I know, I know, the ‘old lightbulb chestnut thing’ – yep – but forgive me because I’ve not done one before. What’s struck me is that even though I cleaned the little blighter, it’s still covered in dust – dunno if that’s the house or the effect of the macro on glass.

Anyway, the point is that the metaphor for my day is even crapper than the shot really because it’s all about seeing the light – cheesy I know but that’s the lack of imagination I’m faced with today. This is only a personal comment about my shot today and its relationship to what I've been doing for anyone who might think otherwise....

You see I was sitting among a pile of wallpaper, glue, dust, plaster and other detritus this morning, with big tears of frustration and misery plopping down my face and onto the pile of already-nasty stuff thinking ‘what have we done’? The tears were prompted by DM, up a ladder, trying to get a bodged curtain pole down from where it had been put by means definitely not recommended by the manufacturer and when he got it down, half the wall came down too. Although covered, lots of plaster fell onto my beautiful, precious, English Oak table, which should be alright because it is covered with a protector and then dust sheets but I felt wretched anyway.

I’ve felt like this a few times over the last few days and today’s depressingly familiar tale of effort and woe has been peppered with more of the same. The dogs have been so upset by my crying that Rosie wedged herself between me and the wall I was trying to clear so she was getting gluey nasty paper all over her (to go with the now infamous exploding pasta sauce that she’s already got down her back – good job she’s off to the groomer soon). Both of them have been trying in their sweet, doggy way to cheer me up, neither have succeeded, though I love them all the more for their efforts.

So, why illuminating? Well, because in a desperate bid to cheer myself up, I was trying to think back through the handful of houses I’ve done up to when I last felt like this and I think it was probably when I was in Southall, sitting on the floor in the toilet, having spent half the day trying to replaster a lath and plaster wall that had come down with the wallpaper I’d been removing and the other half trying to repair the ceiling in the same room. I can clearly remember, as a piece of trim fell onto my head for the umpteenth time crumpling down and, through floods of dirty tears, yelling at the ceiling….

“Why? Why me? Why do you hate me so much when I’m trying to help you back to life? Why can’t you just help me instead of hindering me? Why won’t you JUST BLOODY WELL STICK, you miserable little shit!!!!!” (Thinking about it, it was quite an appropriate conversation for the room I was in!)

That day, I did get the trim stuck on the ceiling eventually. I ended up having to paint a mural on the walls of the toilet because my plastering was so cack but in fact, it turned out to be one of my most successful bits of decoration ever because ‘Dudley Diplomat, the cosmic bog’ became a talking point among my friends and family and to this day, sometimes a friend (like Colin) or Jan (my little sis) will get a glazed look in their eye and say ‘do you remember Dudley, the cosmic bog?’ And we’ll all sit around giggling and laughing at the memories it evokes.

When I had to sell-up in Southall to move to Oxford, something happened that made a huge difference to my world. That crummy flat that I bought with no bathroom, only an ascot heater above the sink for hot water, woodworm so bad that the place was literally crumbling, two-pin round sockets and gas lights, in a mere two years and a few buckets full of blood, sweat and tears was worth more than twice what I’d paid for it and that meant I could buy a house with my newly-acquired equity. So, all of the pain and all of the toil paid off for me then…..let’s hope the same is true with this place…..not that we are planning to sell up and move on in anything less than a lifetime!!!

Hmmm - I must have my cack filter set at too high a level today - DM's just breezed past the PC and said 'that looks good, especially given how I know you've just shot it!'

Last year, I was 'billy-no-mates' - nothing much new there then!