Sunday 30th May, 2010

A day of mishaps....

It was a 'mini day' today, celebrating the fact that our washing machine has broken down again for the second time in a week (may as well look on the bright side, right?) and that my back is too sore to be moving boxes and things. Besides, Peter was busy clearing out the caravan to put it in for repairs and a service tomorrow, so he couldn't finish cutting the new shelves to the right length and I couldn't sort out the workroom any more either. I thought that by tonight I would be posting photos of Miss Marple's Cottage (MMC) with the walls up and the wallpaper on, and also some quarter scale flower kits made up. 

It all went quite well to begin with, the plastic brick on the walls and the plastic roof sheeting on the roof bits adhered well and the glue dried well overnight.  I cut the bits apart this morning and put them back in their little plastic bags, after I had photographed them.  Then I papered the floors with the flooring paper.  What a disaster!  I turned the pieces over to smooth the paper and it was all bubbly!  Efforts to remedy it just made it worse.  In the end I removed the paper, destroying some of it in the process - removed the remnants of glue from the pieces and dried off the wooden flooring.  Then tried to use the paper again.  I thought that if I was careful I could manage to re-cover the floors in the two floors of the main house part, if I pieced it carefully on the ground floor.  I have some 1:48 tiling that I could use in the conservatory section.  Well, I pieced it carefully and it looked terrible and there still wasn't enough to do the 1st floor anyway!  I do have some sheets of flooring but they don't come in a size big enough for the ground floor - they will need piecing together and I can't find them at the moment, with the move from the caravan to the house.  Sigh!

So I thought I'd check the folder again where I keep my quarter scale wall and flooring papers - and knocked over a glass of water, all over the desk.  Which was very cluttered at the time, with things that should not have been there!  Fortunately I have a container with household cloths in it on the desk and I grabbed a handful of those and stemmed the flow, and cleaned it all up.  Nothing got damaged, and I dried everything off, put things away, cleaned off the working area on the desk and washed my paint brushes that I had been using earlier.

I walked in from the kitchen where I had been doing that, with a fresh glass of water and my laptop.  Put the laptop on the nice clean desk surface, put the glass of water out of the way and decided to look up some items I want to order to go in Miss Marple's Cottage, moved the laptop - and knocked the glass of water over again!

All in all, my desk has had a really good clean down today lol.  I did do some more painting of stripwood, windows and door after that, and tried to work out how the fireplace goes together, but by then Peter was home again. 

So I joined him in the lounge room after tea with my supplies for flower making.  I was trying to decide which kit to make after I had finished the clematis and the daisy kits.  What a laugh!  By 10.30 I had assembled precisely six stems only of clematis leaves and four flowers!  I'd painted them earlier or wouldn't even have done that much.  The flowers don't take long but those tiny leaves are very temperamental and they are not co-operative at all.  My idea of the  size of the vine has progressively reduced as the evening has gone on! 

But the mishaps of the day hadn't finished yet.  I had started off working on one of those little portable tables in front of my armchair earlier in the night, then moved to a laptray. Peter brought me a hot drink before bed, lovely man, and moved the little table, which upset the balance of the lap tray - and everything landed on the floor: hot milk all over me and the floor, scissors, tweezers, flower and leaf sheets, paint tray, brushes, water.....the whole kit and kaboodle!  I couldn't believe it.  Three times in one day.  Plus spoiling the flooring paper.  What a day.  I think perhaps I should stick to stitching in the evenings vbg.