I'm not dead.

exactly what it says on the tin.

Where have I been for the past 5 week ......

To be honest the finger operation has gone pretty well but for the first couple of weeks the last thing I wanted to do with it was bash it against a keyboard so I spent a frustrating time watching daytime TV and doing as much as I could in the kitchen. The nerves are affected by the operation so I have an index finger that still feels like it has just had root canal work at the Dentist. This make using it normally a bit of a challenge as sensitivity is poor and grip and control are both affected. Cooking was fun but I had to keep a close eye on what I was doing or it would have been severed or scalded quite easily.

Net result of my Kitchen based occupational therapy is a Freezer full of home made faggots - that is likely to result on some new readers using the words Freezer and Faggots in Google! I also managed several pints of Pea and Ham Soup and a Game Terrine using some Partridge, Pheasant and Pigeon that was provided by a friend that shoots.

After a fortnight of getting bored and cooking - actually I didn't get bored - I spent at least a few minutes every day sending praise aloft to the God or Gods that had allowed me to escape from the Account Team I had been working with at Dante's.

So that was the two weeks of certified sick leave and then 30%, TP, Tyson, Marauder and I spent a week up on the Lleyn Peninsular in Wales. For those of you that are Geographically challenged, if you see Wales as looking somewhat like a Pig's head the Lleyn Peninsular is the "ear" in the North that sticks out in to the Irish Sea. We had a great time and, as we took the Dogs, it was mostly long walks along beaches and up Bryn's - "its Welsh for Hill" - Thank you Mr Brydon. My lasting impression of the Lleyn is that it is like my 40 year old memories of Worcestershire except that it has more flavours of ice cream.

We then had a further week at home just doing stuff that needed doing and have that smug feeling that accompanies a slightly tidier house, garage and garden.

OK, so why haven't I produced anything for the past week or so - well I started a new role at Dante's at the beginning of last week and have been somewhat swamped to say the least.

Amongst all of this we have had the Chaps in to rip out the family bathroom and replace it with something suitable for People *. The work has gone really well and we are delighted with the results. There are still a few bits to do before we can cut the ribbon and declare it open and this will see me in the roof space to see whether recessed low voltage spots are really an option along with a load of painting in the not too distant future.

So, I have opened the Journal again and started to scrawl. No commitments to frequency though.

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* Believe me, before they started it looked like it should be a grainy shot in a documentary with a bloated body floating, face down in a filled bath - those are the perils of buying a "project house"

All I have to do now....

..... is put it all back together.

30% and I have finally finished painting the kitchen. We started it weeks ago and should be proudly showing off our efforts by now but a few things came up. There were occasions when simply doing nothing seemed a much better idea than applying emulsion to the walls. Anyway, we applied the last coats t the walls today and this is when I found out that I am probably no more intelligent than a pigeon...

.... let me explain. We have a tall larder fridge and we moved it in to sit along side the island so that we could paint the walls and skirting boards of the aforementioned appliance's aperture. As I have already explained it then lived in this temporary location for a few weeks but it now back in its proper place. The thing is, every time I make 30% a cup of coffee I go to get the milk from where the fridge was rather than where the fridge is.

In other words I have managed to condition myself to go to a location where I expect to received milk in much the same way as a pigeon will peck at a coloured spot in order to receive a few grains of corn. I hasten to add that I have managed to break this conditioning in under 24 hours but it was quite an odd experience to find oneself walking towards a space expecting to grab a carton of semi-skimmed.

Other decorating events. For  brief spell Marauder - it is always Marauder - had a few patches of "Putting Green" on her. That's the feature wall, the rest of the room is Ivory Lace. I didn't want an "accent" Dog so then spent a good few minutes cleaning off the paint. I then discovered that using the dish cloth did not earn 30%'s full approval.

This reminded me of a Fly/Drive holiday we had in the States three years ago. No, not the moaning about using the dish cloth to clean the dog, the fact that the dog was briefly green in places.

As part of our Road Trip we visited Monument valley which is in the Navajo Nation. If you have never been there it's worth a trip but the Navajo Nation has its own ground rules which mean that it is unlike the rest of the USA.

For starters there is no alcohol allowed. Apparently this is an attempt to control the alcoholism that is prevalent in the population. I have a couple of thoughts on this...

... thought number 1; that law is great and will stop people who can't drive and don't have any friends that can drive from drinking. Everyone else will just get in their car and buy it just outside the border. Thought number 2; the Nation ought to concentrate on making the Nation a little more hospitable and encouraging to visitors as they seem to have two potential industries farming and tourism and they don't seem very good at either. It is no wonder that the locals tend to drink.

The end result is that we spend a night in a Trailer Park in a static van that smelt of Horse Piss.

The Valley is a fantastic natural spectacle and worth a visit - just don't try to spend a night in the vicinity until the Navajo Nation get their act together.

What about the dog and the paint - Yes. I'm getting to that. To give you some idea of what it is like in the Nation, they paint a broad, coloured stripe of gloss paint down their dog's back to show that it isn't a stray. Hence the dogs at the Horse Piss Trailer Park were a a shade of aquamarine that matched the caravans. They smelt pretty similar too. The reason for this........

........ apparently a local hobby is shooting strays so painting your dog reduces the chance of it ending up as target practice for the bored and drunk locals.

Only in America.

Domesticity

Today was truly domestic.... in a not too arduous way.

30% and I breakfasted together in the garden which was leisurely as the local feed merchant doesn't open until 10 o'clock on Sundays and there was no point starting painting in the kitchen and then having to break off to pick up half a dozen bags of layers pellets.

So, that was it a trip in the Prius to pick up chicken food and then a day of painting. 30% was on emulsion and I was priming the woodwork.

The Pile is a mix of ancient and neglected and re-built so we are either painting new wood or stripping back donkey's years of old, chipped paint work back to the original. The end result, irrespective of age, is that there is no "quick sand down and a coat of satinwood". All of the wood is bare and needs a couple of coats of undercoat primer followed by a couple of coats of satinwood to get a decent finish. This means that there are no short cuts to be had and all rooms are a chore to say the least.

The wine glass is half full so I will say that at least it will be easier the next time we need to decorate.

TP returned from a trip to see Grandma in deepest, darkest Surrey in time for us to take Tyson and Marauder through the rain sodden fields in the late afternoon sun. That's British weather for you, iron grey skies and stair rods followed by blue skies and sun.

Back to work tomorrow - probably best if I don't dwell on that one.