You'd think we would have done this in summer

My daughter decided to paint her bedroom. It has been a dark blue since her early teens and it is definitely time to lighten up. Things move slowly in this household and many weeks of contemplation and decision-making as to timing have elapsed. Today was the day - the contents of the room have been shifted to a spare bedroom except for the larger pieces of furniture. And then Father stepped in...

He Who Can Fix Anything will not put up with a lick of paint. No, the entire room - walls, ceiling, window frames - has to be sanded first, then any holes patched and sanded again, then any remnants of old floor tiles which may have been lurking under cupboards must be removed with thinners, then everything wiped down. We enlisted the trusty and overzealous gardener to do this work, which had not formed part of our original plan, and I'm sure it was preferable to working in the garden, as the weather steadily deteriorated over the course of the day.

HWCFA undertook to reputty the windows, and so he took them out and went down to the garage to do a proper job as is his wont. Unfortunately the proper job took so long that the wind came up and blew a gale through the house - the windows are on the weather side - and then came the rain. There was no chance to pin up a black bag over the window to keep it out as the wind was too strong, so we just let nature take its course.. It was a taste of how many Cape Town residents experience winter except that we are one storey off the ground. I am amazed that they stay for more than one winter.

The wind subsided a little once the rain began and so the influx was not bad and I managed to mop everything up in a lull. The windows - beautifully restored as would be expected from HWCFA - were duly installed and ready to repel winter. The rest of the house looks like a bomb hit it. The overflow of stuff from her bedroom is in the passage, the bathroom, on the dining room table, the spare room is stuffed to capacity and she is camping on the lounge floor. Lucky we aren't expecting visitors any time soon. The only place that is reasonably operative is the kitchen, so at least I can keep the troops fed without interruption.

Tomorrow we will continue with the sanding, vacuuming, wiping down and floor scraping. I have absolutely no idea when the actual painting will begin. And there we were thinking we would do it on her day off. At least the windows in that room are done. Only eight to go.