The Return of the Paint

The Return of the Paint ©

By Michael Casey

Well I had my 2 pain days and so I thought that today I’d catch up on my painting, yes I am quite a Picasso, streams of Oriental models pass by so I can paint them. I look more like Einstein than Picasso, and the nearest I come to Picasso is when I scratch my derrière. No unfortunately I cannot paint, the rest of the family can but I cannot. The painting I was talking about it painting done with a big pig’s bristles paint brush, wall painting.

I haven’t done any painting in ages, but I thought I’d do a few touches before we try and sell the house. We did do up the bathroom, a friend of my daughter’s is doing Graphic Design, so I used him to paint our bathroom, I did of course pay him well and feed him too. Today’s painting was something I thought I could do myself, a Polish builder friend of the wife who we might use in the future he advised I use 3 coats of paint for the job in hand.

I have to be very careful when I do anything physical, as I might strain myself. A neighbour had a heart attack and died because he did too much gardening. So I do a bit have a rest and then do a bit more.  It’s horrible having to admit you are not as strong as you used to be. But I am alive and my daughters like that, they got the cat and not the dog, if you remember my promise of 2 years ago before my quadruple heart bypass.

The Prep is the hardest bit of all, you can look at a job and estimate just how long it will take. Then you have to prep and make space, and throw away stuff that you should have thrown away before. Then there is the sink of the paint itself. The ladder, the 30 year old aluminium ladder creaks under my weight, but at least I did not spill the paint. As I painted I estimated I’d have enough for the 3 coats spread through-out the day. I did not spill any paint and slightly out of breath and slightly high due to the paint fumes I stop  and have  a rest.

I am allowed 4 hours rest because the paint needs 4 hours to dry between coats. In actual fact I’m more tired than I thought I’d be so I have 6 hours rest. This includes 45 minutes trying to get paint off my fingers. Washing powder, the stuff you wash your clothes with is best for cleaning your fingers it’s the grit in it that does the trick.

Totoro had been sleeping and awoke to investigate what the smell was, so I had to say NO, to prevent her from turning herself into a paint roller. Then I chased her away and had a break. You need more breaks after a heart op, I’m told by my priest it’ll be 1 more year before I’m back to normal whatever that is. All in all I’ve very pleased with my efforts, I didn’t spill any paint on the carpets, and after the second coat of paint I was more skilled at cleaning my hands than I was the first time around.

The house stinks of paint and I do wish I was Picasso, not because of the Oriental models queuing up to be painted by me, but rather that if I were Picasso just one signed menu could bring in enough to buy a house in itself. Besides which my wife is an Oriental model, though I didn’t marry her for her looks but none of you would believe that.

As for me I still have the vain hope of getting columns in a newspapers world-wide. I can paint with words of many colours, and maybe I’ll start in the East and then go West, just like the sun. From Izvestia to the Sun now that would be an achievement, not even Churchill could have matched that.