A couple of weeks ago, Number One Son-In-Law looked at these pages and remarked how the orange wall in the conservatory contrasted beautifully with the soil pipe that ran down it.
If you look back ten days to the post called ‘Nesting’ you can see it in all its disreputable glory.
We considered this. Of course you have got to have soil pipes, because of moving poo out of the house without the need for a shovel, and so it had got to stay, but perhaps we needed to think a bit more about its limitations as a design feature.
Of course by now you have seen the photograph attached to today’s post and you will already know that a change has been made.
Today Mark spray-painted the elbow joint on the pipe black, and I covered the rest in beautiful stick-on gold vinyl.
After that, just to make sure that nobody would accuse me of genteel good taste, I stuck some plastic butterflies on to it, to make it look lovely. I have been saving these for ages, especially for the day when I wanted to make something look cheerful and bright.
That day was today.
I have got lots more but am reluctant to put any more on the soil pipe yet, because there are still some shenanigans to happen in that corner of the conservatory when Mark hauls the divorce solar panel up and fixes it to the wall.
Once that is over and done with then I shall add some more butterflies.
Of course I am ridiculously pleased with it, only oddly, somehow you don’t notice it nearly as much now that it is gold and covered in butterflies. It has blended into the background.
It is actually nicer to have a gold soil pipe than it would be not to have the soil pipe there at all.
I have painted round the light switch as well, but that was yesterday.
Today has been a lovely day of kind things happening. I have just made the joyous discovery that once again our lifestyle has been subsidised by my parents, who have chucked some cash into our ever-diminishing bank account. It is ghastly not having an income any more. I hope they send Sajid Javid a bill when all of this is over.
I thought this morning that I would like to paint the wall outside the conservatory. We have planted onions out there, and I thought that if the wall was white not only would it look nicer, but also it would reflect more light on to the onions and encourage them to grow more enthusiastically.
We didn’t have any white masonry paint.
We didn’t have any white paint at all, otherwise I would just have used it, but I have always been of the opinion that it is a dull sort of colour, and don’t tend to bother with it. I have got masses of pink and orange and purple, but I am not sure that these would be very good for encouraging onions.
I want to the ironmonger’s shop, which has recently re-opened. You are allowed to buy things as long as you stand a long way away from everybody else and don’t mind the man behind the counter being grumpy. The last bit always happens anyway.
The ironmonger only had huge tins of white paint, which I didn’t want. I wanted a little tiny tin because the wall is not very big.
The ironmonger told me, grumpily, that I could take it or leave it, so I left it.
To our very great good fortune, it turned out that our next door neighbour had already bought one of the huge tins of white masonry paint, which he kindly offered to let us use, so I did. Then I climbed back down the ladder into the hole and painted the bit outside the kitchen window as well, because it makes the kitchen brighter and more cheerful.
When I had done that Mark took the ladder and painted the bit outside next door’s kitchen window as well, which he said was the least he could do, since it was his paint, so everybody was pleased.
Whilst Mark was in next door’s kitchen-hole, the doorbell rang, and it was the post with some surprises. First was the yeast, which was a relief and a joy, but also an oddly misshapen parcel which turned out to be a beautiful pair of upmarket flip-flops, sent by Number One Daughter, for no other reason than that she thought I would like them.
I did like them, so very much that I have not worn them yet, because they are too nice to waste on grubby, paint-bespattered feet. I thought that I might save them until we are going somewhere nice, but on reflection I do not think that I want to wait that long, under the present circumstances, and so I shall wear them to go to Sainsbury’s tomorrow, and the world can see how middle-class my feet are.
Finally, just when we were knocking off for the day, the back gate creaked open, and it was another neighbour, with a bottle of wine which he said that he did not want.
He wondered if we might like it. I expect you can guess the answer.
This was the happiest conclusion to the day.
It is on the table as I write.
Guess what I am going to do next.
