Ty Bach

In buoyant denial of global gravity, I’ve been a busy old bat today, preparing for the apocalypse with just a little more cosmetic attention to my grand but crumbling old two-seater Ty Bach (earth closet, privy). Stolidly built with the house in 1887 it would have hosted many a prim percher, wobbly widdler, profound thinker, and more than a few nocturnal arachnophobes until the indoor porcelain was plumbed in during the 1950’s. How many vast skirts were hoisted and pantaloons tumbled in this wee sanctuary? Here the old sea captain no doubt chomped wistfully on his pipe as he hankered for distant horizons; his wife would have groaned under the weight of her many pregnancies; and their sobs would have rolled around the walls when the Spanish Flu of 1918 stole three of their children. Mountains of Andrex would have played no part in their comfort.

Living here, I am ever mindful of those whose space I have adopted as my own, those who tended the same garden, who tuned in to the same psycho babble of the river as they lay awake with their contemporary hopes & fears. I thought of them often today as I wantonly refurbished this most intimate of spaces, bejazzing the walls with nonsensical bling. When I was done, I sat down (merely to appraise my work), at which point the ever steady throne of ages toppled & tipped, no longer to be trusted as its supports began to succumb to the all-consuming rot of time. I felt ridiculously guilty in my failure to fend off the inevitable, as I shuffled out, muttering abject apologies as I closed the door. Which promptly fell off its hinges.

Heaven help us.