Helena Handbasket

By Tivoli

Watching paint dry

Such a slight thing as rotating my bed within my living space was enough to disrupt my sleep. Where am I? Where should I be? Where do I actually live? It still catches me by surprise when I remember suddenly that I don't live in Greece and then I have to work out if I am at my mum's, my sister's or my brother's. And then I finally remember that I live in Chatham and I have a job. Perhaps this is why I chose my loft-bed to mimic the bed at the backpackers' hostel in Thessaloniki which was my home for more than 70 nights between Jan '12 and May '18.
So I was wide awake by 5am. I forced myself to stay in bed until six and farted about with coffee and stuff before allowing myself to begin painting at about 7. I hadn't been able to find a really good broad brush – the biggest I could find was a measly 2½ “, so covering the area of wall normally occupied by my bed took longer than I had imagined, but because I am having to tackle this in small sections a roller would just have been a waste of paint.
I reckoned that with a reasonably early start I'd be able to fit in a second coat in the afternoon as long as I allowed it enough time to dry. The weather was nice so a good time for a nice long walk, but Sainsbury's first. I copped this in the queue for Sainsbury's and as soon as I had the camera told me its battery was flat. Bugger! I'd have to take my walk without the camera. So this is all there is.

I am so achy! My heels are sore from several lengthy walks, my muscles are sore from shifting furniture, my bony arse is sore from sitting on a hard floor to paint skirting and the arthritis in my right shoulder knows I have just painted a wall twice.

But I'm not complaining, I'm just recording lockdown in the hope that one day this will be a thing of the past.

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