The Apprentice

It's finished! The staircase has lost its DIY-in-the-'80s look, having been stripped of its old embossed wallpaper, had its many holes and crumbling patches repaired, lined, and repainted, and now smells violently of gloss paint, but it looks SO much better. The mantra "It will be worth it in the end" has proved exactly right.

Tomorrow, when all has dried, the handles and finger plates will go back on the doors, and Margery and I will do our White Tornado double act: she, being the Vacuum Princess, will hoover that old stair carpet to within an inch of its life, and I will damp-dust yet again (all those bits behind the furniture!) and perhaps take a picture of that new lobby door..... plain pine or painted? Wait and see.

And who has paint on their fur or whiskers? Nobody. This is a first. Who left fingerprints on the still-tacky paint, that had then to be repainted? Yes, me.

The Little Helper is going to be bored and lonely now; she bonded enthusiastically with Wally, watching him work as though she was going to sit an exam in paintbrush technique. Today, however, she took some time out to get onto the shed roof and from there into my neighbour's back yard. There are newts and frogs in there; I have watched her killer response to the bit of navy blue fur with a bell on, that she drops into my lap so that I can throw it for her to catch, again and again, and dread to think what fun she thinks we will have with a living creature.

before & after: chair

This was a little old chair languishing in the attic, used only by cats, and generally in need of a bit of tender loving care. A £7 remnant of John Lewis fabric and a retired upholsterer worked miracles. Now I have to think where to put it. Wherever it goes, it is bound to be slept on by cats; they simply don't appreciate linen, or piping, or indeed tender loving care that isn't expended on them.

positive thinking

Joiner number 2 has been, had a good, knowledgeable look at the staircase, and has pronounced it all perfectly repairable, and affordably so. Visitors have been in droves, and all have agreed that my paint colours are lovely. The sun is shining, and it is warm enough to sit outside without a coat, watching excitable little cats darting in and out of the daffodils. Tomorrow my newly-upholstered chairs come back, and just for now, I can't think of anything to worry about. Phew, that's a relief.

first landing

Just to give you the idea. Dulux white truffle and grape ash.

White truffles are what? Lilac?

Wally the decorator and I are having the weekend off, and I am having even longer, freed from middle of the road pop/mouldy oldies Radio 2 and the smell of paint. He goes to another job on Monday, but will return later in the week to finish up here. What a star that man is, neat, tidy, hardworking, and, astonishingly, offering to do things without being asked, like "I'll box those pipes in for you; it will look nicer." (And that was a long sentence for Wally, a man of few words.)

The crumbling walls caused a serious over run for him, and the second colour, plus all the gloss paint, has yet to be applied, but the worst is over. Miraculously, given her close interest, the Little Helper emerged without so much as a speck of paint on her immaculate fur.

The first colour, applied above the dado rail, and ambiguously called White Truffle, is not quite as pale a grey as I had intended, but is a grey lilac. I will need to see if it can be made to look less girly with black and white photographs on the walls. The tester patch of the second colour, Grape Ash, is a delicious darkish bilberry grey, rather smart, even with low energy lighting, which, as we all know, is death to decor.

Imagine having a job where you have to name thousands of different shades of paint....

I took a photo of the inside of the front door, aware that it needed a lot of TLC (aka kiss of life), but I was horrified to see onscreen just how much - had I really lived with my door in that state for so many years? A doorchain set made up of two cannibalised unmatched components, one tarnished brass, the other rusty chrome. Never used, because you can easily see who is at the front door from the front bay window, should you be feeling anxious, suspicious or with just-too-unspeakable dressing gown and bed hair. A hideous chrome pull handle, more suitable for a public lavatory. A tinny escutcheon covering a yawning jagged hole gouged out for the mortice key. A nasty yellow brass bolt, also never used. A vaguely silvered metal letter box flap hiding a mutilated slot in the wood where ever-larger letterboxes have been installed over the years to cope with ever-larger letters. Not all of these horrors have anything to do with me, but were there when we bought this house....over 26 years ago. No excuse.

So today I tootled off to my spiritual home, Tynemouth Architectural Salvage. There I bought a neat pull handle in rose brass, and a nearly-matching plain brass escutcheon, for a fiver - £5! A new handle would have cost three times that amount and not looked so good. Hopefully, with new paint and no more assorted old rubbish, the inside of my front door will look less like it belongs to a squat. Letterbox covers remain a problem - they come in silver, brass (both cheap and nasty-looking), brown plastic or white plastic - why? - with creepy brushes that sweep your fingers unnervingly when you push anything through. A decision remains to be made there, but I might just spray the existing one to match the door and hope it becomes invisible, just as the assorted tat on the door seems to have been for years.

The salvage people love a problem, and respond to every query with a good rummage about in a box or a drawer. I was given a bunch of washers to cure lovely old doorknobs from wobbling. I asked about a joiner who was sympathetic to old houses (after last week's dismal experience, too depressing to relate here, where it seemed that the only cure for my old hardwood banisters, long missing their lovely ornate newel post, seemed to be to rip them and all the original spindles out and replace them with shiny new modern ones) and was given the business card of a man who is calling round on Sunday to advise on the possibility of restoration and repair. On leaving, I spotted a nice old newel post sitting in one of the antique French baths, and have had it put aside for me in case said sympathetic joiner can use it.

I shall spend the weekend cleaning and listening to Radio 4. Middle of the road pop and mouldy oldies are ok in their way, but I reckon that nothing beats Radio 4, even at its most doom-laden. And I shall graciously receive a stream of visitors whose sole purpose of calling will be to Pronounce on the paint colours and hint at the need for a lick of paint in the kitchen. Wally and I are ahead of them there - he's been booked already for May.

The Little Helper

learning how to put up wallpaper. Feet in Alert Position.

Before and (Nearly) After

New lobby door, more in keeping with the age of the house. The joiner says it is criminal that I should be getting it painted. I say the era of stripped pitch pine is well behind me. What do you think?

My Saturday hypnosis treatment

"Time to get up.....time to get up.....time for our breakfasts.....you are feeling very wakeful.....when we purr to ten, you will get out of that slovenly pit and lead us to the food bowls....."

Intense concentration and some direct staring. Works every time. Usually well before the shockingly late hour shown here.

One day it will all be fine....

Mmmm, smart lighting. Mmmm, great doorbell chimes.

Watch this space. The lighting will improve; the copper-pipe-lookalike chimes can actually be heard in the attics, unlike most of my friends' doorbells, and have a nice, deep, old-fashioned ding dong! sound, so will stay. The thick film of dust doesn't photograph well, but, believe me, it's there, everywhere. My hands are like sandpaper, and my hair is like straw, and I know what I'll be doing all weekend with dusters and hoover. The kitten will help, of course.

Dust, dust and more dust

The sainted Wally is here. In two days, he has stripped the paper off the entire staircase, all three floors (no, it's not a grand house, just a tall thin one) and revealed or even enlarged, cracks and horrible holes in the ancient crumbling plaster. Tomorrow he will fill those holes, and the gaping gaps between walls and skirting boards, and next week he will put up stout lining paper and paint it all. It will have to last another 25 years.

Meantime, the kitten is beside herself with excitement; she has become Wally's Little Helper, and is filthy, climbing ladders, diving into bin bags full of stripped wallpaper, and sitting on trestles watching Wally at work, with a look of intense, fascinated concentration. She may wish to be a decorator cat when she grows up, but I feel that her concentration span isn't up to a proper trade, and anyway, jumping into bin bags doesn't look very professional.

Lottie and the dog, too mature to be so undignified, potter round with me, although unlike me, they don't care about the ever-spreading dust. Nor do they say a word about the stupidity of my major clean-through with Margery yesterday; she hoovered everywhere, and I dusted, even polishing tables. Why, I can't say, really, except to confirm to the world that I am a first-rate dimwit with no foresight.

The dog is her former chipper self; she is cuddle-able again now that her vile breath has been cured by a bit of dentistry, and is loving all the kissy-kissy sympathy from the street aunties. We had a long walk through Armstrong and Heaton Parks this morning, in warmish sunshine, and can sit about and snooze (her) or read (me) this afternoon and feel that we've earned a break, a cup of tea and a dusty biscuit or two.

Sleepy

The dog is having a horrid week. Her over-fastidious and insensitive owner had been making rude remarks about how bad she smelled, and on Monday she had a bath, watched closely, and probably jeeringly, by the cats, who sat wide-eyed on the draining board. The bath made little difference, simply revealing her grubby, dead-looking winter hair as clean, dead-looking winter hair. Her callous owner decreed that she was desperately in need of a visit to Posh Pups, and made an appointment.

On Tuesday she had that visit to Posh Pups, where her brutal owner abandoned her for several hours to go and have lunch with a friend. The dog endured a radical haircut and another bath. She did not appreciate any of this, or even the coconut oil conditioner, but was generously delighted by the unrepentant owner's return.

Today she had a lovely, happy walk in Springlike sunshine with the false-hearted owner, through Jesmond Dene to the vet's, where reality dawned on her: she was being left there. By her murderess owner.

And worse was to follow: she had her teeth cleaned and one of her incisors removed, leaving only 7 teeth behind. She came home later in the day dopey-eyed and sleepy, and forgetting to keep her tongue inside her mouth, but she still managed a good dinner later that evening.

The cruel owner feels guilty and treacherous, and that she did not deserve the tail wagging and warm, if dozy, welcome she received, and is planning some treats for tomorrow (but only after the administration of a nasty antibiotic capsule).

Enemy sighting

We were having a sedate little walk, taking photos of the crocuses and daffodils to encourage the poor souls still suffering perpetual winter in Toronto, and just minding our own business, when the dog spotted her arch-enemy, our grumpy postman, and took off in hot pursuit. Sadly, he failed to notice.

Zzzzzzzzzz.................

Once upon a time, I had a life. And now I have shredding. It's just about the dullest, most boring thing to do if all you have is a small, noisy domestic shredder, instead of the big fat industrial one we used at work, which could tidy your desk for you in a flash if you were feeling reckless and devil-may-care.

What you see here, underneath My Little Helper, is a second shredder, the first one having burned out, thanks to the shameful amount of work it has had to do in the last couple of days. And why? Because I have finally squared up to the boxes in the attic, and sorted the tattered, yellowing paper evidence of that former life: the phone bills, the bank statements, the payslips, the insurance documents (so many!) and the work diaries. Three large plastic sacks have been filled so far, with more and more paper being brought downstairs in the blue basket, and there seems to be an endless supply remaining. We may need shredder number 3 at this rate. My Little Helper finds it all quite fascinating, but then she can't read or count very well, so she won't see that I had a rather irresponsible overdraft in those days, or, that unlike nowadays, my main expenditure wasn't cat-related.

Some fascinating oddments have turned up in amongst the dreary dross: a hastily scribbled letter from my mother, simply dated "Monday" and written in a terse style, unusual for her, suggesting that she could have managed emails or even texting, had she not been so resolutely technophobic: "PS My pen (same as one I gave you) refused to write. Shop sent it back twice, now at last it writes. Firm says they adjusted the ink flow, shop says it's a new one." I could almost hear her tone of derision.... I wonder which pen it was; she and I shared a love of fountain pens, and each of us had several. It was good to see her bold distinctive handwriting again.

And another letter, many years old, a rather unconvincing apology from the Lovely Son for some offence, long-forgotten; he very rarely wrote except to say sorry or to ask for something, and this letter serves both functions - "sorry I didn't...and could you send me..."

And a sign, written by a delightful young lodger and waved at me from an upstairs window when she was supposed to be revising for her finals: "I'm bord" (sic).

Tomorrow I shall set to on the large box that came with me when I moved offices and that never quite made it to the new office. I bet I'll be bord in no time.

Feet, with kitten attached

15 weeks already....where does the time go?

Feet

Don't mess with your elders and betters

If that kitten pounces on my tail just once more......

What?

Uneventful?

Nothing much happening here. The dog has been under the weather (rain, snow, sleet, sun, snow....), moping and smelling sour, hunched and yelpy to touch, but before I could decide that she should see the vet, she picked up again and is her bouncy little self, especially in her new double-thickness reversible coat that her devoted Sandra knitted. No more cat food leftovers for her though.

The young cats continue to demand and devour vast quantities of the more costly varieties of pet-grade junk meat and fish that the industry produces; reading reviews on the feeding of animals is the most confusing and anxiety-producing activity I know. They also sleep a great deal, heaped up together like hamsters, charging their batteries for episodes of hyperactive hooliganism, then eat and sleep some more. And then there are the litter boxes.....My household budget has shifted to cat litter and cat food; never mind me, I'll just live on lentils.

Old Kevin is almost affectionately great-uncle-ish with Millie; he wasn't suited to a single-cat life, and is doing well. And Millie?.... sigh....she has learned to jump onto the worktops. I fish her out of sinks, off the stove (first time sitting decoratively behind pans simmering on gas burners), scrambling into the fridge, wrecking the houseplants, investigating and helping wherever she ventures, and leaving debris and footprints everywhere. She has escaped into the street twice despite the extreme caution of visitors coming and going, once being locked out for over an hour in the cold and dark, but dashed indoors when I came out and called for her, my voice shaky with panic. Microchipping soon! Except that there are suggestions of microchip-induced lesions in cats with cancer...life was simpler in the days when you fed your cat pink stinky fishy Kit-e-Kat, hardly ever went to a vet, and thought that 10 was a ripe old age for your beloved, and unworrying, moggie. I know I'm giving my age away.

I have a new form of Repetitive Strain Injury: MHS. Mouse Hurler's Shoulder, acquired by endless games of throwing small toy mice up the stairs for two exciteable youngsters to retrieve/beat up/hide under furniture.

Today, as the snow falls and actually accumulates, I am making ice cream. Not an obvious choice for the time of year, but when a yearning for a good grown up coffee ice cream takes you, you gotta listen. Come and visit; thaw out, throw a mouse or two, have a bowl of ice cream, and be careful that a small grey-striped shadow doesn't slink out into the great outdoors as you leave.

Fun!