What's a drip here, a drop there

My Mum in her heyday was very very self-sufficient and efficient. She would do all her own decorating and she would paint the house top to toe every year. I have a sneaking suspicion that if I had stood still on one of her painting days I would have got a first coat. Although she would cover furniture and other obstacles some things did get paint-splashed here and there. Indeed she was asking  the other day how my own house painting was going and located a little speck of paint on her cardigan from days gone by. How much she wishes with all her heart and being that she could still climb a ladder with paint brush in hand and transform a room in a day instead of sat in an elderly people's home, riddled with arthritis and memories.

Anyway I only serve to mention the above in letting you know the paint school to which I subscribe ie cover with sheets as little as possible and wipe up as you go along. I am a busy Mum with things to do and can't hang around over-prepping.

I have a lot of painting to do since our extension was finished. And I am amazed where paint can transport itself. Yes I swear it's alive and deliberately lands where it knows it should not. It creeps under newspapers and stains floors; it drips on covers and then I move the cover and it streaks the floor and my most novel accident: it drips onto a spear-like plant leaf and then drips off on to the floor. I thought I was making excellent smudge-free progress and then aah I saw the damage.

I'm not very good at preparation basically.  Look closely at the non-carpeted areas in our house and you will find faintly white cirrus formations in corners or along skirting boards where I have dripped and wiped but not very immediately nor successfully. Of course this is all my own fault. My painter's report would read: 'an impatient person with no attention to detail. Virginia will not go far in the professional paint world.'


At times over the last few months I've felt I've been appearing in my own Laurel and Hardy sketch or Norman Wisdom screwball escapade. I drip paint, I wipe it up, I drip paint, I wipe it up but I wipe it up with the cloth I've just wiped it up with and just put more paint onto the floor. Then the paint laden cloth contaminates my fingers and I open the door to get to the bit of arcitrave I can't get to and then swipe paint on the lovely glass door handle that I wanted to keep pristine and then I wipe it with the cloth forgetting it's covered in paint already. It's a joy.

But here's the thing, looked on as a whole (and as long as you are not a professional decorator) it's all just fine and progress is being made. Moreover I am thankful I can still paint and regret with all my heart that my Mum cannot.