Skip to main content

Dumbledore and the Leaky Wall.

Watercolour study of oak leaves.
I'm typing this while waiting for a builder arrive.  An ominous horizontal damp patch has appeared along our dining room wall.  Judging from the ridges in the plaster beneath the new-ish wallpaper, this has been a recurring problem for some time.

So next-door's builder came in to offer his opinion, and he pointed out that the damp course along that section of the house is too low to the path so it can't do it's job.  One option would be to jack-hammer out a trench "soak away" beside the wall and hope the old damp course would then work ok.  He recommended that it would be easier to simply install a new damp course.  The spoiled plaster needs to be replaced, which means the radiator has to come off first.  Also, an original Victorian downspout has rusted through quite badly and needs replacing with a new plastic one.  It's a pity to lose the historical one but carbuncles of rust are bubbling through the paint along its entire length so it's obviously come to the end of its useful life.

I celebrated so-called "Black Friday" by ignoring it completely.  As I see the issue, something is only a bargain if (a) you actually needed the item, and (b) it's a quality product at (c) a genuinely reduced price.

At the same time, I've been busy giving Spooky Cute Designs a major overhaul.  My online store now has a new layout, making it even easier for people to find what they want.  New designs have been added and there's an entirely new range aimed specifically at people interested in arts and crafts.  I've also assembled a collection of goods for the home so these can be found in one place rather than scattered throughout the various ranges.  Take a peek and let me know what you think.

...Ah, my builder's just arrived.

We've been working our way through the Harry Potter films again, watching them in sequence, one each Saturday.  Last night's film saw Dumbledore die.  Richard enjoys planning these mini film seasons, running through a theme.  We've been working our way through the entire X-Files for nearly four years.  Right now, Mulder has been abducted by a UFO and Scully is working with the guy from Terminator.  And we're about half way through a film noir boxed set of oldies which have been excellent - good, solid plots and believable characters.  I really like the way the female characters were written.  Too many contemporary film roles for women seem insubstantial, as if the main topic of interest in a woman's life is the man she's with or wants to be with.

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

A Cure for Aging?

"All that we profess to do is but this, - to find out the secrets of the human frame; to know why the parts ossify and the blood stagnates, and to apply continual preventatives to the effort of time.  This is not magic; it is the art of medicine rightly understood.  In our order we hold most noble -, first, that knowledge which elevates the intellect; secondly, that which preserves the body.  But the mere art (extracted from the juices and simples) which recruits the animal vigour and arrests the progress of decay, or that more noble secret which I will only hint to thee at present, by which heat or calorific, as ye call it, being, as Heraclitus wisely taught, the primordial principle of life, can be made its perpectual renovator...." Zanoni, book IV, chapter II, by Edward Bulwer-Lytton, first published in 1842. Oroboros keyring - Spooky Cute Designs The idea of being able to achieve an immortal life is probably as old as human life itself.  Folklore and myt...
15 comments
Read more

Remembering Richie Tattoo Artist's Studio

Richard in the street entrance to his tattoo studio in Liverpool. The vertical sign next to Richard is now in the Liverpool Tattoo Museum. Yesterday, my sister Evelyn, Richard and myself stood outside Richard's old tattoo studio and looked up at the few remaining signs, whose paint has now mostly flacked away to reveal bare wood. On the studio's window are stick-on letters which read, "Art", where once it boldly announced his presence as the city's only "Tattoo Artist".  I can remember him buying that simple plastic lettering from an old-fashioned printer's shop. This was in 1993, not long after he'd opened the studio and before he could afford better signs. After he'd patiently stuck them onto the glass we realised that from the outside the sign read "Artist Tattoo", so we had to carefully peel the letters off the window and have another go, laughing over having made such an obvious error yet worried in case we spoiled the letteri...
Post a Comment
Read more

Dear Diary...

Do you keep a diary? Why did you start it, and, if you started one then stopped, why was that? What sort of things do (or did) you write about? I ask as, as a long-time diarist myself, there is an interesting piece in The Guardian today which talks about one woman's diary habit, which she began at the age of fourteen. I started a diary around that age too, but destroyed it after my mother accused me of using cocaine.  A stern scene followed, with both parents perched ram-rod straight in their armchairs, while I was subjected to a heated inquisition. Where had I bought it, and who from? Didn't I know such things led to death and doom? I struggled to decipher their bewildering accusations, until Mum blurted out, "I read it in your diary!" To find my diary, Mum would first have had to rummage through my dressing table, obviously when I wasn't around to protest. Her intrusion on my privacy was assumed by both parents to be acceptable, and now, with this handwritten c...
Post a Comment
Read more