My lovely house (with apologies to Father Ted): Rant and roll.

Part Ten.1.1

Having successfully despatched Himself into the loving care of Aer Lingus, I was left to my own devices. I had been quite looking forward to the solitude, but once it arrived it started doing weird stuff to my head. Finding I had no one to argue with I found myself arguing with the people in my head…. Now I would like to point out that these people did not answer back (so that’s one diagnosis out of the way). It was a little alarming though, so find oneself mid rant, holding a pitchfork and wondering how it all got started!

Prettier than me, but you get the idea.....

During the hours of daylight I was mostly outside in the garden, on a mission to improve my soil. Soil improver is both odiferous (the smell lingered in my van until I replaced it with solvents from a tin of antifoul) and quite expensive. My mate’s mum very kindly dug out several sacks from her burgeoning compost heap and delivered them to my front door. They were waiting for me on my return from the airport. When I went to lift one I nearly ruptured myself, that is one strong (grand)mother! She assured me that it was rich in worms. She certainly wasn’t kidding, the sacks themselves were practically wriggling. I hope it isn’t a myth that when you divide a worm it regenerates into two (a bit like Dr Who, but less sexy) as I divided quite a few in the course of forking it all in. The weather kindly came to my assistance and washed the whole lot thoroughly into the soil…. So I repaired indoors for a little light painting.

You may remember, if you have been following this blog, that I derived much distraction and amusement from taking the piss out of other’s interior décor disasters… So I guess it’s my turn. You shouldn’t dish it out if you can’t take it. I have devoted some considerable effort into putting (as the estate agents like to say) my own stamp on the place….. So far it hasn’t stamped back… The only person who hasn’t expressed wholehearted enthusiasm for my efforts has been Himself. Despite much hinting and prodding, all I can get out of him is ‘it’s very nice dear’. Damning with faint praise? Now in fairness, only a handful of people have actually been inside and so long as they possess a sense of humour when I take them to the tart’s boudoir, they seem pretty impressed.

Himself’s biggest (and long running…all bloody day in fact) complaint is that I don’t have any curtains. I have a variation on nets (voile, darling, we have some standards) but this is mostly to protect the interior from too much UV damage (although with current sunshine levels they may be redundant).

The soft morning light isn't doing it for himself, it starts far too early!

They also serve to protect unsuspecting local farmers fetching their cows for morning milking from too many acres of slightly saggy pink flesh (and I’m not talking udders here!)…. At night I’m afraid they will just have to avert their gaze. Anyway, Himself objects strongly to being woken by the dawn. I maintain that it’s his own fault for insisting on staying up until 2AM, however I have slipped into his evil ways (with the help of a few glasses of red..) and then I also find myself being untimely awoken. Usually by Himself thrashing around, trying to find the satin eyemask I got him. Try and picture one of these on a hairy and extravagantly bewhiskered old git….

Check out those brows! he's threatening to wax them like Poirot's moustache!

I think he should a) put it on when he gets into bed and b) be grateful it’s navy and not pink!

He particularly dislikes the curtains in the downstairs bedroom, he says they remind him of a skirt I once wore which he especially detested (and told me so).

Blackout curtains they ain't

Given my feelings about the state of his place (70’s bar and B&B located in an ornate and crumbling Georgian pile…except it’s neither a bar nor a B&B) I don’t feel he’s in any position to hold an opinion…so there!

I did seek his opinion on what colour I should paint the doorframes, which were a startling shade of Ikea blue.

That blue is extremely blue.

This was not a bad thing in itself, but it just didn’t go with anything I owned. Actually I sought a number of opinions, but what clinched it was the colour of my cousin’s staircase. She lives in the most amazing and magical little tin cottage on the shores of a lake http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SrE6UQXZXPs. I immediately fell in love with the colour and asked her what it was. She told me it was Farrow and Ball ‘Lichen’. I nearly choked on the spot because I knew what it was going to cost. She directed me to her supplier and when I got there I was more than a little pleased to find an almost identical colour in what I suppose is the remnants section, at a significant markdown. I would have been utterly ecstatic if it wasn’t for the fact that I am already sick to the feckin eye teeth with painting and never want to see another paintbrush for the rest of my life. I do like the colour though, and it’s only my aversion to the process that has prevented me from covering more surfaces in it.