D.I.Y.
I honestly wonder why I do it sometimes. You would think given my less-than-enjoyable experience painting the garden furtniture in my Nan's garden would have put me off for life, but no, it seems I just can't escape the dreaded D.I.Y.
I mean it's not that I don't like D.I.Y. - I do in actual fact enjoy it when it's for me, when it's done at my pace, or if it's something I'm good at, like putting furniture together or building things - but the D.I.Y. I've been forced to endure recently has been of the worst kind immaginable: wallpaper stripping.
It all started in the very early hours of Saturday morning.
As any young person will tell you, Saturday mornings are a time of rest, a time of recovery from the previous night's exertions, and this particular Saturday morning was no exception. I admit I may have had one too many drinks the night before, and I admit also that I may very well have got in at an obscene hour in the morning after a very long drunken walk back home from the ghetto of Margate. A typical Friday night in the summer for me then, but what I did not realise was that it was not going to be a very typical Saturday morning. It started something like this:
SCRAPE... SCRATCH-SCRATCH-SCRATCH... SCRAPE... *shouted obscenity*... SCRAPE SCRAPE SCRAPE... *moan*...
For those of you unaware of my living conditions back home in Ramsgate (which is most likely most of you), I actually live in the attic. My bed is above the ceiling of my sister's room, and the precise section of wallpaper my beloved father was scraping away at was pretty much below my head.
Not good for a man with a hangover I tell you.
With a good deal of effort and with a stomach not yet settled from the dodgy cheesey-chips of the night before, I descended my ladder to find my sister's room in chaos. As expected, my father was making something of a pig's ear of wallpaper scraping and was swearing like a Frenchman at the walls, the ceiling, the ladder and indeed the wallpaper scraper. What was clear was that he had obviously embarked upon a task way beyond his means to complete, and what was also clear was that I wasn't going to get any rest with my father making a mess of doing the D.I.Y.
Now my father has a habit of doing things like this. Over the years I've actually come to recognise the telling signs of one of father's misadventures, and they normally involve a new gadget and an instruction book, but in this case it involved a bucket of water and a wallpaper scraper. Why oh why he decided to start on a task he knew he couldn't do on his own at a ridiculously early hour in the morning when he knew I had been out the night before I don't know.
Needless to say I had no choice other than to make a cup of coffee and give him a hand. This was bad move #1.
No actually I tell a lie. Bad move #1 was actually my sister's initial decision to decorate her room in the first place, and now I think about it bad move #2 was father's decision to help her in her efforts on a day when she was away. Bad move #3 was his decision to embark upon the task of doing anything D.I.Y. related, and bad move #4 was to do bad move #3 when he was (and still is) extremely unwell.
My decision to help then, was probably about bad move #5 in a list of bad moves that is by now well into double figures and pushing on for the half century. Bad move #6 was definately my deciding to help with a hangover.
Four hours, and a lot of mess later, we finished the ceiling. Neither father nor son was in any fit state to do anything else for the rest of the day and son was particularly feeling the pain after 10 miles of walking, way too many drinks and some very dodgy cheesey chips the night before. As is the way of things, my sister Nichola didn't get back until the evening time when we were well finished and cleared up for her return. You could say indeed she was shirking, and I wouldn't disagree with you if I'm perfectly honest, but given the amount of stick I've given her recently I'm inclined to write this blog in a sympathetic light.
The reason I've been giving her stick of course, is because two days later (when she was out yet again) my father decided he was going to start on the painting.
Is there any stupid task this man won't do when he's seriously unwell? I'm inclined to think not.
Again he started in the early morning, and again I was drawn downstairs by excessive swearing and complaining.
How on earth am I supposed to study for my dissertation when he decides he's going to do D.I.Y. when he's unwell? Why didn't he just ask me to help at a time acceptable to the both of us? Why didn't he just wait for me till he started?
I honestly have no idea, but what I do know is that I'm not going to do ANY more D.I.Y. this summer. My neck hurts, I've ruined my only pair of shorts (which I can't even afford to replace) and I'm stressed out beyond all belief. If Nichola wants to decorate her room, she can do it herself from here on in. If my father wants to do another silly task that he can't really do on his own then I'm inclined to tell him to wait for Nichola. I've spent way too much time up a ladder scraping and painting the ceiling to help any more.
I would say I think I've earnt my summer break now, but what with news of my dissertation finally coming through and the uplifting news of a possible contract for RGP, I'm inclined to think the work has only just begun...