Day 2 of the painting saga

We continued with the preparation of the walls and woodwork to spruce up my daughter's bedroom today. The trusty gardener/painter, who I had arranged to fetch from home due to the bad weather, had decided to walk the few kilometres, and as I drove up the road, I saw him getting into a van which had stopped to offer him a lift as it was pouring with rain. When I could eventually make a U-turn and was driving back home, I spied him relieving himself against a tree outside - I could tell immediately that this was not a favourable omen.

It didn't take much time to work out that he had had a few toots before coming to work, as he gets very verbose and wanted to discuss exactly what he was supposed to be doing, as by his reckoning he was almost finished the day before. I had already explained in detail that he had to fill a hole in a door and then sand the skirting. It took him about 20 minutes to unscrew the hinges from the door as he was having difficulty fitting the screwdriver into the slot in the screws. He then spent an awfully long time making sanding noises and I could tell that things were not going well.

All fell quiet and I went to see what he was up to. He was kneeling on the ground with his head very close to the floor, mumbling. "Okay, Daniel. I can see you are very tired today - I'm going to take you home now and we'll just finish it ourselves. You need to have a good sleep." With as much alacrity as he could muster, he stood up and gave a sheepish smile. "I can see you've had a few drinks," said I, and he nodded in agreement - the game was up and he could see he wouldn't get away with it. "I did have a couple of beers this morning. I thought it might help," he said, and I didn't have the heart to disagree with him. We had a very convivial discussion in the car on the way home and talked about the old days and the various employers he had had, and how some had treated him well and some badly.

We had a good laugh and I told him not to come back until at least next week, by which time we would have finished the job and he could go back to gardening. He understood completely and there were no hard feelings. I think he was so relieved to be able to go and lie down!