The Floor .......

One is of course indebted to ones daughter for her sterling efforts vis a vis the evacuation of the barns contents and the subsequent hosing down; all tasks well within the competence of said daughter. But when it comes to painting, the competence falls away. She is not alone in my family for an unerring ability to deposit an equal amount on her own person as well as the surface being addressed.


Don’t get me wrong, I have tremendous admiration for female painters. Michelle d’Angelo, who is perhaps more famous for her plumbing improvements to the Cistern Chapel than for her ceiling painting, is none the less a redoubtable dauber. Leonora Da Vinci is another distinguished female painter, who also invented the flying clothes airer, the wind driven mincer and the auto grater amongst many others. You will probably find their modern day equivalents in your kitchen drawer or sink tidy. Of course I have no way of knowing how much paint they got on themselves.

The Barn floor is currently receiving an experimental coat of paint. The experiment is in the colour rather than the application which is the traditional brush and slop method. Whilst in Mr Jewsons Builders Supplies Emporium upon other business, I had cause to remember the need for floor paint and was instrumental in having a 5 litre tin of “Drum Beat”, a colour chosen for its depth and warmth, a sort of dark mulberry, mixed expressly for me.

Imagine my dismay upon returning home and opening the tin to discover a bright pinky vermillion, quite repellent in any circumstances, and wholly unsuited to painting a floor. Being a resourceful man I duly added black emulsion, a variety of earth colour powders and waterblack dye. The resultant mix is now off any known colour chart. I am undecided about the result, which is either “Sullen Plum” or “Sulky Grape”. Applied to the floor it sucks up light and gives ones feet migraine. BUT we have percy-veered and painted about a quarter of the floor. Despite returning time and again to peer at it, it fails to gladden the heart. I think the technical term for this procedure is undercoat! though given the cost of paint it may well have to be the final colour. As a result of the various additional ingredients I now have a surplus amount of paint of a subtle and intriguing if sombre hue, any one wishing to paint out their lair is very welcome to the remainder, only carriage being charged.

We daren't publish a photograph just now in case it offends the eye!