Chips with everything...

Very shortly it will become compulsory for senior citizens to carry not only their ID, but also their insurance documents, their prescription list, a compact version of their medical file, the statement declaring if they want to be resuscitated after a heart attack, or stroke etc! Consequently, a lot of paperwork will have to be carried when a senior citizen goes out the front door, or when they travel anywhere! Specifically for this purpose, a special "Senior USB Stick" has been developed.

The joys of new paint...

Mrs Scroblene and I have restarted our quest to paint the whole of The Turrets.

For quite a few years, we've let the task hang in there, and not kept up with the job, and of course, this means that it's twice as hard to do, the longer you leave it all...

But now, there's much more time, even with the allotment gushing vegetables and the greenhouse bulging with tomatoes, and it took a gargantuan effort even now to realise that YD's room was really in need of a damn good shake-up, so this started yesterday.

Years ago, we borrowed millions of shillings to pay for proper windows, and they're hardwood, with a permanent coating, which looks rather like ordinary undercoat, but which is in fact a great wood sealer. But they get dirty, and no amount of washing will help them, so a splunge of new sealer is needed, especially on the inside, funnily enough. (The dreaded condensation causes a lot of the problem, but with plenty of ventilation now, that has gone, just leaving the scars...)!

So, back to the paint job...

Emulsion painting is dead easy, and we can knock that off in an hour or so, but I - sadly - actually like painting windows. There's a job which needs quite a lot of concentration, grunting and squinting, and while Thud and I may differ on painting acres of weatherboarding, I reckon we would both agree that a well-painted window is up there with the Sistine Chapel!

So a quick trip to a reputable paint grocers, makes us realise that things have moved on from the old lead paint and Magicote, and the new genre of water-based paints is such a revelation, that the job of tackling a few square metres of windows and doors is much, much easier! The stuff just goes exactly where you want it to, and with some decent brushes, and maybe a flitch for the corners, the job is a breeze!

So after a couple of days of this, I'll be making a carpet stretcher, and starting yet another whole new trade...

Exeat days...

Many, many years ago, Scrobs was a long way from home at school.

Dad would sometimes be able to get there on the exeat Sundays, but not very often, but when he did, he was usually very tired, and needed a rest like anyone does after driving three hundred miles after work!

One Sunday, he'd arrived on time, and we went to some place for lunch, but later, he succumbed to the requirement for a nap, and let me stay in the car, while he unrolled a blanket and took forty winks under the trees.

These two songs were on the car wireless, and they're as memorable today as they were back in the sixties....

https://youtu.be/COkOmvr9c3c

https://youtu.be/uzdzQsim-Ac

Paint your wagon...

Just round the corner from The Turrets, there are two painting projects going on.

Kent seems to have more than its fair share of white weatherboarded houses, which may be down to the fact that The Weald was all forest many years ago, and timber was plentiful, but anyway, we're surrounded by white weatherboard in all directions, and it all has to be painted! Regularly! The local planners even demanded that we had to use white painted woodwork, when we did up the house twenty years ago, and although we grumbled a bit, it was in fact a correct decision.

Scrobs has had varying discussions with the chaps doing the work (two separate firms), and it's interesting to hear their views on what they're up to. Personally, I would think that preparing and painting weatherboard would be one of the most boring decorating jobs in the world, but these guys seem to thrive on the pastime...

Just think what a Monday morning would be like, when you have a ladder, a couple of sheets of sandpaper, and a whole week of manually rubbing down  about fifty square yards of dodgy timber, before you even start to slap on the undercoat!

Anyway, they're making a great fist of the work, and the local environment will look all the better for their efforts...