Another long weekend begins

And another that we’ll be spending in our very own DIY resort, the sitting room. Mike’s now put the finishing touches on the decoration, sensibly insisting that the ceiling be done, too. He’s taken away the manky, disused fire-alarm sensor and patched a good of gap twixt wall and ceiling; then painted the top of the end door/window frame which was exposed when we removed the pelmet, exactly matching the paint colour by adding black and yellow ochre to his white.

So, this weekend we can clear it up, bring the furniture back in, finish the wiring and maybe get the A/V stuff hooked up, and set the hearth board properly so Isa can lay her fantastic tiles. It’ll be a great relief for Isa to get the sitting room back; at least there’ll be a lovely new room for a haven as the rest of the work goes on. Mike’s coming back (thanks, Mike) next week to continue with that–should get the hall cupboard done.

Must get over to see Grandma, whom Mike is having to abandon to come over here. Strong word, abandon, but she’s had a terrible time with many hospitalisations for broken bones, knee-replacement, hip-replacement… She has great strength and bounces back with vigour–but she keeps getting knocked back. She’s become dependant on Mike to cook and care, and is only just now in a position where she can stand up and do something at the same time. I feel partisan in the abandonment, I guess. Maybe we could get over this weekend.

Next weekend, we plan to go away, take a long weekend… somewhere. If only I could decide where.

Our Easter holiday

Good Friday

First thing (well, OK — it’s midday): move everything over to one side of the room. ready to prime clutter

Then a spot of sanding, washing, hoovering… orbital sanding

Quick base coat of emulsion on the walls before priming the floor. It’s now five-thirty.a base coat of emulsion

It’s eight thirty by the time I start the primer

first primer, closer the first primer goes on more primer masked priming

Saturday

about to start the topcoat It’s half three — time for the first coat of top coat.

more topcoat topcoat done Ten past five, and all (half (of half)) done. We go out for a while, leaving the doors open for ventilation…

I used to like cats...

During which time, we had a visitor. :-/

Easter Sunday

rubber gloves happy easter! It’s 11:59 — time to go to work.
ready for the other side's walls Starting with the wall…
ready to prime second half whiter and whiter Walls done; now it’s 5.20. Well, we did go out for lunch as well.
second half primed And by 7.30, the primer’s done, too.

!ENOTIMETOBLOG

Gah. Posts dwindling already.

Well, we are a bit busy: the weekend was all about getting the rest of the carpet up in the living room and then hoovering, de-nailing, wire-brushing, filling, and washing the floor. And that’s just the initial filling; still need to go round with a caulking gun and do a bit of sanding before it sees primer. Priming is projected for the coming weekend, as well as getting a first coat of emulsion on the walls.

In the interim, we are left with an uninhabitable living room and a lightly oppressive chaos everywhere.

a silly man with some tools IMG_1430 fireplace before  IMG_1436 IMG_1434
We did some social stuff too, though. It was big Jon’s birthday, and we went down to the Queens on Sunday to meet him and a dozen or so friends for lunch. They’ll cook you a sirloin roast, just bringing you the joint to carve; it was pretty good.

IMG_1443

And we met Elly for lunch down at the World Cafe on Saturday. Without Abbey, who was at home with Rob.

Flower pretty

Amaryllis, amaryllis.. AM-AR-YLLIS!

Sorry — makes me think of that Amadeus song by Falco.stamen, or whatever they're called Any road up, we were given one by our friend Daphne before Christmas and, after a long sleep, it’s poked up its alien shoot and gone all fecund and, well, flowery.more flower genitalia

It took quite well to being shot on macro with night flash and a bit of exposure fiddling. I forget the details; it was late.

Anyway, not much more to say about that. I just wanted to ramble on for another line or two in order to generate some more text for the images to wrap around.

I think there was possibly something in latin I wanted to say… Lorem ipsum, er…That’s it.

The wonderful NHS

Isa We are not amused. went to see the midwife today to get her due shot of anti-D (she’s rhesus negative, these shots protect against the risk (certainty?) of poisoning our next child with her blood).

Anyway, she walks in and the midwife says, “Oh–I rang the hospital yesterday and they said you’d had the shot already, on February the 28th”. Which, of course, she hadn’t. In fact, she was in Italy that day. So now, apart from having to deal with more evidence of administrative ineptitude, she has to go to the Whittington on Friday to get her shot.

Wonderful, innit?

Tempus fugit

We need to get a move on with these house improvements we have planned. If Isa is four weeks premature (which we’d rather she weren’t), then we only have about seven weeks — and it looks like it will be two weeks before Mike can start the work.

There’s the kitchen sink to replace, and the basin in the bathroom; then the old stove to rip out of the kitchen fireplace/alcove; then the dead space in the hall to unwall and turn into a cupboard. Plus, of course, the living room floor to finish and walls to decorate…

Easy-peasy. 😐

Well, it’s another incentive to wish Grandma a speedy recovery. Though, oddly, one that inspires a certain amount of guilt. What a silly species we are. Or is it just me?

Saving the world, pt 73

So how are we going to save the world1?

When I was younger, I was going to do it by becoming a famous singer and waking people up with my songs; now I’m doing it by not running the tap while I brush my teeth.

I think my original plan was more realistic. As my uncle says, it doesn’t make much difference how much energy-saving and recycling a bunch of middle-class first-worlders do when you bring China and the rest of the developing world into consideration. But then, he’s a terrible cynic2 — if no one makes the effort things certainly won’t improve.

Some might say we’re not worth saving, but I can’t agree. We do some beautiful stuff, and have the capacity for getting an awful lot out of what’s plonked around us. (I always was a bit of a tree-starer.)

[1] — Of course, calling the human race “the world” is a typical arrogance indicative of the mess we create. It’s not likely we’d succeed in completely wiping out life on the planet; I think even taking it down to the single-celled creature level might be more than we can manage. Which is some comfort.

[2] — Actually, he’s a very good cynic.

Goodbye (some) carpet

Ah, Sunday: a day of rest and…

Bzzzzt! Wrong! Today we initiated project rip-up-half-the-carpet-and-crawl-around-on-your-knees-pulling nails (a sub-project of the higher-level make-the-living-room-nice project).

Removing the carpet Removing the carpet Nail pulling

We’d imagined all kinds of possible nightmare under the carpet but, actually, it looks pretty good. Some of those gaps are pretty big, though.

Long view of a gap. The biggest gap.
As a break in the middle of carpet hell, we went down to the Hornsey Vale community centre (where Isa does her Stitch ‘N Bitch). They were holding a (poorly attended) “Wisdom and Wellbeing” event. Cuppa tea and home made raw berry flan; cranial masage; Help the Aged. The best bit was a demo of Tai Chi by an impressive young guy who runs a Tuesday class there. I think we’re going to go; I never realised that it has so such a strong self-defence aspect.

Anyway: home; made ragu; pulled more nails and Hoovered while Isa decorated some tiles for the fireplace; ate; wrote this. And goodnight.

Decorated tiles