Cupboard love

There’s a concept in Buddhism known as taṇhā. It’s variously translated as desire, craving or thirst (and has nothing to do with the recipe-book writing wife of Gordon Ramsay, although she, I should imagine, is not unacquainted with its effects). In Buddhism, taṇhā, as surely as night follows day, leads to dukkha, or suffering; in other words that which you strive for, inevitably, will turn out to be a disappointment.

When I was younger, my own taṇhā was focussed on knowledge. I used to think if I just read one more book or went to one more lecture, I’d finally understand what it was all about – life, the world and everything. Unfortunately, it never happened. I’m sure if I’d have had the application to actually attend all those lectures or the energy to get to the library before it closed, I’d have realised the error of my reasoning eventually. Before that, it was focussed on weight and spots – if I just managed to lose that last half stone, or eradicate those last few spots, that trumpet player with the muscly brown arms on the second desk of the North Lincolnshire Concert Ensemble would surely be mine. Alas, that was not to be either – I had another tanhā, which took the form of an excessive fondness for Caroline’s mum’s bread pudding and the contents of the biscuit tin, which was always to get the better of me - it was probably just as well.

Now, a handful of decades later and with hopefully a little more worldy wisdom under my belt (not to mention a fair few slices of bread pudding as well as the odd biscuit or 100), my taṇhā has drifted towards storage – a perfectly turned shelf, a pleasing box or a satisfying cupboard (although cake and biscuits still figure, obviously). I know in my heart of hearts it’s not the answer to all the world’s ills, but if I can just have enough shelves and storage space, my life, if not complete, will certainly be a whole lot tidier.

So when I spotted a possible place for a new cupboard following a sort-out for last week’s car boot sale, and H, having given the green light in the form of a shrug and a sort of grunt which didn’t exactly sound like ‘no’, my excitement knew no bounds. Unfortunately, Richard, our current builder of choice, had by now disappeared into a parallel time-space continuum following the Long Night of the Lamb Chops, and was nowhere to be found, so an alternative cupboardsmith had to be located. Luckily, our village is full of such artisans and within a matter of days Nigel and his Black & Decker had been installed into the spare room with a ready supply of sweet tea.

Now, as with all things in this world, where there’s yin, there’s yang; where there’s light, there’s dark, black and white, etc, etc – so although blessed with the fine talent of cupboardmaking, Nigel inevitably had to come with a downside. In fact Nigel had two downsides; a monsterous bread-eating dog, which accompanied him in all his endeavours, and an unstoppable urge to whistle. Under other circumstances, this would probably have been fine – I suppose I could have gone out and put the bread safely away somewhere well out of reach, but I had rather a lot of work to get through. Unfortunately, Brown Dog, being a Radio Three sort of fellow, is uncommonly sensitive to tuneless whistling and whenever Nigel whistled, Brown Dog would go off into a top spin, barking frantically and tearing around the garden, impeding all attempts to conduct an interview over the telephone, or indeed even think straight.

“I think it might be your whistling,” I suggested. For about the eighth time.
“Oh, sorry. I am trying not to, but I keep forgetting.”
Nigel appeared to be afflicted with some kind of whistling Tourrette’s.

I’ve got rather a lot of work on at the moment – although the work itself is easy peasy, it’s the sorting out of my life around it that’s the problem. In order to get up to London to check out the Christmas press shows, not only do I have to plan a timetable and book the necessary trains, but I have to organise the boy, sort out the dog and make sure the bread bin and the fridge are full, the bills are paid, the cat is fed, the plants watered, the lawnmower mended… I bet Benjamin Franklin with his meticulously planned and productive schedule never had these kinds of things to contend with. The boy is not difficult – polite and popular, he never seems to be short of people to go to tea with or bring him back from Cubs. The dog is more of a problem.

I make the first phone call to try and palm the dog off on some poor unsuspecting neighbour for the first of the five days I have to sort out. The whistling starts, the dog barks furiously the neighbour hesitates, goes away to check his diary and… “Oh dear – I AM sorry. We’ve got a dentist’s appointment in Cirencester that day…”

And so it goes on.

Finally, I resort to the dogsitter. It’s expensive, but at least if I’m paying, I don’t need to feel so guilty about the barking. It is expensive. I find myself wondering whether she has an especially high rate for noisy dogs...

At last, the cupboard is all but finished. I peer inside, fully expecting to glimpse Nirvana.

A polite cough interrupts my reverie.

“Oh – I should have told you to wait until the paint was dry,” suggests Nigel. Meanwhile, his dog is downstairs greedily devouring the wholemeal.