Covid Quarantine Kiwi Day 10

Posted on by
What day is it?
Yep, you know it. Another sunny day, another round with the paint brush.
Whiteboard Day 10
This Hawaiian shirt is never going to be the same.
Deb tapeface
The final touch. I learned a while ago to cut around the edge of the tape before pulling it off. What happens is the tape and the paint have relationships and get married while you’re not looking, then when you pull the tape off, all hell can break loose and your paint AND tape come off together. I ain’t falling for that one again.
Cut tape
Finally! Brown doors. With a wee bit of tweaking required, but it’ll do for today.
Brown doors 2
I was so relieved to finally finish that job!
Brown doors 1
And then I turned around and saw this. Oh good grief! It never ends!!!
More door to paint
This got painted too. My wee hobbit seat. The name of of this shade of paint is Jealous. Are you?
Painted hobbit seat
Touched up the swingseat too. It sort of resembles a piano that fell into a candy factory conveyor belt.
Touched up swingseat
Yep, another round of scrubbing. Your handy hint for today: use a pumice stone. With soap. Otherwise all your skin will come off and your blood will fall out. You’re welcome.
Painted hand
Meanwhile, Smudge Friday is out munting the rubber mats. She thinks they were created to sharpen her talons on. Not a single one of them has escaped this vicious and unprovoked punishment.
Smudge munting mats
Yeah, butter wouldn’t melt.
Smudge green eyes
What am I supposed to do when faced with this? She’s the only cat I’ve ever known that asks for a tummy rub and doesn’t turn into a deadly hand-shredding machine after 1.25 minutes.
Smudge on deck
I had a wander around to experience doing nothing useful for a little while, and found the brick forms I’ve been stashing in one of the sheds.
1 brick form
I reckon they’ll make great shelves. And if Armageddon comes, I can make my own hobbit house.
2 brick forms
I counted up the jellyfish I made recently, which are waiting for the verandah roof to go on before they can be hung in all their glory.
Jellyfish 2
There are actually 9, but one needs fixing and is a bit embarrassed.
Jellyfish 1
Oh look – a random self-planted flower being all purdy and, um, quarantined?
Random flower
What day is it? It’s Ciderday!!!!! Time for a bit of this…
Ciderday
And a bit of this.
Uke and banjolele
Oh hello beautiful. Or, Kia ora Marama. It’s going to be another beautiful night. It’s the perfect view for the end of a busy day. Cheers y’all.
Moonrise with bamboo

Covid Quarantine Kiwi Day 9

Posted on by

You’ll never guess what I did today…

Woke up, beautiful day. There’s something about sunshine that triggers my inner painter, like I’m a painting zombie or something. Tried. To. Resist.

Whiteboard day 9

Nope, didn’t work. I don’t even like painting that much. I just like the results. It’s very rare that you can get something out of the cupboard, or whatever, and just slap paint on, isn’t it? Never works like that, does it? “Won’t take long” she says. “Just a quick sand” she says. I HATE sanding. But I hate it even more when my careful paintjob falls off, so I gritted my teeth (painful pun, I know) and got on with it. Screech screech screech screech. Urrggghhhh. Kill me now.

Table of stuff

The third most hated job – masking off. I just want to put the paint on already!! The second most hated job being scraping the paint off places it shouldn’t be because you couldn’t be bothered with masking tape. “I’ll just paint really carefully.” And the Universe laughs… Evil.

Masking tape on door

So here we go, doors duly sanded, wiped and masked off. I’m such a good little hobbit.

Both doors before painting
This bucket of Surprise Me with the Colour paint is brought to you by the pile of paint buckets in the corner at the Recycle Centre. Today’s colour is Crushed Blackberries Thrown into a Very Surprised Bowl of Chocolate. Fourth hated job: mixing dark coloured paint until it behaves itself and is even in colour. Which never happens. I just give up after about 10 minutes of my life that I’ll never get back, and start slapping it on. Too bad.
Bucket of paint
Hours later, and I finally have ONE SIDE of the doors painted. And due to the fact that I, as per usual, started to get a bit slap-happy at around the third coat, you will not be viewing any close-ups of my work today. I don’t wanna talk about it.
Doors after painting
It does look rather snappy from afar though, right?
One door after painting
I did do something besides painting today though. I measured Smudge Friday. She’s this long.
Smudge this long
I also did some dirtless gardening. No weeding, no dirt under the fingernails. That’s the story.
Bean sprouts
And finally, the ubiquitous “Look what I made for dinner” shot. ‘Cos it’s purdy. And yummy. And all gone now. Before its passing, it was a bowl of leftover jeera rice stir-fried with cabbage and some other stuff, at the risk of sounding vague. Who cares? It was food and I ate it. Goodnight.
Dinner

Covid Quarantine Kiwi Day 8

Posted on by

An ambush of avians and a hobbit does battle with hardware.

No bagpiper this morning. Nor has Smudge Friday been using the portal. I think she’s onto me being onto her.

Whiteboard day 8

She did, however, lay a cunning ambush for the fig-foraging avians. This is the view out my bedroom window (pardon the blur). To the left is the fig tree and in the bottom right-hand corner, if you squint a bit, is the wee hairy trapper in action. I think they’re supposed to fly into her mouth or something. Not sure if any of the birds actually got the memo. Here’s something that keeps us amused – she hasn’t clicked onto the fact we have a driveway alarm, and every time she wanders up the driveway, she sets it off. Then we go out and call her back. She ends up walking back, looking all befuddled about how we know what she’s up to. Rinse and repeat. Bwahahaha.

Smudge in ambush

Today’s mission was to install all the hardware I’ve had sitting around. Being a hobbit, I’m never quite tall enough to reach comfortably with my screwdriver. Then when I stand on something, I’m too tall and have to do it with a crick in my neck. Dear Universe: just another four inches of leg would have been nice. And while we’re on the subject, what’s with putting the tall people in front of me every time I go to the movies?? Yeah, real funny.

Hardware 1
Portrait of a rather nicely placed piece of hardware. It may mean nothing to you, but when I want to hook my door back to stop it slamming in the wind, I don’t have to manoeuvre large blocks of wood around to do the trick any more. It’s in the small things.
Hardware 2

The operating theatre, with the assistant having smoko in the background.

Surgery table

Oh, and I also put contact film on the glass doors to help strengthen the glass a little bit. Don’t judge, it was my first time. What a bluddy performance! It’s like playing with flypaper! Of course, I ran out of the very expensive contact film way before I could complete the job. But at $20 a roll, I need to apply for a loan before I can finish the job, then wait until Lockdown is over to go and throw that money at some more rolls. The quarantine conundrum. Both sets of French doors have old, thinner glass in them, so I’m trying to come up with ways to make them a bit safer with what I have around me. The perfect opportunity for some Kiwi ingenuity. I’ll think of something.

Broken glass door

The thing with a lot of the hardware is, there’s a rolling door between the two sheds. So when the door is closed, the French doors hook onto one place, then when it’s open, they hook onto a different place. This is my punishment for using scrounged up joinery to put in the sheds, and getting doors that all interfere with each other. However, there is now a system in place and all is right with the world.

Equipment

Being able to roll the door back makes for a nice little secret garden area out behind the sheds. It just adds that je ne sais quoi pas to the whole setup, don’tcha think?

Outside door open

Ze doors closed and ze wind blocked, along with ze mess I was making today.

Oustide door closed

After that, because my life is that riveting, I peeled stickers off the back of the door and here’s a picture of it. Yes, I can hear you quivering with excitement about it all. These doors used to be in a school. Can you tell?

Scraping with fingers

More stickers. More excitement. Try to contain yourselves.

Sticker scraping

Oh, and here’s a handy hint: If you happen to be in the market for a window scraper, don’t buy a cheap one. Like I did. Because I’m Scottish. And it always blows back on me, my miserliness. I’ll learn one day. Yessir I will. Oooh look, a bargain…

Crappy scraper

Finally now, I can employ some of the hardware I installed to lock my doors. Ain’t no sucker going to get into this one!!

Sand Quentin padlock

The other padlock – a scorpion. Complete with a hobbit-infused bugger-off-and-get-your-own-stuff spell. Part of a collection I hauled back from India in 2005. I literally got kicked out of India after the security lady at the airport got sick of me beeping every time she scanned me, ‘cos I wore lots of pocketed clothing and stuffed every nook and cranny possible with metal stuff to avoid my luggage being overweight. Her final words were “Oh my God, get out!!!” I thought about asking her which god, as there are thousands in India, but then I thought the better of it and scarpered. It’s taken a decade or so, but I knew this stuff would come in handy one day.

Scorion padlock

And finally, at the day’s end, this is why the swingseat is parked on the deck where it is – so I can watch the moon rise. What a loverly way to end the day. Along with wine, naturally.

Half moon

Covid Quarantine Kiwi Day 7

Posted on by

Fig tree shenanigans and a Gas Station angel.

This morning I duly donned my rubber gloves (it’s the fashion you know, darlink) and ventured out to the supermarket. There was a long line of people outside, but most were happily chatting. Many commented that they’d never been so damned happy to get out and go shopping! I had to laugh when I got inside. Who knew how difficult it would be to keep away from other people in a supermarket aisle?? Inside my head a song started to come into being, to the tune of Time Warp from the Rocky Horror Picture Show (you gotta sing it in your head – this is the audience participation bit):

“It’s just a sweep to the left
And then a veer to the right
With your gloves on your hands
Keep your shoulders in tight
Yeah there’s the 2-metre rule
So you just keep to your lane
Let’s do the trolley dance again
Let’s do the trolley again.”

Sheesh, I obviously have a bad case of quarantine brain!
I also went to the gas station, where we obediently stayed on our lines when we went to pay. A woman accidentally gave the window-pay-slot lady my pump number instead of hers, and got charged for my gas. And then she said to me “Don’t worry about it – it’s your lucky day. I’ll pay for yours. My mistake.” What a lovely thing to say! I didn’t let her, of course, and insisted the pay-slot lady sort it out, but I was blown away by this woman’s generosity and cheerfulness. Totally made my day! She’s a blimmin’ angel, that girl!

Whiteboard day 7

When Smudge Friday and I wake up, we look out the window together and check out bird t.v. At the moment, the fig tree leaning over our fence from the neighbour’s place is full of ripe figs. The birds are loving it! And it would appear that there is a system in place for fig foraging. First, the mynahs arrived. They stay on the outer perimeter of the tree and move around a lot, and are not at all shy about scoffing. Then they leave and the thrushes and sparrows move in. They go further into the tree and stay put while having breakfast. After that the starlings come along, and one sits on the neighbours t.v. aerial on guard duty while the rest of them delicately nibble on their share. Who knew they had it all worked out? I’ll watch again tomorrow morning and see if they do it in the same order. There’s another fig tree leaning over from another neighbour’s place, but apparently that belongs to the Tuis. End of story. Tuis are beautiful, but they’re also pretty staunch, so don’t y’all be messing with their territory! They’ll bite off your face!!

Fig tree

Aaaaaand, then it was back to painting.

Lanterns painted

And scraping more old paint off these things. Erk! However, it has been worth the effort, as they came out rather nicely with a dash of black paint.

Filligree painted

Things are starting to look more lived in at the sheds. Plants are creeping onto the verandah, the swingseat has claimed its place and then there’s the sculpture…

Deck and swing

Ta da!! This is Peter’s “Found Stuff Water Holding Combination Sculpture.” Pretty nifty aye? He has a bit of a nack for putting random things together in a way I never would have thought of. A lot of stuff that would otherwise go to the dump gets repurposed around here, thanks to him. He’s sort of like the Salvador Dali of 3-D art, but without the weird moustache.

Peters sculpture

Finally, Smudge Friday signalled that it was the end of another day, and so I downed paintbrushes and gladly clocked out. Because…

Smudge stretching

Yeah. What he said!

Wine o'clock

Oh yeah. Come to Mama, you cheeky little wine bottle.

Come to mama wine

Note the pinky finger. ‘Cos I’m couth like that. Welcome to the evening of Day 7. *clink

Wine pinky