8B. Home maintenance & Work____Do It Yourself - the great British pastime____[Informal]

It sounds like a bomb has gone off in the house next door. No, it hasn’t. It’s Sunday and all the neighbours are at it again. Miss Allday is turning out her living room. Mr Shaw is laying on an electricity supply to his greenhouse. His plants must be getting cold. Even Mrs Taylor, the piano teacher, has turned to car maintenance for the day. Mr Wise is really organised. He’s taken on a team of builders to extend his downstairs bathroom. I hope he’s got planning permission. Last week, the same team were doing up his kitchen. He lays them off from Monday to Saturday and then on the day of rest they’re all at it again.

Whatever happened to quiet contemplation? God took almost a week to build heaven and earth, but the people in this street think they can do it in a day! No wonder church attendances are falling!

This great country of ours no longer turns out good Christians. Everybody’s too busy putting up garden sheds or adding rooms to their properties to put up invisible guests. If a bomb really went off next door, nobody would call the fire brigade. Mr Wise and his team would just turn on the nearest fire hydrant and they would put it out themselves. Come to think of it, I could probably do with one of these amateur teams. My washing machine has just given out. Damn, it’s Sunday... I’ll have to wait till tomorrow before I can call out the service engineer.