Do It Yourself

The weeds have been vanquished (for the time being), and now the kitchen ceiling is white and (almost) immaculate. Over a period of about three days (i.e. an inordinate amount of time for any decent worker) I have prepared and painted the kitchen ceiling, missing only one small and almost invisible patch. This is a shockingly small and insignificant task for any able-bodied individual, yet I am as proud of it as if I had completed the single handed restoration of a listed building.

In the protracted tea breaks, lunch breaks and any other breaks between my puny decorating efforts, I have continued to monitor job vacancies, and applied for another post. At last my unceasing barrage of applications has been rewarded, and I have been offered an interview for a job that I applied for more than two weeks ago. In fact, there are two jobs with the same employer, one unadvertised, doubling the chances of selection.

Flushed with this double success - kitchen ceiling and interview - I took the irretrievable step of starting the rehabilitation of the shower room, with its sagging and mouldy wallpaper. Who puts wallpaper on the ceiling a foot above a shower cubicle? Anyway, it isn't there any more, but some of the walls aren't in a very good state, and it will certainly be a more challenging operation than cleaning and painting an essentially sound kitchen ceiling.