Earned it...

Overnight, someone swapped my legs for a couple of lengths of 4"x 2" wood, such was the flexibility of my knees and hips yesterday at work. Several of my colleagues asked me what I'd been up to, as I was walking with that strained John Wayne swagger, swinging my legs along from the hip.  Not what you are all thinking, that's for sure.  

I think that I must have gone up and down that step ladder more than I originally thought on Sunday, whilst painting the Oxfordshire equivalent of the Sistine Chapel.  All I needed was a pair of leg warmers and some disco music, and I would have been right back in the step class I used to frequent on a Wednesday morning in the early 90's. The woman who took the class was like a Rottweiler in a leotard, and I was never sure what I was more afraid of.  Turning up to the class, or not turning up, as she had a reputation for 'hunting down' anyone who missed one of her lessons.  When I first started going, the class was ferocious, and I remember spending the days after my first class walking round like an 80 year old woman, permanently looking over her left shoulder.  Happy days....

So back to the paining.  You'll remember yesterday that the husband, in one of his braver moments, had suggested that I might need to give the whole back of the house a second coat of paint.  Well I did a bit of work on the area which the husband wanted me to repaint yesterday afternoon, and it would appear that it is no longer needed.  It's amazing what a couple of hanging baskets, a sun parasol and a welly holder can conceal when strategically placed. The trouble is that if we need to use the sun umbrella for any reason (unlikely, though possible) a great big black shadow will be visible for all to see. Perhaps I'll have to simply lean nonchalantly against it until everyone has gone back in doors.  You see, there's always a solution somewhere...

I just wish I'd taken a couple of before and after photos, because no matter how bad it looks right now, it looked a whole lot worse before I painted it.  I probably played down slightly exactly what I did yesterday with regards to the painting, but it was quite a major job I did.  While I was beavering away with the 4" brush I found (it's no wonder it took me so long), the husband was pottering about mending the bird table and the raised bed, taking the odd break for a beer with the chap next door.

When the two of us finally sat down on Sunday evening, he gave a big sigh, and said, 'I'm bloody knackered.  I think I deserve a cup of tea and a Tunnock'.  These are chocolate caramel wafers which he is rather too fond of, so I hoisted myself up from my sofa (I'm still asking myself why I did this) and I did the good wife thing, and brought him in a cup of the finest PG and a Tunnock.

Taking it from me, he said, 'Yes, I'm right.  I've really earned a Tunnock after today'.

I agreed with him, assuming of course that 'tunnock' is an old English word for 'a physical punishment meted out to husbands when they are at their most annoying'.  

Indeed...