Goodness me, what a weary person I am.
We have been at the farm all day doing things to the camper van.
The result of this is that we are so completely exhausted that we are not going to bother going to work.
How very lovely to have the sort of life where we can make that decision.
We have had a really busy day.
We have finished demolishing the camper van kitchen, and then demolished the bathroom, and we have taken the vinyl off the bathroom walls.
This does not sound spectacularly exhausting, but actually it was. The vinyl had been stuck on some years ago with carpet glue by Mark, who chose it once when I wasn’t there. I have now made an executive decision that I didn’t like it and whilst we were redoing things it would have to go.
Except it was glued down with really sticky glue.
As I pulled the vinyl off, slowly and painfully, the glue underneath was still sticky and it stuck to everything, my hands and my hair and my feet. Also the vinyl was still sticky as well and stuck to every single thing that it touched, and was really difficult to get off again.
The vinyl wrapped itself around my legs and hands and got stuck everywhere. Also it left the walls sticky so every time I touched the bathroom walls I stuck to them as well.
Imagine a clumsy person in a very small sticky space getting progressively more and more parcelled up in sticky vinyl and you will have an idea.
Number Two Daughter popped round to see how we were getting on, and was enlisted to assist with the vinyl. She was jolly helpful but after a while she was covered in glue as well and said that if it was all the same to us she would rather not spend her evening getting dirty and sticky in a clapped out camper van, and was going to go and do something pleasant, so she did.
One wall had got a mirror on it as well, which had been glued down on top of the vinyl with Mark’s favourite never-ever-come-undone-ever glue. Fortunately I met a burglar once who kindly explained to me how you got through windows. I had stored this useful knowledge away for future reference, and now at last it came in handy.
I had lots and lots of really sticky vinyl so I stuck it all to the front of the mirror so that it was completely covered. Then I bashed it all over with a hammer and then peeled the vinyl off the wall behind it so that it all came off in one crumpled sticky vinyl and glass sandwich without anybody getting bits of splintered glass in their eyes. I thought this was jolly clever.
Obviously if you are doing housebreaking rather than camper van bathroom repairs you would not have lots of handy pre-glued vinyl and just in case you ever need to know, you use masking tape instead.
I like to give out handy hints in these pages but obviously this one is not to be found in most housewifely journals, however since I have found it a useful tip I thought that I would share it with you. Kindly do not abuse it, I do not wish to be responsible for an outbreak of dishonest behaviour, and am sharing it because I believe my readers to be upstanding persons who would be above such appalling carryings-on.
In the end Mark came and helped me, and we peeled and tugged and scraped until eventually we had got all of it off. It is not like taking wallpaper off. You have just got to get hold of the corner and pull, and slowly and effortfully it all peels off.
By the time we had finished it was half past seven and we were tired out, so we shoved the dogs back into the car and chugged back home.
I have washed and washed and washed but I am still covered in glue. It has got some dust on the top of it as well now, so it is a much thicker layer and has become black as well as sticky.
I am hoping that it comes off in the shower later.
In the meantime I am going to drink wine and collapse.
I didn’t want to take a picture of glue, because of getting stuck to the camera. I have got a picture of cows taken from the farm gate so I have put that on instead. It is tranquil and rural and will make everybody feel contented and not think of dust and sticky. Of course you can only see it if you find the website on Google because I haven’t yet got round to getting the photographs thing sorted out with the host.
