| Cyclefrance |
06-18-2006 02:26 PM |
Thank you Bruce, Sundae Girl, Ibram, Griff - and what a day it's been!
At last, a break from a DIY birthday! You see, Mrs CF wanted a new wardrobe. The old one was a built-in unit set against an outside wall, and so therewas always a damp problem. So, as there was the space, she went for a small sort of walk-in jobbie. The 'men' came and built the shell of it a couple of weeks ago, and then it has been down to me to do the filling of plaster, sanding of the floor, fitting the airbrick, a venetian blind over the widow (that was behind the old robe and now, being exposed, let's light in nice and early in the morning - Mrs CF likes that...), sanding and papering the ceiling, emulsioning the walls, and fitting the skeleton storage system that goes inside it.
No. I haven't done all of that today, although it does feel like it. Just papering the ceiling, fitting the blind, the vent over the air brick, the mirror, and one side of the storage system.
So it's nice to have the break and to see all your messages as soon as I've logged in.
Today had to be good. After yesterday, it couldn't fail. What a disaster that was! I went to pick up 5 litres of pink emulsion. I was very careful about where I placed it as I drove out of the DIY store, placing the can in the front passenger well with the handle to the tin nicely in reach.
As you turn out of the DIY place you come to a T junction. There's a lane in the middle of the bar road, so that traffic that wants to turn into the road where I was waiting to come out can move clear of traffic that wants to go straight ahead across the bar. There were two cars approaching from the left stopping me turning right (remember we drive on the other side). The first car a VW Golf stayed in the inside lane making to go straight on. The second car, a Volvo, moved into the centre lane and flashed me the all clear to pull out in front of him so that I could complete my right turn.
I moved forward, and just after, I looked ahead of me only to see the Golf had suddenly decided to turn into my road, directly in front of me. No real problem as I was only doing about 5 mph. So I braked sharply, and he sailed by (no indicator showing his change of direction though).
Then I noticed that the gallon of emulsion had fallen forward with the jolt of stopping. Then I noticed that the carpet was turning pink. Then I noticed that a gallon of emulsion is a lot of emulsion.... then I realised I needed to panic!
I would have loved to have gone after the culprit VW, but after many options passed through my brain at record speed, I chose the one that said get home and get bailing out the paint.
So I did. Surprisingly, Mrs CF wasn't very pleasant to me (I mean, I had only taken the A4 cabrio when I should have taken the old Passat estate - it was such a sunny day...), and I suppose the absence of any help I received from her with the ensuing cleaning job was probably down to my mood at the time clashing brilliantly with hers.
Anyway, 3 hours later I had completed the bailing out (actually recovered 75% of the emulsion!), and cleaned the carpets back to more or less an acceptable strange beige colour - I've covinced myself it isn't pink - to resemble as close as possible what was there before). All I can say now is, thank god it wasn't gloss paint!
There were two other lesser incidents yday (they always come in threes, don't they), but I won't go into those now...
So, despite all the work that has filled today, it has really been exceedingly pleasant!
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