Undercoating

Debrah flew back to London yesterday and the apartment suddenly feels very empty without her. That's the problem with having a really good weekend together - you miss each other even more when it's over.

After dropping Debrah at the airport, I returned to the seemingly never-ending painting. I put a second coat on the studio kitchen alcove, which was a fiddly job - no 'glory painting' involved at all - but it looks excellent now. I spent the evening in front of my computer working on forecasts for London.

Today, I vowed that I would finish all the remaining undercoating of the plastering done by the Poles a couple of weeks ago. Easy vow to make but much harder to implement - eight and a half hours later and it was done, but what a soul destroying job it is. You spend all day working your butt off, up and down the scaffolding, moving stuff around the room out of your way, doing a bit of sanding and tidying up of corners and plug points as you go along and then vacuuming up the mess, thinning down the undercoat with water because the plaster sucks all the moisture out of it so that it starts peeling off again and then having it splashing around all over the place because it's a bit watery, having to climb back down the scaffold when you run out of paint because you are on your own, having to climb back down the scaffold when the phone goes and you have forgotten to put it your pocket when you are expecting an important call, having to climb back down the scaffold when you've got up there in position and realise you have left the paint on the floor (as I did once today) and then, when you've finished, it looks pretty much the same as it did before you started!

But it had to be done so no point going on about it - without the undercoat, the topcoat just wouldn't look as good - it's as simple as that - and it's done now so I can do colours tomorrow - hurrah.