DEMENTIA CARE: NOT QUITE REDECORATING.

Yes, I had an order of events lined up. No, I didn’t stick to that order. The polystyrene iceberg that lingered for so long that I thought it would be in the kitchen for eternity…that’s gone.
   First, I saved some of the polystyrene and used it for protective packaging. See. I knew there was a reason for keeping that annoying material around. We’re talking about a whole production…
   That started with accidentally receiving packaging I could recycle as packaging for something else. To make the best use of that sudden opportunity, I looted the massive bag of polystyrene chunks.
   Padding a parcel. This coincided with a restock of tape. I bought in all sorts of Sellotape, non-Sellotape, and nearly Sellotape. Incoming parcel. Plenty of tape. Outgoing polystyrene. Not a perfect or planned recipe, but I worked with it. I reduced the polystyrene iceberg just enough to make it more manageable when throwing it out.
   For reasons of leaving the bin, polystyrene must be bagged and placed on top of the pile of rubbish inside said bin. And for reasons of wind, the polystyrene can’t go out in blustery weather. The kitchen wore that polystyrene around its neck like some sort of dead albatross. Until I put the dreaded material to work, and then ejected the rest from the kitchen.
   I wanted to deal with stores first and repainting the kitchen later. Something along those lines. But stores didn’t collect equipment. I was told stores would collect. For once, the guy on the other end of the line sounded unsure. I let that go.
   Maybe he was having one of those days. Or perhaps there was a huge waiting-list – as sometimes happens. Last time there was a long delay, I was told about the number of people employed. A crack team made up of loads of squads. That sounds efficient. On the job. But I was still given a pick-up time a month away.
   And so, instead of decoding the warning sign flashing above the unsure operative, I’ve allowed a month for delays in pick-up. Nothing. Therefore, in the meantime, I didn’t wait for the other thing. Preparing the kitchen.
   Those walls, sadly, don’t paint themselves. If I hire people in, I create a greater risk of contacting Covid. The last time any painting was done in here, I did it – in the very room that I am typing from. So I’d be the painter again.
   Yes, I had to restock on painting supplies. Those have been coming in gradually while I waited for the team from stores. During this period, I sent yet another piece of furniture to the charity service. Recap…
   Slight chips of paint out of the top of the item.
   The pick-up guy for that was amazed at my description. There were genuinely only slight chips of paint out of the top of the item. He’d expected a shipwrecked crate, I suppose.
   Anyway. My point. Floorspace is important. Things must return to stores. And things went to charity. So. Though I didn’t reclaim the maximum amount of floorspace, I did retrieve most of it. And that made it easier to proceed with the kitchen work.
   I must move shit out of the way to get things done. Floorspace, then, is special and precious and comes with a sprinkling of unicorn dust.
   In came assorted paint trays and pads and a telescopic handle, oh, and the toxic sludge that removes paint and your lungs if you aren’t careful. So, too, arrived the wonder of the age – sugar soap, for preparing the walls.
   I have plenty of filler available to plug the gaps and cracks from time out of mind. Paint scrapers were press-ganged into action. I sealed vulnerable areas with decorating tape, and put down a sheet to spare the kitchen excess wear, tear, and splashing of toxic goo. The toxic goo warning label was quite clear on the topic of toxicity.
   Something tells me I’ve not catalogued all the other things that arrived. They were used, anyway. I decided to bring the large stepladder out of semi-retirement. That was partly for assisting with redecoration and partly for gardening. Trees shoot up when you aren’t looking. It’s true.
   I managed to not fall off the ladder in the garden. It’s easier to not fall off the ladder in the kitchen – the ground is more level there. Though, looking around the place with one eye on painting, I spotted many a crooked angle in several ceilings.
   My plan, being a carer with many other things to do, was to tackle a mere corner of the kitchen. I set out the tools of the paint assassin, and taped off a few more sensitive stretches of the room before I knifed all the old paint-jobs in the back. Then I sludged my way through the sludge, with the window wide open. I had water standing by, if I had to decontaminate myself. Everything I arranged cautiously, and with great care.
   Sludge went everywhere, despite my precautions. No one died of paint or had to be rushed away to deal with the fumes. Then I scraped. And I scraped a lot more. Finally, I scrubbed with a brush and that wonder of our times – sugar soap.
   I cleared a mere corner of the kitchen. Everything worked. I hauled out crumbling plaster over the door once I exposed it, and hoped the door would stay in position. Then I discovered some of that curiously discoloured plaster under the paint I’d scraped away. A repair. But no. Just excess plaster plastered on a small slice of wall to use up the excess plaster plastered on a small slice of wall.
   Learned that when I accidentally chipped it with the scraper and found no damage underneath this non-repair. Knowing that, I killed off the rest of it in a few mighty chops of the blade.
   Where do things stand, now? I’ve used a huge dollop of toxic goo out of one bottle. There’s a spare. I’ve dipped into a small amount of sugar soap concentrate. There’s a spare. I wrecked and ruined three paint scrapers. Then I cleaned them up and they were fine.
   I demolished an old paint tray just as I took delivery of a new one. Then I cleaned the old one up and it was fine. I genuinely wrecked a plastic paint cover, which did its bit in sparing the counter and the floor. It isn’t worth saving, but it could be pressed into service one more time. Speaking of which…
   After clearing one mere corner of the kitchen, I realise, with sheer certainty Jeeves, that I have another three corners to go. Two out of three of those aren’t bad. But with changes in the kitchen layout, one corner is obstructed by a new cupboard. This is what the narrowest paint scraper is built to deal with. And that is why I bought a set of three scrapers in.
   Where to go from here? I’ve chosen Friday as unpainting day. Work out how to tackle the next batch of problems dealing with one particular corner, and take it from there. There’s no rush. Priorities dictate that caring comes first.
   And I must minimise the risk of accidents, given that the nearest person who can help me has mobility issues and crippling arthritis. Never mind the lack of concentration. All I can hope for is the perfect fall that allows me to reach my phone. For, as a carer, my phone is at my hip in a handy pouch. It is always there, except when I am charging the phone.
   When I am charging that phone, I don’t leave the place where I am charging it. We stay locked together in some sort of science fiction deal. Machine depends on me. I depend on the machine.
   Ideally, naturally, all I should hope for is not to have a fall at all – no matter how perfect. Some random passer-by would have found me if I’d tumbled in the garden…
   Or so I like to think. Roving bands of hungry cats are more likely to get to me first, I fear. They always look as though they are just waiting to pounce on clumsy gardeners at the first sign of weakness.
   So much for the great outdoors. Indoors, if the carers have just left in the morning, then they’d find me by mid-evening. And if they’ve just left mid-evening, and I’ve taken a tumble, it’ll be a long night lying there semi-conscious and emptying my bladder when I have no option…
   I think about safety when I have to face deadly danger in repainting the kitchen. Not that I am repainting the kitchen. Right now, I am depainting it. One awkward corner at a time. By the time I am finished getting everything ready, the guy from stores should have helped liberate more floorspace. Maybe then, I can start painting the kitchen. Once I buy more paint in. I’ve left that part until last.