Time for some DIY….

Both the writer her indoors and I are ‘heart’ people when it comes to purchases, even with (or should that be especially with) houses – the more expensive the purchase, the less rational we both become! We are lucky, as child #2 keeps reminding us – bitter, but he does have a point!, to have ridden the property wave, despite choices we have made along the way. We bought our first house without ever seeing the garden, guarded as it was by 2 rottweilers. Our second house was a total wreck and had a 70s style clad bar curving into the front room. So, whilst the house into which we have recently moved didn’t need any work noticeably doing to it, the reality has proved slightly different. Rooms which were ‘beautiful’ have, in our minds become ‘beautifully presented at the time of viewings’. Don’t get me wrong, none of this would have changed our purchase – as I said, we are both heart people and love the feel of the house, but it does mean that I need to face up to three letters that strike fear and dread -DIY!

I have only had one major success at ‘doing it myself’, but I am sadly no longer able to bask in the glow of success from the shelves I made and put up in our first flat 28 years ago. Not only put up, might I say, but they stayed up during the 2 years we were there and despite the amount of VERY HEAVY books with which the writer filled them. Since then, I have often been heard to utter the line: ‘I earn money to pay people to do the things well that I cannot do well’. I firmly believe that the first rule of DIY is that, if it can go wrong, it will. Our houses have been littered with slightly wonky curtains, blinds that you have to open very gently and sanded floors with strategically placed furniture to cover my inadequacies with sanding machines. So I was nervous/unhappy/fraught/resigned when it was decided (you will have guessed not by me) that the downstairs bedroom needed ‘sorting’ and that, we should do it, as we don’t have our former day jobs.

Sander, paintbrushes, screwdrivers, rollers all located, we happened upon an old pot of paint we found in a shed in the garden, which, with hindsight, saved us several hours choosing between sundry ridiculously named paint shades, all of which looked very similar but dried a different colour than you thought…. so antique cream it was! I think I am a slow but careful painter – the writer her indoors just thinks I am a very slow painter (she’s probably right, but my self-esteem is low enough in the DIY stakes, so I need to spin this slightly), and can knock off a room in half the time it takes me, regardless of spiders, cobwebs or any other minor impediment.

To be fair, the room looks really good now, with just curtains/floor covering/furniture etc to bring the whole thing together and there is that whole satisfaction thing that ‘we did that ourselves’. My major contribution, when all’s said and done, was to keep things tidy, make numerous cups of tea and open the wine at the end of the day.

Eating: Roast squash stew… can’t remember where I saw the recipe, but you roast the squash (I tend to use sweet potato instead) with ras-el-hanout, roast chickpeas also with ras-el-hanout. The stew is carrot/onion/garlic in tomato with harissa. I add spinach at the end and sprinkle the chickpeas on then top with coriander. Hearty, wholesome, tasty food, ideal at the end of a hard day doing as little painting as possible!

Drinking: A supermarket Albali…Gran Seleccion Valdepeñas 2017

Listening to:  Joan Armatrading – as you know, I generally prefer more chilled music when cooking. Lots of words, but the sort of songs of which I know all the words. Her indoors has a weakness for ‘The weakness in me’, my favourite is ‘Show some emotion’.