November 28th (Fri.)

I feel rather bad about calling that nice 2nd hand shop owner the ‘dealer from hell’ now.
As you may have guessed I’m feeling rather pleased with myself as I returned home tonight with a broad grin on my face and the coveted pine table, bench and chairs all crammed into my tiny jeep and purchased at the price I originally wanted.
So this time I bypassed the ‘killer Grannys’ I’d fallen foul of last attempt and searched for the main man,
the ‘dealer from hell’, to shave off some yen before I purchased the table set.
I found him in a quiet corner of the property I never knew existed surrounded by a confusion of dismantled refridgerator parts and a wrinkled old man who was obviously in charge of repairing the fridges and such like prior to sale. He looked like he’d never seen the light of day and his greased up overalls were wearing him so frail he appeared.

“Ahh…Hello…” I called. Getting a disolutary nod in return.
” Thanks for shifting the piano last time…..” Another nod. It was obvious he wanted to know one thing and that was what I wanted him to come down on.
“Could you come down a little for me on the pine table set in the West hall ?”

The old raisin in the overall let out a cackle and his face wrinkled up even more which I previously thought was impossible.
The ‘dealer from hell’ seemed no less surprised than me at the ferocity of the cackle emitted from such a thin frame and took a side long glance at him.

“I’ll come with you and have a look”. He said still eyeing his beaming crony as if wanting to escape from his side.

I thought I’d soften him up with some small talk. The huge playing field size car park was currently being used as the the temporary staff car park for a new supermarket down the road meaning it is almost full of cars instead of the usual 2 or 3 lost in an ocean of tarmac.

“There’s so many cars today I thought you were having a sale ’till I found out otherwise.” I quipped.
“Sale !?” He scoffed, ” If the stuff was any cheaper I’d be giving it away !” he went on as we passed
a kitchen unit now tipped up on one side due to a missing caster, it’s stainless steel now stained rust with 6000 yen (30 pounds) scrawled across it’s top in marker pen…..Mmmmm, I begged to differ but bit my tongue.

However on reaching the West Hall and looking at the table he was as nice as pie about coming down to the price I wanted and it was with great satisfaction I handed over the cash to the same killer granny who’d vexed me on my last trip.

Moral of the story is deal with the main man in all negotiations.

Once home I set up the table in it’s place outside, where I plan to build the loggia and pizza oven next year. I enjoyed a beer watching the stars and although it was freezing cold I tried to imagine sitting here through the long hot summer next year with the cicada’s din in my ears, a red and white plastic check tablecloth (nothing else will do) laid over it, a glass ashtray though no one smokes and a maybe a cut flower in a little vase now and then. If I closed my eyes I could see it all.

The table in use, ‘here young fella me lad, try some chardonnay’