It could have been worse...

Yesterday was a day of mixed success.
I had a sort of day off to do chores, some divecentre related, some not.

First up was buying paint at the ferreteria, that's the ironmongers not the ferretmongers, so we can give the classroom its annual spruce up. They didn't have the yellow we needed but did have the white and Senor Pintura (that's Mr. Paint to the non Spanglish readers) kindly lugged the 15 litre tub into the back of the car.

Next stop, the post office. Regular readers will know my on-off relationship with the post office here, but yesterday was an excellent post office day. As well as the usual bills and bumpf there was a packet of patterns for me*, a gift parcel of CDs from some of our lovely divers, a freebee something or other from Le Monde for Mr. C and a package from my mum full of stuff.

And to be fair things seem to be getting better on delivery times. Mr. C's thing only took two weeks to get here, mind you my patterns from the US took a month.

All going well so far. Off to the optician to get lenses put into my spare frames, bargain only 60 euros.

Finally off to the garden centre to buy planters and soil to pot up flower planters for the divecentre. Once that is done I can go home and do some gardening.

It is at the gardencentre that things start to go wrong as I open the back door of the jeep to load my goodies out falls the 15 litre tub of paint.

Spludge.

White emulsion over the road, my toes, my jeans. No no no. I set the tub upright and refasten the lid. I find some paper and try to wipe off the side of the tub so no paint gets in the car. It is then I realise that the bottom of the tub has also split. No no no no no and some swearing.

Fortunately one of the planters I have bought is big enough to get the pant tub into and I remember that we have a large sheet of plastic at home that I can wrap it all in.

I get everything back in the car and drive, very slowly, back to the flat. I realise that my keys are at the divecentre. I climb in through the balcony.

First, jeans in the wash, second wrap leaking paint tub in plastic, third clean my feet as they are looking like they are made of plaster of paris.

Lunch, gardening and reading the magazines my mum sent and things don't seem so bad. I prepare to go back to the divecentre. I place my bag and the three planters outside the flat door. I carry one planter and the rubbish bag downstairs, mindful that I don't have my keys I prop the outside door open with the plant in the hallway. By the time I have put the rubbish in the bins and come back the outside door has closed and locked me out. ARSE!

Don't panic, I know my new next door neighbours are home so I can just ring their bell. So I do. Unfortunately my new neighbours do not know where their entryphone is.


Him, "What's that sound love?"
Her, "I don't know."
Me, shouting out from the front of the flats, "Hello, hello, can you let me in, I forgot my keys, hello!"
Nothing.

I ring the buzzer again and I can still hear them working it all out. Finally they locate their entryphone and open communications.

Her, tentatively, "Hola?"
Me, "Hello, please can you let me in, I forgot my keys."
Her, "Hello, do you want to come in?"
Me, "Yes please." Silently "ARGHHHH"

I wait for the buzz in, nothing, I realise that if it took them that long to work out the entryphone they may not have realised it has a button to open the front door. Nope, they don't, a few minutes later Mr. Neighbour puffs down the steps and lets me in.

I thank them and show them how their entryphone works.

Everything gets loaded into the car, I drive, not quite like the wind, back to the divecentre.

Despite my best gardening efforts, Mr. C focusses on the broken tub of paint. There is some shouting, some hard stares at me and some tutting at the HUGE amount of paint in the car. Actually there are two small splodges in the car.


To his credit, and in case any of my readers think that Mr. C is a grumpy so and so, Mr. C does not sulk. He gets in a huff, usually there is swearing in French and after and hour or so, quicker if he has distractions such as beer, he relaxes and everything is back to normal. Give him a bit longer and he apologises for being grumpy, sometimes he even admits he might have been wrong.


Ah well such is life. We managed to save most the paint and like I said, it could have been worse.


*I am very excited about these patterns.
I got them from Widgeon at Etsy, my new favourite internet place to spend hours window shopping. I plan to make the short sleeve button up shirt in blue gingham - it will look great with jeans, and the short sleeve, long bodieed pull on shirt (the green one in the picture) in a white swiss dot cotton.
I think this could be very cute, with a coloured camisole underneath.