17.09.2022 Finally, painting the hall!

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 Saturday 17th 50F. Heavy overcast and raining. Up at 6.45. I was having a weird dream. My wife and I were browsing in a scruffy, secondhand shop. After which a mountain lion and a pack of large, golden retrievers approached me. While I was alone and on foot, descending a steep hill. That was time to wake up!

 The rain gives me an excuse to get on with painting the dark entrance hall white. "Entrance hall" sounds a bit grand for such a narrow hallway. With a door on all four sides. The hall hasn't been touched since I rendered some of it with cement and fine sand. Probably two decades ago. 

 That was after fitting two, larger, secondhand doors. Both of them fully glazed with small planes to let the light into the formerly, pitch black hall. The previous doors were of "medieval" height and very unattractive. 

 I made a new outside door from thick, T&G flooring planks. The previous door was so low I would bang my head. Unless I approached it slowly and carefully. Until the next time when I would forgot to duck.  I replaced the bathroom door with a better, solid one with panels. It remains unpainted to this day. 

 The reason for not continuing the work in the hall now escapes me. There was always some problem. Usually an impossible demand or direct criticism of my [untrained] lack of skills. Or lack of essential tools. Leading to a row and then a cessation of all further work. Until the next project cropped up. To be repeated, ad infinitum, year after year. 

 My wife hated this house and always referred to it with an expletive. Which was ironic. Since she chose this one amongst the dozens we visited on immediate arrival in Denmark. Her mother was being impossibly nasty. After repeatedly inviting us over to live with her in her vast, old, rural farmhouse. Near the seaside.

 Her mother was stealing all our post from the outside postbox. We didn't have a key. We were in the middle of purchasing this house. Then she would ring every number she could find and tell lies about us. We had to regularly apologise to the bank, the solicitor and the estate agent. We weren't allowed to use her home telephone. No mobile phones back then.

 All our belongings were out in her huge barn beside the road. She would go out and open the doors if I closed them. So people could see and have free access to our entire house contents. I covered it all with a large tarpaulin. 

 Then she had a man call. Pretending he was an insurance assessor for stolen property. In fact he was a local furniture remover and handyman in a white van. She was lying again. We soon used him to move our furniture to the new house. He was incredibly strong and proved very helpful. With excellent English.

 With the ongoing problems with her mother we'd had to quickly find a house. One we could afford and still continue to eat. With the intention of moving onto something better when we were settled. Without a word of Danish, quickly finding paid work was impossible. So I worked on improving the house instead. While we lived off the proceeds of our UK house sale. Our "savings" from the house sale meant we were not eligible for any social support. We were the only Western Europeans attending the Danish language classes in Odense. 

 My wife had been trying to talk me into coming to Denmark for years. She was never very happy at our isolated, Welsh cottage. Though she built a beautiful garden there. The idea was that she would sell plants from her mother's roadside farmyard when we finally got to Denmark. The lane to the campsite and beach passed the farmhouse. It was a tourist hotspot and she could have done very well. Eventually building up to a small business.

There was loads of useful growing land belonging to the farmhouse. Thousands of square meters.  Her lunatic mother put paid to all of that. Our eventual moving to the end of a long, gravel drive. With a dangerous exit on a fast moving, main road. Made selling plants from our new home completely impossible.

 9.50 I have paused for morning coffee. No walk due to the rain. The two larger walls in the hall are now painted white. They seem much brighter with the overhead LED light. Though not very noticeable in [dull] daylight from the kitchen windows.

 I took the pictures above from outside the main door. Looking towards the kitchen. After the first coat of paint was finished. There is usually an "Indian" carpet runner the length of the hall floor. Removed during the painting of course. I ought to paint the hall, ceiling boards white too. Which would make it seem much lighter.

 The Dyrup paint covers quite well but is runny and doesn't go very far. Though I am aiming for maximum coverage. Not economy. I have newspapers down to catch the drips from the 2" brush. Rubber gloves are protecting my hands from runs down the handle. 

 After coffee I shall continue with the remaining, smaller walls.  There are no architraves or skirting boards to contend with. I have taped the light switches.

 11.00  I have now completed the first coat of paint in the hall. It looks much brighter now. In both daylight and LED. 

 What a shame it wasn't done twenty five years ago! The memories it brings back are incredibly depressing! What a waste of a perfect opportunity in coming to Denmark. We sold the Welsh cottage we had rebuilt with our own hands. To move over here 26 years ago. Half a lifetime. Of her daughter wishing it had been so very different. 

 Her mother had been a thorn from when we were fist married. Even moving close to us so she could interfere. She ruined her daughter's life and her own. 

 Her mother soon lost her rural farmhouse. Unable to keep up the modest mortgage payments. We could have bought it outright on the forced auction back then. Her mother spent the next twenty years in sheltered accommodation. Or drugged up to the eyeballs in an old peoples home. 

 Still my wife would take presents to her on her birthday and at Christmas. Though she would never go near enough to her mother to talk to her. I doubt her mother even knew her daughter had called. It was so unfair on my wife! A life blighted by her own mother!

 16.30 55F. There have been thundery showers this afternoon. With occasional sunny periods. I was so impressed with the white paint on the walls that I went out to buy some white paint for the woodwork. The hall ceiling is now white. I also moved the LED lamp to the wall. It was too bright and ugly hanging down from the ceiling.  

 I went downstairs later. It was so bright in the hall I thought I'd left the outside door open!

For dinner I went with a salmon pasty with salad. The contrast between hot and cold worked well.

 

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