The toilet is the smallest room in the house, but it’s still taken the best part of two days to paint it. Probably only a few hours actually painting, but preparation and clearing up afterwards is very time-consuming. Anyway, it’s done now. Barring any more catastrophes, disasters or accidents, we have no plans to decorate any more in this house before it goes on the market.
Having washed the paint out of the brushes and the rollers, I am pleased to report that the kitchen sink is now bright, shiny white.
The professional photographer is coming in a couple of days, so the idea is to make the house look bigger, tidier, brighter and cleaner, and we have our fingers crossed that nothing else fails, breaks, disintegrates or falls apart.
The Sun is out and even though it’s quite cold, I’m going out for a walk around the streets of Chessington. It’s nice to see some signs of spring: as well as the surprise of bulbs in our own garden, there are snowdrops and daffodils elsewhere.
A few weeks ago I had surgery to remove a cataract from my right eye. It only took me 35 years to pluck up enough courage to go through with it, but that’s me, a squeamish coward.
Anyway, since then, what I see out of each eye is very slightly different. The colours with my new right eye are much brighter, the shadows darker and the contrast is much greater. The difference isn’t as extreme now as it was in the few days following the surgery, when my pupil was still fully dilated.
I asked Duncan Jones if his Dad had reported similar phenomena with his permanently dilated pupil. No: “only sensitivity to light in that eye, and terrible vision.”
But the snowdrops almost glow white with my new, bionic eye. I wish I could take a picture to show the difference, but until I have a little camera installed behind the lens, probably inside my brain, I don’t think that’ll happen.
And back indoors, in the bathroom, the bright white sealant looks almost dayglo, primrose yellow with the new eye. When I flick from left to right, it’s hard to believe I’m looking at the same thing, sometimes. It made painting the toilet interesting, to say the least.
And After All that, I can’t wait to get new prescription spectacles so that the right also sees in focus. I have a check-up with the surgeon later so maybe I’ll get new specs real soon!
Mick and Liesel's Antics 