Monday 7th October

No matter how tiring it might be, how long it may take, indeed how tedious it may be, there is nothing quite like the satisfaction of a job well done.   When you look back and can see an improvement, a real change – then it is all worth it.

Hoovering never gives me that feeling.  Yes, I do like to see the neat rows where the thin ended nozzle has been, but unless the carpet was filthy it doesn’t look that much different post against pre hovering.  One of the reasons I love painting is that you can see the change straight away, it literally grows behind the passage of your brush.

I have just finished the ‘annual’ Karchering at the front of our house.  It is paved with red and grey bricks and the car is usually parked there.  Gradually as the year progresses more and more weeds grow between the bricks until it is almost all weed and the bricks are almost lost to sight.  It was bright and sunny, so out came the Karcher.  After some slight confusion trying to remember how the various bits connected together it was time to switch on.  Combining pulling the larger healthier weeds and blasting the little one, and the ingrained dirt and moss it was a slow job.  Brick by wretched brick.  My jeans and old painting shoes were soaked.  I was splattered with mud from head to foot, and a wall of plant-life and mud was driven slowly in a wavering line to the gutter.  Each brick gleamed new and brighter in the sunshine.

Nearly three hours later and it was done.   And it looks great.  The bricks could have been laid yesterday.  And now a cup of tea later, the dirty clothes in the wash, a quick shower, aching fingers now clean and the immense satisfaction of completing a job that needed doing, and doing it well.