The Courier & Advertiser (Fife Edition)
Rab is grinning like the cat who got the Celtic cream
His shed is red and what a magnificent sight it is. It brightens the garden, improves his view from his writing table and leads him to think he may just improve his neighbours’ sheds in a like manner...
I’ve done an odd thing. You say: “Hold the back page!” Less of your cheek, madam. And while I’m at it (“You’re at it, all right”), I haven’t done an odd thing at all. That is to say, I don’t think I’ve done an odd thing, but I’m guessing that many upright ratepayers will think so. So, what have I done? I have painted my garden shed red. Not muted red, either but proper, full-on bright scarlet. And it looks magnificent. It cheers a chap up as he peers through the foliage to the corner where the shed resides.
The painting isn’t finished yet. I tried white on the fringes but it didn’t really work so I have sent off for my favourite colour of paint, “Celtic cream”, and I fancy the contrast will work well.
Well, I know it will, because the front door of the porch has already been rendered similarly. Before I tried the white, the forest green already on the hut worked quite well with the red, though I daresay it was a bit “Christmassy”. At any rate, as you can tell, I’m your man for bright colours. Never really grew out of the nursery as far as that sort of thing is concerned. And I like nothing better than making a pigment of myself.
This latest bout of gairden-brightening began when I noticed the blue wooden handrail by the shoogly steps in the back garden needed sprucing up. That led me to treat similarly the bright yellow handrail beside the less shoogly path up the front garden. The Celtic cream bench was done quite recently, so I’ll spare that for the time being.
So I have run out of things to paint. Shame. I find it therapeutic and an easy way to brighten things up on my demesne. There’s also a practical purpose in protecting the wood.
As usual, having enjoyed myself, I thought: “Wood, yes, that’s the thing for me. I should work with wood.”
Accordingly, I’ve sent off for two second-hand books on the subject, and they will join the other half-a-dozen or so purchased on previous bursts of similar enthusiasm. I will read them one day, though a quick look at the table of contents usually puts me off. Bit technical, ken?
Every year I think of taking up a woodworking evening class and, every year, they are fully booked quickly, and I end up doing yoga instead. Yoga, woodworking, it’s all the same, really.
Luckily, my neighbours approve of the colours in my front garden (the yellow matches the foliage behind the handrail). In the Grimland Islands, when I painted my fence blue, it was the talk of the barren moors. Never understood this Scottish insistence that everything has to be hodden grey, though the recent cod-Nordic nonsense in the isles has at least led to new public buildings being brightly painted: a purely 21st Century phenomenon (nowhere greyer before this).
The red shed is just outside the window where I write. It’s so lovely that I might sneak into other gardens along the street and paint their sheds similarly. On the other hand, I’m sure that, when telephoning the constabulary, my neighbours would be able to furnish them with the name of a prime suspect.