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.

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.

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.

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

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!

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!!

Aaaaaand, then it was back to painting.

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.

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…

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.

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

Yeah. What he said!

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

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

The bagpiper is alive! And a spider alarm goes off early this morning.

The bagpiper was playing again this morning. I’m so glad to know he’s alive! I’m thinking maybe he and his wife have an agreement – he agrees to only play every third day, and she agrees to feed him.

I was woken at dark a.m. this morning by a spider walking across the palm of my hand. It felt like it was about the size of Jason Momoa. I disinvited him from my person immediately, and heard him thud on the floor. So he weren’t no lightweight! I had to wonder if it was Bruce, the guy who lives in my ceiling. Smudge Friday slept on, unconcerned that her flatmate was potentially being sized up for an arachnid dinner. That does it – she’s getting one less cat bickie today!

I thought I had finished painting all my boards, then I found this. Hiding in plain sight. How in the heck did I miss it???

So another painting day it became. This schooldesk I got at the recycling centre is DEFINITELY getting painted!!

Other bits I dug out for a recoat. Of course I decided to wirebrush them and paint rust convertor on them first, ‘cos I’ve got nothing better to do, right?? Oh, hang on…

In case you were ever wondering, this is what the inside of a lantern looks like.

Some frilly cast iron bits I bought months ago at a second-hand shop. At first they were in for a casual wire-brushing, but then muggins here decided to get all the old paint off, didn’t I? What an idiot! Three painful hours of scraping with a flat-blade screwdriver, and I’m almost there. Another couple of days should do it.

Them’s working hands. They’re now holding up a glass of wine. They’re versatile like that.

Later on, Smudge Friday has a crack at getting the last of the evening sun.

She has an audience. Again…

And finally she turns her back on the despised backyard paparazzi. Oh well, that’ll learn her for not rescuing me from the 10-foot mankilling spider this morning.

Repurposing and gravitational experiments, and the neighbours have hours of fun on their motorbike, bless them.

Did even more painting today. All duly inspected by the local official. I’m not in the slightest bit bored yet. So far, so good. For the record, a tablespoon of paint contains 295.74 drops of paint.

We turned the lawn into a wrecker’s yard and dismantled a couple of micathermic heaters in the name of repurposing and lateral thinking. “If they were alive, they wouldn’t be very ‘ealthy.”

This is the repurposing idea for the grills off the front – safety grills for glass doors instead.

Also duly inspected by the local official.

Combined gravitational and repurposing experiment #2: tacking my lovely wool insulation to the ceiling with strapping from pallets and cartons. Hopefully it stays up there until the lining is on. I swallowed a fair amount of wool putting that up there. Hopefully it doesn’t affect me. Baaaaa.

Smudge Friday has gone from being Beauty Queen of the Neighbourhood…

To being utterly sick of the local paparazzi.

Have spent several hours listening to one of the neighbours enjoying his little 2-stroke motorbike today. Bless his heart. Oh, good news! I found my slingshot…