When I met the lovely boyf told me was that he "didn't do sports." Having been a football widow for several years, it was absolutely one of the nicest things that he could have told me, though it didn't take long to figure out that this wasn't entirely true. He loves to snow board, mountain board and blade, but these aren't weekly fixtures and anyways, I could get very used to après ski! That is until we moved here. Never mind the village of the damned, we live in the village of the golfers and the boyf has succumbed. I am now a golf widow.
And so it was, under the guise of going to get food for Finn, that he stopped off this morning at the range to hit some balls. Leaving me, midway through painting the last wall of the 11 yr old's room, with the dogs for company and oh, what fun we had.... Those of you that don't have dobes (and those of you lucky enough to have a lovely chilled out, low-maintenance dobe!) may not know that dobes can sing. It is the kind of noise that you can only shake your head at in half horrified, half hysterical despair! Megs particularly likes to sing when there are people in the church and the, usually dead (pardon the pun) quiet, graveyard. Half way through my painting, I discovered that there was a funeral being held and I'm pretty certain that the mourners were not appreciating the (mercifully short) heartfelt dobe accompaniment! Megs came inside, and serenaded me instead.... Finn, in the meantime, was having a fabulous time finding stuff in the 11 year old's room. I don't know where he found half of it, being the size of a hotdog obviously has it's advantages; he is the search and rescue dog of lost toys and hair accessories! Luckily, he's more of a hoarder than a chewer, but it's always better to be safe than forking out for vets bills... in the first 50 minutes that the boyf was out, I barely managed a third of the wall; in the last 10 minutes that they finally gave up and went for a nap, I finished the rest of the wall!
So, the 11 yr old's bedroom is finally finished. It has taken ages but it's my own fault. I only paint by hand with a 2" brush (I swear that the finish is worth the effort) and the thought of 3-4 coats of paint that it takes to cover that horrible blue has been a real deterrent to getting the job done. However, I had promised her that it would be finished by the end of the summer and yes, I know that I'm cutting it fine with only 48 hrs to go, but it is done. All ready for her to start school on a calm, tidy and ordered note... for a week at least I hope!
I also made a discovery. Not only had the room, before the blue, been almost exactly the same dusky pink that I have just painted it (!) but underneath all of that was this:
I am pretty certain that it is hand blocked wallpaper; the patterns don't always quite match up and you can see and feel the texture of the paint. It is such a pretty pattern too, and a real shame that someone chose to paint over it. The boyf and I, when we decided to buy this place, said that we were never really going to be it's owners but rather its caretakers. This lovely cottage, after 620+ years, is a grand old dame, we are are only here to do the best that we can to ensure that it has stories to tell for another 600... I just wish that the previous occupiers had thought the wallpaper worthy of being part of the tale.
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