Painting Day

It was becoming a common theme. Every other person in isolation seemed to be egaged in some heroic feat of home improvement. Some had repainted their entire houses (and the houses of everyone else in the street as well), others had replaced the roofs on their barns, some had hand dug huge swimming pools. The rest had done even more ambitious projects.

And what about us ? Although we had managed to walk the dog most days, put out the garbage each week and even complete a few bike rides, home improvement had been almost entirely off the agenda. But now we had no excuse to procrastinate any longer. On went the old clothes, our came the paint brushes and old tins of decking timber. We had a lot of exterior timberwork which was in need of some tender loving care.

We spent all the morning slapping paint on the timber (and copious amounts on the concrete as well). The level of paint steadily diminished. We kept painting, hoping that we would have just enough to complete the first part of the job. As it turned out, we didn't. The last droplet of decking oil was consumed with about 1 square foot of timber still to be painted. No matter how hard we tried, there was just no more. It was a cruel finish to the painting job. We could not admire the vast amount of completed wood. We could only see the small bit that was unfinished.

In the afternoon we grabbed the dog and headed off to walk to the Mitre 10 hardware store for another (much large) tin of decking oil. It seemed like a good idea until I started to carry the heavy tin back to our house. Due to some strange perturbation in the strength of gravity, the tin got progressively heavier with each metre. The wire handle almost severed most of my fingers on both hands. I was sorely tempted to toss the tin into the bushes, but somehow managed to carry it all the way home. And Maggie ? Well she happily walked the dog.

Tomorrow morning, weather permitting, we will finish the job.Read more