The decking is done !!

You know when you start something and you wish you hadn't ?

Well treating the decking outside our house proved to be a slightly more arduous task than first thought :¬(

but fair do's to Mr Ronseal, it does exactly what it says on the tin, or in this case the 5 Litre plastic can, apparently this is medium oak, (it's the strangest looking medium oak I have ever seen).... my first purchase from B&Q was red cedar, now in my book red cedar is a reddish wood but more brown than actually red, well I put some on the decking, and to cut a long story short, if I had painted the red cedar on, the decking would have been visible from space by the naked eye.... I did give it a chance and let the test bit I'd done dry, but no.... it was still definitely not red cedar, more like traffic cone orange, so I took it back to B&Q and they exchanged it for this slightly more sedate colour.....(this one)........thankfully.

Anyway I am now aching in places I thought I didn't have muscles, my fiance helped me, but to be honest her painting skills although very good, required various touch up's in the cold light of day, but I have to admit, had I done it all by myself then I still would have been painting it now, so her help was essential and most welcome, and we had a laugh doing it :)..... in fact we have a laugh doing most things together

my nearest and dearest has gone down to Devon today to pick up the kids, she took the Terrano, for two reasons, the first because her little Peugot 106 although good and very economical on fuel, has recently had a major cooling system overhaul (done by me no less.....under the acronym of "pistonbroke" !!) and needs to be tested on short runs before it's let loose on the motorway, and the second reason is the ability to fit two teenagers and a smaller person in the car with all of their "stuff".......I instructed her not to treat the "old lady" too badly on the way down, at 160,000 miles she is starting to show her age, and grumble a bit, but until finances improve it's all we have as a big family car, other than her run about, I have to say since I bought that car, it's been brilliant, bought in 1997 (ish) brand new, and so far has only had a water pump replaced, and a clutch, over and above the normal things you change on a car like tyres, exhaust etc, but Mr Brown is determined to tax 4x4's off the planet, and as we know, 4x4's are the prime reason the polar icecaps are melting, and water levels are rising and consequently killing off all the penguins and polar bears, not to mention causing the Gulf stream to stop dead in its tracks, and hurricanes to hit Kent (not a bad thing in my book) and if you have ever been to Rhyl, rising sea levels can't come soon enough, and is a brilliant argument FOR global warming :) ........

if you detect a slight hint of sarcasm in this post, it could be to do with the £180 road tax I have just had to fork out for, basically for driving a 4x4, which I might point out has a lower "carbon footprint" (<- I really hate those two words) than a Mini Cooper, but there you go the price you have to pay for having a roomy car with four wheel drive capability and a split differential........(rolls eyes)

but it follows I guess, I put an oil fuelled boiler in my ex wifes house just as Britain along with our cousins across the pond invaded Iraq, consequently fuel prices went through the roof, a similar story for my first diesel car. let's face it living these days is expensive, I'm just waiting for the government to re-introduce window tax to be honest ......

bring out yer dead !!! ;¬)