In case you’re wondering, I’m the “very old” bricklayer – or re-pointer, to be exact. Yesterday a charming modern “Princess” of nearly seven years old told me that someone said I looked “very old”, not just old but VERY old. Oddly enough, just a few minutes prior to the unwarranted revelation, I had felt great out riding on my bike, and not at all old. Now I don’t normally take too much notice of what seven-years-olds say, especially with regard to ages because everyone over the age of ten looks old to them, but I was surprised that none of the adults in the room took her to task and it was left to me to tell the child that she had been tactless and insensitive. Hey, I must be really old because I still believe that children should be taught about such old-fashioned notions as social graces and respect for one’s elders. If I feel somewhat alien I can guess how bizarre the modern world seems to people of my Mum’s age – it must be terrible.
Anyway, this morning I was re-pointing our brick wall from the pavement side and I was thinking, “Am I very old?” (and feeling quite down), when our neighbour, Ron, came out from his gate. He waved, smiled and called out, “You’re always so busy”. He was about to get into his car but stopped and came back onto the pavement to say, “Your flowers on the terrace look beautiful, Sally!” I put down my trowel and mortar, and ran up and gave him a kiss (he must have wondered at the perhaps over-zealous response to his kind remark).
A little while later, when the wall was well and truly thick with mortar, a young tradesman came along to the back of his parked van and looked at my efforts.
“Are you any good at re-pointing?” I asked.
“You could buy one of those mortar guns that you use like sealant guns, running a line between the bricks,” he shook his head and smiled.
“It’s not finished yet,” I answered, “it will look okay when I’ve scraped some of it off…”
Some minutes later still (by which time I was scraping merrily away), another neighbour came by. He stopped and stood in the middle of the pavement to observe my workmanship. He rubbed his chin.
“You should have wet the bricks, Sally, – before starting the mortaring,” he said like an expert.
“Oh really, I didn’t know…”
“Didn’t you have a sharp-pointed trowel? You should have used a sharp one,” he said knowledgeably.
“It’s all we had,” I offered, holding up my blunt ended trowel.
“What are you going to use to cut in?” he continued.
I held up a piece of plastic pipe.
“Oh, the bucket-handle approach – that’s what they call it in the trade,” he said like a man who knows the trade.
“Want to help?” I asked.
He chuckled, shook his head and left me to it.
I was washing off the excess (after using the “bucket-handle approach”) when a lady said, “A good job!”, as she kept on walking by (so as not to stop me from my work). How heartening! It was starting to look better.
I was back with a fresh bucket of water and two sponges when another lady walked past and called out admiringly, “A good job, well done!”
The tradesman came back to his van and I asked him, “It’s not too bad – is it?”
“No, it’s alright,” he conceded. (I take it “alright” is a great compliment coming from a tradesman – even if he was a plumber).
At last, while I was admiring my finished section of the wall (I had only enough mortar for one quarter of our wall) a little boy of about three or four came along on his tricycle and stopped about twelve yards from me to wait for his mother and grandmother, who were trailing behind. I asked him…
“Do you want to come and look at my wall? Do you see I’ve been filling in the holes? What do you think?”
The little chap walked his trike down to where I had been working and inspected the wall. He looked at the area of wall that hadn’t been done and came back to look at my finished section. He may have been too young to speak, he may have been too shy to speak, but he nodded his head vigorously and smiled broadly. He made it clear that he thought I’d made a good job of it. I expect he thought I was a very old bricklayer!