The Painted and the Wild.

Having painted my office and living room over the past few months, I started the kitchen today.

I’m not keen on painting kitchens. Kitchens have big appliances that have to be pulled out of gaps and from underneath worktops where they’ve stood undisturbed for nearly seven years. And what do you find when you do that? Mess, and a particularly unpleasant sort of mess at that. It’s unusually dirty mess, dampish mess, mess that smells of rancid fat because it is a kitchen after all. It comprises dust and cobwebs and old food crumbs and dead woodlice and gritty stuff that I think has something to do with spiders. And when you’ve cleared the mess, you have to get into awkward positions and twist your arms and shoulders into unaccustomed shapes in order to rub down and paint. And one of the paints I had to use today was damp sealer, which gives off particularly noxious fumes that get on my chest. It’s a shame for me, isn’t it? It is.

On the other hand, out there in the wholesome spring air, the first of the nasturtiums have germinated and the strawberry plants are developing flower buds. And my favourite lady blackbird is looking frisky as ever, despite having gone into an early moult caused by getting into a vicious fight with another lady blackbird at the end of the winter. That’s how she’s so easy to recognise; she has feathers missing at the front of her head, and no tail at the moment. They should all grow back, of course, and when they do I’ll need to persuade her to wear a rosette or something. Otherwise, I won’t know who to greet with ‘morning, Mrs B,’ will I?