'P' IS FOR PANDEMIC

‘Can I have a ‘P’ please, Bob?’  I’m sure everyone that hasn’t got their eyes glued to a smartphone will be smirking in remembrance of that immortal line as contestants battled to make their way across a lettered Blockbusters quiz screen. These days, P is for pandemic or party. 

Although we’re in a lockdown situation, social distancing restrictions clearly apply only to UK citizens and not Serbians.  When Boris said ‘Stay at home, save the NHS’ he forgot to repeat that in a Balkan dialect as whilst everyone else has understood they’ve got to stay in their own homes, our Serbian neighbours have taken this to mean that you must invite all your relatives round for a big party.   At least a dozen guests turned up last Wednesday, not a shred of PPE in sight!   P is also for peasant. 

Social distancing - kitty style

Week 4 of furlough has slipped by unnoticed like the piece of popcorn I found yesterday buried in fluff under the sofa.  Carbon dating showed it to have been there since 2008 along with the theatre listings from Poole Lighthouse of the same year.  (I wondered where that had got to).

DIY efforts are now being concentrated on the lounge, a room that was last decorated almost 20 years ago.  In its heyday, this room paid homage to all things Art Deco.  The beautiful Deco motifs that I painstakingly stencilled into each corner of the room have withstood the rigours of daily life well but not so the Egyptian sand coloured paint which is now dirtier than a pair of wellies after milking time.  Scrubbing the walls down with sugar soap has done little to reduce the pockmarks and splatters of the last two decades.

Our lovely Art Deco lounge needs a spruce up

Stencilled corner motifs

The decorative scheme in this room is unlikely to be to everyone’s taste but it kills me to think someone is going to come along and paint over the lovely stencilled motifs to turn the lounge into some bland, gruel-coloured, porridge palace.  I guess I’ll leave that to the new owners because I don’t have the heart to cover them.

In the meantime, I've freshened up the ceiling with a couple of coats of brilliant white emulsion and painted over the dark yellow plaster coving/picture rail to give the room a partial makeover.

White emulsion to cover picture rail and coving

Plainer look to appeal to prospective buyers

Fan design wallpaper now painted in white