Tiling and Paint and Policemen

Posted by Simon

This evening I am off to the UK to collect the kitchen, after the slight, enforced, delay. The interval has meant more time to get things ready and this week I have managed to tile the kitchen floor. So on my return, I can install the kitchen straight away. I have also finished the bathroom tiling, which I put on hold to get the kitchen done. So from never having tiled ever before I have now completed two rooms without too many problems.

Yesterday I decided to have a bit of a tidy up and sort out which turned into a 'mega' tidy and clean up. This carried on into today. There are parts of my workshop floor that hadn't seen the light of day for ages and all my tools have been put away. So it is now guaranteed I will not able to find anything when I get back.

Today we have been experimenting with making our own paint. Believe it or not the base ingredient in skimmed milk. The other ingredients include hydrated lime and colour pigment. Various other items can be added and we put linseed oil to ours but have seen recipes with white vinegar, powdered chalk, cottage cheese and salt. I made up a test board to try out the paints on the equivalent surfaces in the gite and on one surface it has worked well but the other will need some form of base coat first. Plus I have tried the paint out on other surfaces to see the results. A bristle brush is the recommended method for best results and not by spraying whilst mixing the concoction up with the drill at its highest speed. Um - that's a nice shade of paint you're wearing Rosie!

There is one small drawback with making this paint. It should be made with fresh skimmed milk but this is impossible to get here so we used long life for our experiment - I don't know what difference it makes but I'll be coming back with bottles of skimmed milk from a UK supermarket. At least skimmed milk can be frozen - if there is room in the freezer that is!

Now, a friend of ours is coming with me to the UK to help move stuff. Now the last time Ian and I returned from the UK we had a trailer load of materials and an interesting discussion with a policeman. We arrived at the port and checked in. Queued up. We were then directed to the security hut where trailer and vehicle were checked. No problems so far. We then waited in lane to get on the ferry, when a policeman came over to talk to us. Now in my defence I had not seen his face but when he asked..

'Where are you going next?

I replied 'On to the ferry'.

And it went downhill from there.

Without going to the in and outs - what was I suppose to say? And I did not realise he had no sense of humour. And it was difficult to keep a straight face for the next few minutes. And I thought Ian was going to have a go at me - in fact after our treatment Ian wanted to put a complaint in about this policeman. And we did get on the ferry - eventually.