horsemouth and his homestead (three poles four opinions)

the kitchen and the bathroom are due a refresher. this is slightly problematic because horsemouth and the denizens of the gaff will still need to cook and eat and wash. worse still people have opinions on how it should be done. (three poles four opinions as the old adage goes).

horsemouth’s strategy will be to find some boxes, find some box tape and make some space available in his room to store stuff. beyond that he couldn’t give a shit. he responds to any other suggestion with the warmth people usually reserve for vipers. (here we see the content of an early morning conversation with horsemouth it is really not better to poke him with a stick before breakfast).

as far as horsemouth can see everybody in the house has some kind of a hoarding problem
- in time of peace a cupboard can always be found (hell they have a whole room devoted to tat and then there’s the ‘living room’ currently used as a ‘temporary’ repository for tat - for tat that is just resting). (and don’t get him started on the dead bicycles, solar panels, microwaves, bits of wood, duplicated tools and the beer trophy potlatched kipple that clusters by the front door).

horsemouth, as you know, is himself a hoarder. he’s a hoarder of books 
(and to a lesser extent guitars and musical instruments, CDs, clothes).

broadly if horsemouth has storage space he will keep things - he is unable to resist a) cheap and in particular b) free. it is a couple of years since he last moved so the books are beginning to creep up again (they could do with another cull). but this is the critical point - horsemouth has acquired (and had built) enough shelving to store his kipple within his room - none of the other members of the house has done that and so they are obliged to make use of the communal spaces (and mostly any available floor space) of the house.

horsemouth recognises the size of the problem and the timescale but it’s all do-able. they’ve got til next wednesday - today and tomorrow are write-offs, so it’s mostly the weekend.

maybe now horsemouth can have a bowl of museli.

the gaff enables horsemouth to do something fairly important - it enables him to remain in the seaside towns and keep earning (so that most of his wages can go on paying rent for the gaff). horsemouth likes the seaside towns - he likes the opportunities they afford and it makes living cost neutral. or he could get more work/ get a decently paid job.

alternatively horsemouth could fuck off somewhere cheap(er) in the global south and live off his savings - that way he would be running down his savings in the direction of retirement and the state pension which (currently) can be taken anywhere.