Words by Stephen Grant
There’s another pregnancy in our family but crucially, my wife knows nothing about it. Our house is expecting. I shall explain.
The fabulous Brighton (well, Hove actually) based comedian Simon Evans (no? Google him, you’ll thank me later) has a fabulous routine about how fatherhood leaves him so little time now he can’t… well, let’s say ‘entertain himself’. And if you’re having problems getting my gist here; think of how the internet connects you to everybody, but an intranet only connects you to yourself. So in this instance, we are talking about ‘intracourse’.
Simon’s gripe is that even the bathroom is a poor hiding place, as only seconds later a young child is hammering on the door needing immediate access. The joke ends very neatly when he says, “that’s it, I’m getting a shed.”
Shed ownership is quite remarkable. It’s a middle-aged stereotype that has stayed firmly in the world of stereotype. So many similar age 40+ features have been claimed by others; the teenagers are wearing cardigans, pregnant mums are wearing carpet slippers. Gardening has become ‘retro’, and brewing your own beer is now so achingly cool you’re practically recreating a budget version of Breaking Bad.
So maybe I was laughing at the notion of even owning a shed. Well, I’m not laughing any more. When we bought our new house, the garden we inherited was this beautiful mix of wild and cultured flowers, ornaments, brickwork, stones, railway sleepers, water features and spotlights.
Basically, a buffet table of toddler death. Now the weather has got better, our eldest naturally wants to play outside. But knowing he’s most likely to return in, at best, plaster, and at worst, a bag, we’re hiring a landscape gardener to return our house’s garden to an ultra-safe and uber-dull patch of grass and rounded-off decking.
And with this transformation comes space and opportunity for a building in the garden – and that’s why, for reasons of sanctuary alone, our house is destined to give birth to a tiny house who will live in the garden. And like most newborns, it will appear to do nothing yet take up huge swathes of my time – and return unbridled joy.
These are heady times. I’m scouring the gargantuan local indoor garden centres. I’m basically looking at sheds in sheds. They look simple and ordinary and by God that excites me. Yes, they’re tiny, but the possibilities are endless. You know the ‘Tardis’? This is the Tardie. Standing for Time and Relative Dimensions in Expectation, it needs to promise nothing on the outside but give something wonderful on the inside. It’s very much the opposite of a gluten-free cake.
However, this shed has to be mine, all mine. Lucy cannot know that a mini-building is available to us, or she will start hankering over a ‘summer house’. Ugh. That attractive blend of brick and glass is not wanted. Have you ever seen a summer house used for storage?
No, exactly. They’re useless. Have you ever seen an empty shed once its in someone’s garden? No. Every shed starts its life already full. Space only appears when the contents are reorganised. The power-drill is kept in a box fixed together by screwdrivers, and the screwdrivers sit in wall-holes drilled by the power-drill. See? A reciprocal living arrangement.
The tools aren’t just happy in here, they’ve operating a fully-fledged commune. And their inclusion has the advantage of making the shed a perfectly acceptable no-go area for children. “They can’t come in love, it’s too dangerous”. Now where’s my red wine and copy of Esquire? Good times, people, good times.