decorators watch

I got up at 7.30am, on the first day of my weeklong holiday, to make sure that I was decent when the decorators turned up at 8am. It was windy, cloudy and wet but also not raining, quite bright and not too cold. Hard but tolerable working conditions.

8.50am, I’m on my second cup of coffee, I’ve watched the news, read the blogs, sent some hotmails, read my stars but I’ve not answered the door to the workers.

8.55am, I’ve heard from the workers. They are in Richmond having been given the wrong address. I’ve been told not to wait for them, as they don’t know what time they’ll get here.

10am Hurrah they have arrived.

10.02am Boo. While showing them round the back of the flat I noticed lumps of cement on the floor on the path around the side of the house. We looked up and there is a slate loose on the roof. They’re bringing a cherry picker round one day so have agreed to have a look at it for me. They’ve also said that I can have a ride in it and I’m going to try and clean my windows then. Te he.

11.40am They appear quite typical. One is Irish and one is English, tea bag left in, tea bag taken out, 2 sugars each. The Hob Nobs went down well. Daddy told me to always look after the workers.

11.50am They’ve started on the inside as they are waiting for equipment and gear to turn up tomorrow. It looks loads better already and that’s just with an undercoat of white.

2pm I returned from the shops to find my workmen had scarpered. I’m not sure about the quality of the work to date to be honest. I had expected a little more sanding down and filling of holes. I’ll have a word tomorrow.

On the upside I had a chance to raid the local charity shops for book club. There were several of the books that I have recently bought all at 50p. I recently rediscovered charity shops for books and Fopp is great too. Otherwise I think I’d be skint by now, what with the art stuff to buy as well. The standard of the shops varied and bizarrely in the worst one I found a book for 50p that I nearly bought on Saturday for £7.99, only the till wouldn’t accept my card. When I told the girl behind the counter she said “you’re joking?” and she really meant it, and obviously thought the shop was full of crap. There was an awful lot of chic fic (or whatever it’s called), quite a few Di Vinci Codes and tonnes of the second Bridget Jones. Obviously people are reading that dross but are then too embarrassed to have it on their bookshelves.