I now have to be careful about sitting on my guitar chair for too long to avoid being absorbed into the creeping mantle of verandah grapevine.
When a vine appeared threading its way down the bedroom wall, I realised we could be disappearing into a Mayan jungle of lost wonders waiting to be rediscovered by explorers sent out from the cities of the future.
The little amount of grass we have is equally as manic.
I am considering buying an electric mower that connects via satellite to my solar panels so it can continuously mow for 24 hours.
It might then just keep up with the Kikuyu growth.
Mr Musk might already have an infinite mower concept on his digital design table right now.
But I can’t wait for him.
He’s designing a trillion-dollar cutting machine for America’s deep state bureaucracy, so he’s a bit busy.
Puts my lawn problems in the shade a bit.
Never mind, I do try to always look on the positive side of things and I have realised our disappearing house could actually prove to be useful in planning the Great Christmas Escape.
This has been on my mind for a number of years now, and as the relentless juggernaut cranks up again, I am reminded of why escaping Christmas is so important.
- No more putting up lights to send your power bill soaring and put you at risk of falling off ladders.
- No more wrestling with the plastic pine tree and decorating it with tinsel to trash up the lounge room.
- No more putting up with other people’s spoilt kids on Christmas Day.
- No more emptying your wallet in the hunt for presents to give to people you see once a year.
- No more Christmas pudding made from Nan’s 100-year-old recipe involving lard and glycerine.
- No more psychedelic Beatles socks.
- No more Michael Bublé.
- No more ridiculous paper hats. Especially purple ones.
- No more champagne-fuelled debates about atomic energy versus wind farms, the radical left woke agenda and Mr Dutton’s blatant appeals to base populism.
- No more Aldi mince pies.
I could go on, but you get the drift.
I met a fellow this week who is going to Antarctica to escape all this.
That’s a long way to go for some sanity, but entirely understandable.
It’s something I would have considered if I hadn’t blown the rest of my life’s travel budget on a UK trip with the grandchildren.
That’s my happy Santa gift-giving spirit all used up. There’s nothing left.
So, back to the disappearing house.
My Great Christmas Escape plan is to now just rewild the place.
To let things go and tell the grapevine to “Grow, baby grow”, to paraphrase Mr Trump.
Hopefully in two weeks’ time we will have disappeared completely, and nobody will be able to find us without a machete and a mud map.
It’s either that or Antarctica.
Talk next week.
John Lewis is a former journalist at The News.
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