It is gone midnight. I have come to the end of an exhausting evening.
Yesterday Jessica decided that she was too old for Peter Rabbit and that it was time she decorated her bedroom in a more mature style. To be fair, she is absolutely right on this point and the Peter Rabbit soft furnishings etc. have served her and her brothers well for the last twenty years. She was equally clear (an avid watcher of Changing Rooms and the like) that she could do the job. To this end she bought paint and a border, and to be fair the painting isn't at all bad, but what nobody bothers to explain to the gullible novice DIYer is all the preparation that needs doing before you even start to paint.
This morning the boys helped her drag her furniture out on to the landing (access to all bedrooms rendered nigh on impossible) and, without so much as washing the skirting boards they set to work on the painting. They also hadn't hoovered the floor or even lifted the stray socks, knickers, My Little Ponies etc. which appeared from behind and under the wardrobe, toy cupboard, chests of drawers and so on, but spent the day trampling over them. They didn't even strip the bed or empty the drawers, cupboards or shelves. There was at least a week's work sorting the out-grown toys and clothes into bags for disposal to smaller cousins, jumble sales and the bin before anything should have been done to the room. It is no wonder that Helen and Glen washed their hands of the whole affair and left their children to it (not that they are that much better themselves).
None of this really impinged upon me until the afternoon when Jessica phoned to say that the paint had run out and ask me to take her to B&Q.
Muggins did.
They finished the painting and stuck on the border.
Another phonecall from Jess. The boys had abandoned her to do the boring tidying on her own now the fun bit of the painting was finished, and she couldn't lift things on her own, and Mummy was about to kill her if it wasn't all sorted by bedtime.
Muggins went.
So that was six to nine of a fun evening sorted out. Not just lugging furniture about and helping to sort the room out, but washing emulsion paint out of the children's clothes and Jessica's duvet and pillow cases before Helen found out.
I now find out that the boys had not only abandoned their sister, but had also abandoned a remarkably large assortment of brushes, rollers and paint trays all covered in paint and all outdoors. Now, I am of the school of thought that thinks that a tool (like pets, friendship, marriage and, where possible, decorative schemes) is for life, and I couldn't leave the poor things to dry out and have to be thrown away so I took them home with me to wash in the sink.
Sluggish at the best of times, the drain blocked! It did not respond to plunging. Father had to take the waste pipe apart. He had to use rods down the drain outside. That's nine till eleven of a fun evening taken care of. I have just finished mopping out the cupboard under the sink and replacing the vases, candles, cleaning cloths, and all the catfood that hadn't become soggy in it.
Midnight, and the end (D.V.) of a fun-filled evening chez Lissa!
