A Few Of Life's Out-Takes

After reading Sniffles and Smiles sad tale of the shrinking cover, among others, I though I'd let Blogland know I've met the odd out-take as well. You are not alone, Janine. There will be no attempt at chronological order with these tales. Suffice it to say, all stories are true, be they funny or sad. Perhaps sad is the wrong word; the occasion I'm thinking of in this instance relates to my Dad. He was up a stepladder, painting the last square yard of the ceiling in his and Mum's bedroom, when an over enthusiastic stretch before moving the stepladder yet again, resulted in a less than graceful, speedy descent sideways. Dad, ladder and paint hit the deck. Dad, it turned out, had broken his wrist, the ladder remained unscathed, and the paint - ah, the paint!

If the new ceiling colour had been white, my brother and I could have completed the job so's you couldn't see the join. Unfortunately, the paint was pale blue...not a pale blue picked from a shade card, but a home made, lets-put-a bit-of-this with-a bit-of that, pale blue. Remember, I was at art college, and loved creating these one off colour variations at every opportunity.

While Mum escorted a shaken Papa to the hospital, Bro and I valiantly tried to scrape as much of the remaining paint from the plastic dust sheet back into the tin. It became quite clear, the residue was unlikely to be sufficient to cover that last vital patch. I thought I might eke it out by adding a tad more water. A good/bad idea, as it turned out, although I did paint that final area (up the same stepladder may I add, but with the addition of Bro as chief steadier) the paint dried in a slightly lighter shade, due to its lack of density. I should point out, as we lived in an old, high ceilinged property, starting the whole process again from scratch was not an option - far too much hassle. It stayed that way until next time the room was due a refurbishment. I didn't water down emulsion again, and Dad and I discovered those wonderful things that let you paint a ceiling while standing firmly on the floorboards...

I was always a bit of a liability when I had my own kitchen. I soon learned not to keep tumblers in a top cupboard out of reach of children, as I was more of a hazzard than they were. I dropped so many from that height, that I resorted to plastic or stainless steel ones, so neither I nor the kids had to worry about glass shards.

On the high cupboard subject, a large box of Brown and Powlson's cornflour met the same fate as the tumblers one day. From a shelf just too high for me to reach comfortably, I managed to knock the whole packet off onto the top of my head. If I'd been a tidy person I'd have folded over the inside paper bag and closed the box, when last I'd used it, but no, ever in a rush, I'd shoved it back on the shelf open, for easy access - and exit, as it turned out.

I was suddenly transformed into a perfect replica of a Halloween Ghost. White. Floury. Laughing like a drain while trying not to move one iota more than necessary, I called out to young son for help. He was the only other person in the house at the time, but luckily he was old enough to get the cylinder vacuum cleaner out from the cupboard under the stairs and put all the sections together, under my instruction. As my vision was somewhat restricted, I didn't actually notice which end of the cylinder he plugged the hose into. Until he switched it on. It blew, instead of sucked. The cornflour spread a little further. But then, I always did like sharing...

As I seem to be 'posting by colours' today, might as well stick to it and go for the red option, though I believe I may have mentioned this before, in which case, forgive an ageing brain...
I'd made a stencil for 'Christmas card mass production', one year. There was a handy, pull-out clothes dryer/airer with four lines that stretched the length of my kitchen, and I thought it would be an ideal place to slot the sprayed cards over while they dried. I decided to 'create' last thing at night, then the cards would be dry enough to handle first thing in the morning, and I could clear the kitchen of all craft paraphernalia before I had to cook there!

The red spray can delivered the goods satisfactorily, and the stencil design looked good. I soon had the four lines full of cards, end to end, and went to bed with a satisfying feeling of a job well done.

It was a different story when I opened the kitchen door in the morning. Every horizontal surface had a fine dusting of microscopic, red dots, resulting in a pink, blush effect overall... Especially our all-white floor tiles. The kitchen menace strikes again...

The last picture I give you today, is almost tame by comparison. I made a cup of cocoa for hubby one evening, but as I was attempting to pass it to him through the hatchway, disaster struck, and it was more like a flying saucer, than a cup and saucer. Not sure myself how I manged this one, but the cocoa seemed to rebound upwards, liberally covering the underside of the wall cabinets above the hatchway, before falling back to the work surface, or floor.
Aren't you glad I won't ever need to be in your kitchen? Who knows what I might come up with next...