Playing catch-up....

Another post in as many hours!

Truth to tell, I've been really busy of late.

Some lovely friends of Jackie's have asked us to look after their house and new kitten while they holiday in France.

Not too onerous a task, you might well say, especially when the house is old, gorgeous and absolutely massive (it truly takes me longer to walk from the fridge in the kitchen to the t.v. room than it does to walk from one end of Pippin to the other AND back....!)and the kitten, Mungo, is a delight.

No, I have also been working on the house, namely three (of the eight or so) gable-ends. These are badly in need of a re-paint. This has involved burning off old paint with a hot-air gun, rubbing down with a sander and by hand, filling, rubbing down again and then painting with two coats each of primer, undercoat and topcoat.

As the house is three stories high, this has meant working to the maximum safe distance on ladders: no joke when you are weilding a scraper in one hand and a hot-air gun in the other. It does wonders for the tummy muscles, though, as you have to lean in from the waist down to compensate for leaning out from the waist up. I have also developed the toes of a gibbon as a result.....

Today, however, it is raining. I don't normally mind working in the rain, but have called a halt for the following reasons:

1) I'm knackered.

2) Ladders get slippery when wet.

3) Standing on an aluminium ladder in the rain while holding a power tool plugged into the National Grid is a bit of a mug's game, really.

At least it has given me a chance to catch up on the blog!