... can I sit down yet?
Gordon Bennett, that was a bit of a day! My hunt for graphite proved unavailing - even our little man up at the ironmongers at Broadwalk didn't have any (which came as a bit of a shock, since he's a proper old-fashioned sort of ironmongers where you can usually buy the sorts of things the big DIY places have never even
heard of and would have to ask their grandparents for a description...)
So we've ended up buying some Polyfilla wood-filler stuff for the smaller cracks and Ken's now replaced the worst floor board - that'll be the loose one he tried to nail down when we first bought the house and ended up putting the nail through the copper water pipe underneath, which required an emergency visit from a (very expensive) plumber and resulted in Ken not trying his hand at any DIY for several years afterwards... Kai was quite excited though: he's made a sort of time capsule with a message and put it in the gap under the board, to be sealed up later. He has the romantic vision of someone in the distant future finding it and wondering about the people who lived here.
They'll probably realise we had cats...
Back when I last painted the stairwell, in green, it was interesting to see the cats' reactions. Ryme and Raptor saw I'd been painting, and stayed well away from the wet areas, walking down the middle of the stairs.
But not Argent,
oh no. No, he prefers going up and down against the wall, and by gum he was going to carry on doing it regardless. Result - one small cat with nasty horrible green gloss on his paw.
Fortunately we didn't have many carpets down at the time, and I was able to catch him before he a) walked paint all over everywhere, and b) tried to lick the stuff off. Oh what fun we had, slathering his paw in paint remover then in warm soapy water to remove the paint remover, then carefully clipping away the fur around his toes - damn paint
would not come off...
He's been a lot more circumspect this time around.
(Have I mentioned recently I love my new camera? And the tiny little quiet
kerDONK sound it makes when it connects to my computer is
soooo cute...)
Eh well. The floors still squeak, but the only way to cure that is to have all new boards laid, and we have neither the time nor the budget. I'm not using talc; it's carcinogenic and at best only a temporary fix. To be honest the squeaking isn't
that bad, and I tend to view it as an early warning system anyway. I
know all the sounds this house makes, and my hearing is still pretty good (my parents used to say I had ears like radar screens. They could never whisper about anything in the house because I could always hear what they were saying. It spoiled a number of birthdays for me as I found out what my presents were in advance. Interestingly Kai has similar hearing - perhaps it's genetic? Anyway...) - even to the tiny 'clink' of the saucer that has always lived on the kitchen windowsill and holds the sponge for the animals' washing up, and which had me going downstairs in time to prevent those
bastards who'd broken in from getting away with too much. (This was back in 1992, soon after we bought the place: the next day we had the house alarm system fitted and soon after acquired Quyn as a watch dog!) Perhaps fortunately they heard me and escaped - fortunately for me as they obviously had a very sharp knife (amongst other things they'd cut the cables to the speakers and VCR) and for them because I'm not fully rational when angry.
SO! The squeaks stay. I don't care. I like my squeaks.
All the skirting board is now painted. Kai can
juuuuust squeeze into his room between the bookcases, as can we, and the fitter is due between 10.30 and 11 tomorrow am.
Then we can get back to what passes for normal 'round 'ere and I can get back to what I do best.
But it's Spring - the sunlight has that wonderful subtle
goldenness that marks the dawning of the year. It's still close to freezing, but the sun is warm, warm and welcoming, waking this Northern earth.
I love this time of year.
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Joules *Dances with Haddock* Taylor
pontificated this at 10:18 pm
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