For Future Reference:

[melannen]

Last week I woke up to a dream that I was watching a TV comedy about a middle-aged British military combat veteran with a moustache (Maybe Korea? Or the first Iraq? Dream was vague on timeline, but emphatic about the moustache) who, after getting his Army pension, had bought a motorbike and lived life on the road, avoiding "civilization" and connections with other people as much as possible.

His only family was an extremely elderly and extremely eccentric (great?)-aunt who hated people almost as much as he did. He'd spent summers at her place as a child and got along well with her for definitions of "well" that meant they sent each other letters once or twice a year, maybe. The last time he'd been to the old place was for her granddaughter's wedding, years ago.

He was out of contact when she died, but he picked up his mail in time to get to the funeral, which he figured he owed her.

But, you see, "her place" was a 16th century mansion complete with an estate, a small fortune, and a title. And he was met after the funeral by his only remaining adult blood relative, the aunt's granddaughter, who was also fond of the old lady but had married an American entrepreneur and moved to Portland with her kids and was happy to take the title but had zero interest in owning the place, but also didn't want to have it leave the family, so offered to sign the house and all the money over to him in exchange for an agreement that he'd be caretaker of the house and estate and leave it to her kids (or his, if he had any) when he was done. She figured since he didn't have any other obligations, he'd be able to do a better job anyway.

He let himself be talked into this against his better judgement, because he didn't want to see the place sold out of the family either, and it was true he didn't have an excuse not to, and he figured he could stew there and be misanthropic just as easily as his aunt did.

Unfortunately, his cousin told him about this in earshot of the only other person at the funeral who knew him, a young man who he'd run into a few times on the road and even travelled with for a few weeks at a go a couple of times, who had seen his name in the obituary and said he was in the area and he'd come to the funeral because he "needed someone on his side" and did not listen when he tried to explain that his family was not at war, actually they mostly sort of liked each other, and there were no sides.

Once he learned that his friend was The Heir To A Manor, he decided that he needed a valet, because every Lord of the Manor needed a valet, right? He also didn't listen to protestations that nobody needed a valet, or that he wouldn't know how to be a valet anyway, because he'd Read Books, okay, he could learn, he'd always wanted to be a valet.

So once it becomes clear that he's not going to be got rid of, and also the granddaughter's taking his side on the basis that her cousin needs somebody, they go up to the house, which nobody but the aunt had lived in since those childhood summers, and it turned out she hadn't changed ANYTHING since she'd inherited the place in the '30s, and it was already a few decades in need of renovation then, so it's all this tarnished but untouched Gilded Age splendour preserved in amber. Some of the wedding decorations are still up. The valet is in raptures. The grumpy veteran is going around knocking on rotting oak panelling and regretting the whole thing already. The granddaughter and her kids just want to see if there are any old family photos they can go through and then get back home to Portland.

....anyway that was the pilot. Presumably there were many episodes' worth of queer and amusing adventures as they tried to fix up the house, get to know (or avoid) the neighbors, figure out how to manage the estate, fall in love, etc.

Personally I blame beccaelizabeth and all her castle research for this one.

Usually my dreams are either totally incoherent, clearly SF/fandom influenced, or obviously just me reworking the day's memories, but then once in awhile I'll get one like this that is a perfectly outlined set of characters and settings and plot premise for a queer lit story about family that is not at all in my genre otherwise but sticks in my head hard.

(The last one was about the glamorous gay adventure travel writer / pianist who was, when not traveling, living in a beautiful bachelor apartment in Tuscon with his cat and hiding two secrets: he was pretty sure he was ace, not gay; and he was the son of a famous and very rich rockstar who was estranged from all his kids because of how screwed up their childhoods had been and how he'd treated their moms. Both of these secrets come to a head as the dad calls all four of his kids and their partners to his ranch out in the desert to watch him die, and he has to work with his on-again-off-again boyfriend and his half-siblings (including his philosophy professor older sibling and their partner from NYC, who are way queerer than he is) to figure out what the heck Dad is trying to manipulate them into this time. (It's getting the family band back together to record his last album. He claims. Possibly it's actually to uncover the murder of his latest wife.))

Comments

[peoriapeoriawhereart]

I have no idea who the go to would be for someone akin to Peter Bowles but modern.

But this would be hilarious.

[melannen]

I would watch it if it existed, that's for sure!

(I had to check with my mom to make sure it didn't, that's how vivid it was.)

[lannamichaels]

This dream sounds fantastic, and I'm fancasting Ianto from Torchwood as the valet.

[melannen]

My brain thought he was played by a mid-90s-ish Martin Freeman, but my brain can suck it, because I don't even particularly like Martin Freeman.

He was not nearly as competent as Ianto, though. :P

[lannamichaels]

He was not nearly as competent as Ianto, though. :P

So like Bertie Wooster would have been if he had been the valet instead of Jeeves? ;)

[melannen]

Yes! Pretty much! Or like if Bertie Wooster was enthusiastically LARPing as Jeeves.

I think he got better with time, though, iirc, he bought a whole bunch of books on valet-ing (from all different time periods) and was working through them one after another.

[beccaelizabeth]

that would be hilarious

[ellen_fremedon]

I would watch this show religiously.

[melannen]

Right? It was a good show. I enjoyed watching it in my dream. Lots of British countryside, motorbikes, vaguely 70s aesthetic and loving home renovation montages.

[genarti]

This sounds like a DELIGHTFUL show or serial. Good job, your subconscious!

[melannen]

I would like an episode every Sunday morning, please.

[marginaliana]

So who in Hollywood do I have to badger to get this made??

[melannen]

It was definitely a bbc show originally! IDK if Hollywood could pull off the right balance of queerly British. Worrh a try though.

[beatrice_otter]

Yeah, better leave something like this to the BBC. But dang, I would watch it!

[melannen]

I mean, even the BBC might have quailed slightly at the strong implication that Valet and Moustache used to have a lot of casual/semi-transactional sex when they met on the road. But then again, some of those 70s BBC comedies were okay with pretty strong implications, so maybe not.

[peoriapeoriawhereart]

I'd also want to see all the tradespeople coming in, know what they are about. (Like if it had been filmed in the 1970s, Tom Baker would have come round with a barrow of bricks.)

[kalloway]

I would absolutely watch this and I'm not even sure which part is the most appealing (possibly the renovation montages and whatever unique things they find lurking beneath the floorboards)--

Perhaps you can dream the next episode next week and report back?

[melannen]

They were finding lots of very interesting things! (Although admittedly that was where dream-logic kicked in, so not all of them exactly made sense.)

I will do my best!

[peoriapeoriawhereart]

The most interesting real thing I've read about being discovered in a still a house was a large map stuffed up a discontinued chimney. It was serious work rehabilitating the map, tweezers were involved getting printed surface back onto the substrate.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WxxJpAYhzpg I've not watched this, my weather is just about behaving. 17th century map, Aberdeen Museum involved.

[melannen]

Cool!

There's a lot of neat stuff found in walls - apotropaios.co.uk is trying to index some of the most interesting ones. I have been known to just browse through like it was tvtropes.

My favorite is the cache of 14th century bras found being used as insulation in an Austrian castle. (Particularly because before then, nobody even had proof there was such a thing as medieval bras.) I got to go to a lecture about them and touch part of one!

[peoriapeoriawhereart]

That was a fun read. Thanks!

I'll have to check out the 'tropes' site when I don't mind getting lost.

[derryderrydown]

I desperately want to watch this TV show, damn it.