Lilac for a baby's room? Why not?

Friday January 9^th

What a drive back to Cumbria! We decided to avoid the Manchester routes in case either Woodhead or the Snake were blocked, plus there is always a bloody humungous queue in Mottram, it seems. So we did the M1 A1 A66 route instead. There was evidence of pretty bad weather everywhere on the drive up to Scotch Corner, but no snow, then it got really spectacular as we drove the best high level route over the Pennines, IMHO. There was lots of snow and evidence that the road had been covered in the last few days. The slip roads off the 66 past Bowes all had a couple of centimetres of snow across them and the car park near the County Boundary Sign was much deeper. The little greasy spoon mobile café van wasn’t there either, usually a good indication that the weather is too bad! It was a windy as hell on the road and there was an advisory speed limit posted of 50 mph owing to the high winds at Stainmore Summit.

I do love driving this route in all weathers, but there is something amazingly wonderful about doing so in winter; when you are snug in your safe little cocoon and the elements outside would mean your death quite quickly if you were stranded out there! Plus the view towards Cross Fell and Tan Hill are sublime. Rounding the corner past the summit marker the Eden Valley spread before you is always a reassuring and welcome sight and your long descent to Penrith can reveal the Lakeland Giants silhouetted against the distant horizon. Not today though, they were lost in a grey blanket.

The next time we saw them close up was when we were driving along the foot of Blencathra and even there Hall’s Fell Top wasn’t quite visible through the shroud, but across the valley of the Derwent you could make out the summit of Grizedale Pike and the Grassmor Massif. All the Fells that we could see looked exactly like Alfred Wainwright’s black and white drawings in his Pictorial Guides to the Lakeland Fells, with the snow exaggerating every little nook and fold in the mountainside. Even the individual tufts of tussock grass were picked out in relief by the slight sprinkling of snow on them. You can see why people (like my family) fall in love with the Lakes and want to come and live here.

At home I unloaded our stuff; swapped vehicles; dropped Loll off at her Mum & Dad’s and went to rescue the woofies from the boarding kennel. To say they were overjoyed to see and greet me was an understatement. I did a major detour back so I could give them all a longish run on Allonby beach, which was the most windswept stretch of sand in the country, I think. Laura texted me whilst down there to say; “Dinner with Mum tonight. Love you lots. I’ll be at yours in about 30 minutes.” That put paid to the thought of having to defrost something out of Dad’s freezer or going for a carry-out or something.

The meal was with Molly, Eric, Stephen and Kirsten, Rob and the two sprogs. Quite a gathering. We only need Avril and Andy for the full house. Holly and Tilly are really cute and interested in everything, as kids are at that age. They wanted to know what ballet we’d seen and we had to tell the story. Holly then pestered her Mum to know why they had never been to a ballet. I came to her defence saying they very rarely came to Cumbria and there aren’t any Cumbria based ballet companies to go and see. Needless to say, we committed ourselves to taking Holly and Tilly to see one in Newcastle as soon as we can. Kirsten thought that Avril would probably like to come too (which got me wondering, why the hell couldn’t they do it themselves?)

This inevitably led to someone firing up their tablet and us booking to see “The Nutcracker” at the Theatre Royal, Newcastle on the 13^th of Feb. This is the day before we see the Halle at the Sands Centre, how fortunate was that? The girls seemed impressed. We talked about it at 7pm; found one at 7.30; booked to see a show by 7.45. At four Tilly may be a bit too young but in the end we booked tickets for Avril, Kirsten, Holly & Tilly, Laura and me. We’ll drive up from Sheffield, to Newcastle! The girls will meet us at the Theatre Royal. Afterwards I wondered to myself, why do we get drawn into these things? Still it will be good to see Hoffmann’s Herr Drosselmeyer and Clara again and it is a brilliant introduction to ballet for little girls who have never seen one before.

The girls now needed a quick recap of the story of the ballet. Holly asked me, “How come you know all this?” Before I could reply their Grandma chipped in with, “It is Mr & Mrs Jay’s doing. They love the theatre and so all their children started going when they were little.”

This, inevitably, led to a question of who are the other children? So I gave the girls a potted history of my family, suitably edited to spare embarrassment. I often feel awkward describing my childhood to people who may find what I say sounds as though I am boasting. I try not to boast, but, if you stop and think about it, I had an extraordinarily privileged upbringing. People often say, “Oh I wish I had done that…” or whatever and that, kind of, makes me apologetic for what I had. Does that make sense?

Loll and I pillow talked about this at home later as once again we lay chaste, thanks to mother sodding nature, when we really wanted to fuck each other’s brains out! Deferred gratification is always better in the long run!

Saturday 10^th Jan.

We have been roped into remote control decorating. I skyped Dad this morning and we got onto the topic of the weather (dreadful) and if there was anything he and Louisa wanted doing before they came home. Can you believe it? They had a load of colour charts for paint, which they’d taken out with them, and they discussed whether we’d be up for painting the spare room on the old landing. That is going to be my new sister’s room, next door to her Mum & Dad’s room. They have decided they would like Lilac for the walls. Which I think is a lovely gender neutral colour. I asked if they’d like the ceiling and woodwork painted as well, naturally they agreed. Dad said he’d reimburse me for the cost of the paints etc when they got back, but I told him not to bother, I would be delighted to do something for my new baby sister.

So, an hour after talking to a guy sunbathing by a pool in 30 degree heat, we trudged through lashing rain and icy blasts of wind to the B & Q in Workington, where we bought two tins of washable Lilac emulsion, a large tin of white emulsion for the ceiling and undercoat and gloss for the wood work. I checked, before leaving, to make sure Dad had brushes and white spirit in his workshop, so we didn’t need to buy those.

There isn’t all that much furniture in that bedroom and it was quickly dismantled (the bed) or taken down stairs into the garage (the furniture) and the floor covered with some of Dad’s collection of paint sheets. {He is a very organised DIYer – probably where I get it from.} By late afternoon we had painted the ceiling once and all the walls once with white emulsion.  We did the walls to remove the pale blue background colour so the lilac didn’t end up a shade or to darker because of it.

I was fairly paint-free, my romper suit was a bit messy, but I had managed to avoid anointing my flesh with emulsion. Laura, on the other hand seemed to have been a paint magnet. She had donned old clothes but despite this she was covered along her hands and arms, she had got smudges on her face and even a bit of her hair, where it had slipped out from under the old beanie I’d given her, was painted.  Time of the month or not, I made her get into the bath and washed all traces of Dulux brilliant white from her body. This got me really hot so she made me climb in and she washed me too, although there was no paint to be found in some of the places she scrubbed and rubbed!

We glued ourselves to the idiot box for the first two episodes of Engrenages on BBC 4 and I braved the elements alone for the dogs’ final walk – which was going to be a full one up Tall Hill, but was turned around by the parking spot a a quarter of the way up the hill, as it started hailing on us!

Sunday 11^th Jan.

Not as grotty at first, this morning, weather wise, but we cracked on with the next bits of the painting, regardless. Laura wielded the roller and I did the cutting in to the ceiling coving and skirting board. We had actually finished giving the whole room its first coat by 1.30.

You would probably not be surprised to learn that almost as soon as we’d finished painting, the weather broke and more grottiness descended. Rats, rats and more rats. We should have known that fine mornings often turn into foul afternoons up here in Cumbria, or vice versa. I grumped and grumbled about not having the sense I was born with and Laura joined in as we berated ourselves for having become pissy soft southerners!

We had a long and sensuous paint removal session, in the shower this time, and then a long and sensuous snuggle on the bed afterwards. We must have been tired as we slept for a couple of hours before being woken by the telephone ringing off its cradle. Bloody PPI insurance claim person. The person felt my wrath at being disturbed from a pleasant nap on a Sunday afternoon.

We had our evening meal and Laura suggested that we should paint something on the walls as a finishing touch to the room, once it had had its second coat. We both pushed around for ideas until we hit first of all on a rainbow frieze, at about dado rail height. I then thought we could do the heart beat pulse like on Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon album cover. Loll thought this was even better as it would hide the fact we had included a LGBT logo in my baby sister’s room, by pretending it was a reference to one of Dad’s favourite bands! Winner. The plan was I would crack on with the second coat of paint on the walls, tomorrow, whilst Laura went into town to buy six pots of emulsion for the rainbow (we decided on merging blue and indigo).

Just before hitting the charp at the end of another busy day, we discovered Izzy’s tail was a mixture of Long Haired Weimaraner colour and lilac! Closer inspection revealed it was in her tail, her ears, and her left hand side back leg! This, obviously, necessitated a swift look around the rest of the house to see if there had been any secondary paint transfer from dog to carpet or dog to furniture. Luckily we didn’t find any. She was not very chuffed with having her fur wiped down with a wet cloth, and in places with an old scouring pad, to remove the paint. Bloody dogs, eh?