Protracted

I have not yet finished the circus tent, but it is getting very close.

I have done the pink, and most of the gold stripes, and now all that is left is the shading and depth on the yellow curtain bits.

I could not get the gold paint to cover properly, and I did not feel that I had the stamina to paint two coats, imagine miles and miles of gold pinstripe with a fine brush, and then starting all over again at the beginning. I thought that I would become disheartened, like trying to keep the carpets clean when you have dogs and a husband on a muddy day, or when you are trying to pay off a payday loan. There is only so much impossibly protracted unhappiness one ought to impose upon oneself.

I had several goes with different combinations of gold paint, and yellow paint with added glitter, and then I had a paint misfortune when I was absently thinking about singing. I accidentally squeezed the tube, and it all squished out in a sudden and most unexpected Gold Paint Disaster all over the duvet. I have cleared most of it up, but it is on the other side of the bed to yesterday’s yellow paint, and it is getting increasingly difficult to hide it all at the same time. Sooner or later Mark is bound to notice.

Sooner, probably. It is almost bedtime.

We need a new one anyway. This one has worn so thin that it dries on the line in about half an hour. This will probably encourage him to think benevolently about splashing out on some lovely new bed linens. Every cloud, etc.

Eventually I had the inspired recollection that we had some gold vinyl, and abandoned the tiresomely messy gold paint, which in any case by that time was in my hair and smeared on my T-shirt and splashed all over my flip-flops and stuck down my finger nails.

We now have stick-on vinyl stripes. I am very pleased indeed with these. They are shiny and splendid.

Also they do not make a mess on the duvet.

Having said that I am now having difficulty stopping myself from prolonging the job even further.

We sat in bed gazing at it this morning, and Mark thought I should do a gap in the tent with an elephant’s trunk protruding through it, holding a rope from which the mirror could be dangling.

I thought that I might like a wooden curtain rail and a neatly stashed trapeze, with a mouse running across the top of the door.

I am going to have to restrain such creative impulses. Lockdown is going to be over before we know it and we have not even started to be finished yet. In fact we have got so much to do that I can hardly list it all, how very dull it would be if I did, this is supposed to be a piece of mildly amusing prose, not a domestic agenda for the unemployed. All the same, when I accidentally looked down the back of Oliver’s bed today I knew that even the cleaning was nowhere near being over.

There are so many impossibly protracted difficulties at times.

Mark spent today painting the stair rails and the bannisters. He had to repaint bits a couple of times because I kept forgetting and putting my hands on them as I came up and down the stairs.

I was running up and downstairs with strips of vinyl, which I was cutting in the conservatory. I am pleased to be able to tell you that this is becoming so excitingly full that Mark has suggested that we discourage the dogs from sitting on the sofa in case the pumpkin plant curls its scary tendrils down and lassos and eats them.

This is looking increasingly likely as the days go on, we are going to have to apply some restraint. It is the most exciting plant. If we sit and watch it we can actually see it growing, a rate of about three or four inches a day at the moment. We are beginning to hope it slows down soon, because otherwise we will run out of places for it to grow to.

I have added several photographs of the conservatory this evening, as well as one of the stripes, because one does not do it justice. It has become a jungle.

We do all of our eating and cup-of-tea-breaks in there now, because it is so warm and bright and happy. Also we have become boring in the way that only long-married couples do, dashing in there every now and again to see what has put out a new leaf, or begun to flower, and occasionally shouting the other one to tell them about it.

Between the circus tent and the jungle it has become a very thrilling lockdown.

We don’t miss travelling in the least.