The Tale of the wife, the mobile phone and the cat food

I painted the stairwell over at the new house today.

If anyone has painted a stairwell before, they will probably agree it’s one of the worst rooms in a house to paint.

It’s especially the worst room in a house to paint when you have an open design with the ceiling height the same height (or higher) than the 1st floor.

I had been putting it off all last week as I only had 2 rickety sets of step ladders and 4 x 8ft lengths of 3″ x 2″ which I was going to use side by side instead of a scaffold board.

I decided this morning that I couldn’t put it off any longer so set the steps up only to realise that they were a bit wide and It was a real struggle to squeeze past them to get upstairs.

Thinking ahead, I thought, right let’s get the paint, tray, roller and brush upstairs before I set my make-do scaffold up.

And yes, I did also got the 2 ladders and 4 lengths of 3 x 2 to the top of the stairs too 🙂

With everything (including me) at the top of the stairs I started setting up the scaffold again.


I don’t know if you can picture this, but I had a fully opened out set of steps at the bottom of the stairs on about the 5th step leaning against the bottom wall (this was probably about 10ft to 12ft high), I then had the 2nd pair of steps leaning on the opposite wall (about 5ft high), then between these 2 sets of steps I had my 4 lengths of 3″ x 2″ (side by side).

It was all a bit wobbly but I knew it was the best I was going to get.

I opened up my paint, put some in the tray and set it in a position where I would be able to reach down with my roller to get the paint.

I then put some paint in my paint kettle and put the kettle and brush on the scaffold.

All set up and ready to go, I gingerly climbed on the scaffold and edged my way along to the far end to star cutting in the ceiling.

I had just cut in the end wall when all of a sudden my mobile phone rang, yes my mobile phone rang, the mobile phone which was on the window sill, in the lounge at the bottom of the stairs.

Bollocks I said, if it’s important they will ring back!

And ring back they did, 3 minutes later, then another 3 minutes later, then another 3 minutes later, then yet another 3 minutes later.

Thinking it must be bloody important, I edged my way to the end of the scaffold again, put my paint kettle and brush away, moved my paint tray and roller out of the way, took the 4 lengths of 3″ x 2″ down, moved the bottom ladder out of the way so I could squeeze past and went down to see who it was ringing.

Just as I got to the phone it rang again and I answered it.

“Hi, it’s only me”

Said my wife,

“Don’t forget to pick up the cat food on the way home, the cats are driving me mad.”

The cats are driving you mad, the bloody cats are driving you mad, I thought.

“It’s OK, I was going to get it anyway.”

I said.

“OK, have you pained the stairs yet?”

She then said.

“Just about to start”

I said through gritted teeth.

“Bye then”

She said.

“Bye”

I said.

Do you know what I did Just before I set the step ladder back up, just before I set up the 3″ x 2″ as scaffold boards, just before I set the paint tray back in position where I could reach it from the scaffold, just before I put my paint kettle and brush on the scaffold, just before I climbed on the scaffold and edged my way to the end, and just before I continued cutting in from where I had left off?

I switched my b******g mobile phone off !!!

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