I’d like to say that the reason I haven’t been writing the
blog lately is that I have taken a lovely vacation away from all things and
people that demand my attention. I would like to say that and what the hell,
why not. How has your summer been?
I have been busy…ish the last few weeks doing work around
the house that has been put off for far too long. I levelled out the sidewalk
blocks so that this winter, unlike the previous two or three winters, I won’t
be pushing a shovel full of snow and have the shovel catch on a raised block
knocking the wind out of me. When it is forty below, I don’t want to be gasping
for breath on the ground in a pile of snow. I haven’t quite finished yet, but
the problem blocks have been dealt with and now I am fitting the smaller broken
pieces into a mosaic pattern. That sounds really nice, but in reality I am just
fitting them in any way they will go. I am leaving it up to Fate to make it
look nice.
The other big project I have undertaken is to paint the
fence and trim around all of the windows and doors. I borrowed a power washer
from a neighbour and used that to strip away any paint that had loosened over
the years. It works great! Mind you I have very low standards and after all any
imperfections will be covered with paint…probably. We bought three gallons of
“Heather” for the main fence and a gallon of “Western Sky” for the trim. For
the most part, the body of the fence painted remarkably well, for the most
part. Some boards were very thirsty for paint. The trim went pretty well, but
it was apparent quite early on that “Western Sky” wasn’t the colour we thought
it might be. It should have been “Henna” instead.
I kind of like “Western Sky” and there is/was/will be no way
that I am going to repaint this year. Probably not next year either or the year
after that. How many years are there in “No Fucking
Way ! I should say that “Western Sky” whatever
colour it really is has been dogging Louise and me for over thirty years. When
we were getting ready to sell our home in Black Diamond the trim was to be a
chocolate bar brown but instead it turned out to be “Western Sky” or whatever
it was being called at the time. Over the intervening years we have bought our
favourite brown colour and it turned into “Western Sky”. We have taken the
paint back only to find that the store didn’t make a mistake mixing; we made a
mistake with the paint chip.
I give up! I am embracing “Western Sky” by that or any other
name. The universe needs to surround me with “Western Sky” for some bizarre
reason and it will keep turning up until I accept the reason. Of course the
universe might just be screwing with me…
I just have the house and garage trim left to do and with
any luck I will get it done sometime before the snow flies.
I tried to find a photo of the actual colour, but so far, no luck. Next time I am painting a house or a fence I should have no problem finding it.
