made but it got boring and repetitive, enough to say, I have made 13 calls to them and they have phoned once (but failed to leave a message, though I had suggested they do so if I was out...so I've only their word for it that they phoned at all).
After every one of my calls there have been promises to phone back 'in a day or two', 'later today', 'in about an hour', 'early next week'. Etc etc. At least half the calls I made were on the day they were supposed to be phoning me and they were 'out of the office' They've lost the estimates so I had to send more copies (it took two weeks of calls to establish that). At the last call they were supposed to be contacting the insurers because we'd got estimates to 'replace the gable end wall', We hadn't; the estimates were for replacing the pebble dashing on the gable end of the roof and said so quite clearly. However, I don't know for sure that the insurers were being told inaccurate things because I couldn't speak to either of the people who've been receiving my calls...both of them were out of the office!
Well I haven't shouted at them, I haven't been abusive and I haven't made empty threats. I have nagged persistently and I have given them about half a day's grace each time they didn't phone back. I'm told their phones don't work properly at the moment...I even refrained from being sarcastic about whether it was because they didn't know how to use the phone.
Barney is threatening to write to the insurers, the ombudsman and the world but really all we've got to complain about is a long delay and a string of unmade calls. The frustration and fury is all at this end of the line. fortunately, since Barney knows how to fix a tarp over a gap in the roof we haven't had any leaks. Next call, end of this week. I'd better do it tomorrow in case they're out of the office.
It's all part of life's rich tapestry (the underneath part where the threads are close to the ground and no one can quite see what they're made of or where they lead or what they're for).
Romney Marsh though...that's a totally different kettle of fish. Very nice fish too, and the chips were wonderful :)
And Derek Jarman's garden.
For those who don't know of him, he was a visionary film director who died of Aids.
During his last years, he lived here and created this garden, which blends into the bleak landscape as if it had grown there and reflects outward to the ever-changing skies and the unchanging shingle and scrub.
I know almost nothing of the man himself but I feel that as he worked on this final piece of art, he was looking outwards always. I imagined him kneeling, with his back to the house, the shelter he'd made from the world, and drinking in the light and shadow, bathing in the wind and increasingly, struggling with physical limitations to keep building and refining what he saw out there and perhaps, what the landscape inside his mind said.
It seems presumptuous to make assumptions about what is in an artist's mind as he works. So I won't. What he saw when he looked inward may well also be reflected in the sculptures.
I certainly haven't done the garden justice...it would have yielded up finer pictures and more arresting images on a less hazy day, earlier in the morning, later in the afternoon...but it was very, very moving nonetheless.
Here is a rather better set of pictures, worth a look. (for one thing, it was taken later in the year and there were flowers...I'd love to see it like that) Also, I felt inhibited by the fact that it's now owned by his lover/partner, who seemed not to be there at the time but may well get absolutely fed up with random hordes of photographers and tourists wandering round the place all day snapping and exclaiming and pointing...one advantage of going when we did! Maybe my outward looking idea was simply because I didn't want to spend too much time staring rudely at the cottage :)And here, a lovely, short article which says rather more about the man himself.
Labels: adjustment, cross bunnies at Easter, Derek Jarman, incompetance, insurance, loss, pebble dash, phone, temper, wall falling down
