A bit more on Washtub Cottage....and other drama

Today was rather an emotionally exhausting day for Peter and for me.  Peter needed to go into the city centre (Sydney) to renew his Nurse's Registration for another year.Now that we both qualify for a Senior's Card and get concession fares  it isn't worth the cost of petrol when he can get a cheap fare.  If he can catch an express train  it takes a bit more than an hour to get into the city.  Yes, we are a long way out west!  Still part of Sydney, but Sydney encompasses several other parts that are 'cities' in their own right.

Pete caught the bus to the station, showing his Senior's Card for the concession fare, and returned his wallet to his pocket.  When he arrived at the station he went to get his wallet for the train fare and it was gone.  So you know what was involved for the rest of the day: search the area, then returning home so he could report the loss to all the relevant parties. It was bad enough losing the $100 that was in the wallet but it was worse losing his licence and other things in there.

He reported the loss of licence - no problem sir, just bring in your birth certificate and apply for a replacement.  Yes.  Well.  We have our birth certificates safely filed in a folder packed away - somewhere.  Well you say, no problem - get a duplicate!  Not so easy.  Peter was born in England, not Australia. So  after a couple of fruitless hours in the hot room without airconditioning we had come to the conclusion that today we would have to pull everything out and unpack it all to find it.  He can't be without his driving licence.

Quite upset by it all, he cancelled his night duty shift.  Then several hours later we had a phone call - someone had seen the wallet as they were entering a motorway quite a few kilometres from where it was lost (stolen?).  They had been good enough to stop and pick it up then contact us to let us know.  They live a long distance from us so are going to post it and we should have it in a couple of days.  What a relief!  The money was gone of course. But the other things in it are even more important.  Once they are back we can let the police know that the licence has been returned (hopefully) and all will be well.

As you can imagine, all this delayed progress on the cottages.  However once things settled down I did get a bit done.  I am quite pleased with the floors of both now they are painted:

Washtub Cottage - ground floor

Toadstool Cottage - Ground Floor

I also painted the ceiling for the ground floor of Washtub.This was an interesting exercise.  As I've said before, I am not very good at cutting in when painting - I used to be, but my multifocal glasses now seem to make it difficult to judge.  So as I painted the brown it got onto the cream; when I painted cream, some got onto the brown.  And so it went.....

But in the end I decided enough was enough, and went on with 'distressing'  the cream areas.

So it was pleasing progress - but again not a lot achieved on Toadstool Cottage.