351. Builders and painters

 First day of being almost on holiday. No more classes at 8AM. No more marking, no more report cards, no more puffing and huffing in front of the broken down coffee machine.

It is as if the elements are agreeing with me on this: glorious sunshine, roasting hot temperatures and clear blue skies.

My husband does his usual wake up call with cup of tea.

'Come on! Perfect weather. Be ready in 20.'

We are on one of our projects. After the disaster of the orange marmelade joint project, we are moving on. Joint project number 2 is the ambitious painting of the front of the house: shutters, windows, window sills and foundation walls. 

'I do the preparation and the gros-œuvre. You do the finitions.'

I open the front door, paint pot in one hand, brush in the other, dressed in my best art school shirt. 

It is as of everyone in the street has decided to start a big project. Number 5 are knocking down every single downstairs wall and filling up a huge skip. A huge skip has been dumped on the pavement next-door and has left a big dent in the pavement. Our neighbours will be really upset about this. It's the second time the pavement outside their house is severely damaged (the first time it was us with the great fire see one of my shameful Neighbours posts). While the builders there keep coming and going with wheelbarrows full of rubble an other van is stopped in the middle of the road. 

'Is this your car?' An angry builder shouts.

'Nope.' My husband says as he has just walked out with a tray of paint.  

'But the little pink one is my wife's.'

'I'll park it further down.' I say with a smile. This makes the grumpy man calm down a little.

He drives round the block one more time and then parks his van plus trailer behind the rubble-men van and the little red car (very badly parked) is now sandwiched between the two vans, and two amateur painters (husband and I). We start painting with behind us three roofers are about to put up a piece of scaffolding. The grumpy one is the boss and he is shouting orders to the other two men who argue back. This plus the noise of metal poles and platforms being pushed and shoved against each other is deafening, the clanking echoes each side of the narrow street and the ancient stone buildings shake and tremble. My husband's phone rings and this s a good excuse for him to retreat inside. I am left in the street with my pot of paint.

'I can't believe this. There are signs saying work in process do not park and what do they do? They park right here. We'll put this up and then I'll call the police to get this car out of the way.'

I get on with my painting.

'You know what? In the old days they used to say that half the people in this world were there to p*** o** the other half. Now it's three quarters of the world that are here to p*** o** the remaining quarter.'

I can't help agreeing with this. Anyway my husband is inside and I am locked out. I keep on painting.

At lunch time when everyone is having a week deserved break I go out to admire our work. Where the vans were rows of cones and signs linked with orange and white tape. The street looks like a crime scene now.  The little red car is still there and sitting on top of it a white and orange traffic cone! Well the message is now very clear for the owner.