the groaning sound you can hear is the disappointment of a dozen ‘one-handed surfers’, taken in by today’s incredibly witty and original title.
since, as i mentioned previously, i’m at the thumb-twiddling stage now, until i tax herman at the end of the month, i thought i’d take advantage of blue skies and sunshine to throw the oul’ vaccuum cleaner round the inside of herman’s cab, fill his windscreen wiper bottle and generally just tidy him up a bit in the front.
what was more remarkable today tho’ was that the sunshine actually managed to surgically remove mazza from the intarwebs for about an hour or so, to give me a hand. since this is such a rare occurrence i have pushed my flash animation skills to their very limits to bring you this ‘reconstruction’ of the amazing sight of mazza steam-cleaning herman’s seats.
behold and marvel!
full steam ahead!
today was also notable for another major breakthrough; mazza’s cat ‘sworth’ is obviously extremely curious as to WTF herman is and why her ‘dad’ spends so much time crawling around underneath him, covered in oil, swearing and hitting things with a hammer. up to now, the closest she’s got to venturing inside tho’ has been to stick a tentative front paw on the step and then run away when i looked round. today, however - fortified by the site of her ‘mum’ inside the van - she actually dared to come aboard for a nosey round. the moment was captured in this stunning wildlife photography sequence.
venturing in for the first time
checking out the cab
hey! - it’s just like the flat. there are window sills to sit on
well, after a weekend spent valiantly trying to drown my cold germs in alcohol, i thought i’d better get back to work on herman today. so it was out with the hammerite and the brushes again, as once more we endeavoured to get another couple of square feet covered before either rain, darkness or the prospect of a cheese, spam and pepper sauce butty drove us back to the house.
i nipped to B&Q [or ‘brian and quincey’s’ as we call it] to get some more hammerite thinners first, cos the paint has been running really badly as it dries and looking a right mess. i dunno if it’s because the cold weather is keeping the hammerite wet longer, thus giving it more time to run - or they’ve just ballsed up the recipe [i noticed it said ‘new rollable formula’ - or words to that effect, on the tin], but whatever the reason, a lot of the paintwork we’ve done already looks like someone has poured black treacle down the side of the van. so it’ll have to be sanded down a bit and given a second coat.
anyway, the thinned down hammerite seems to work a lot better; it dries faster, so does not get time to drip as badly. the down side of course is that it disnae cover as well either, so a second coat will be needed.
me and mazza painting away [mazza can only work outside if she’s got a brew to hand at all times]
it’s getting easier to envision how he’ll look when finished now [note the badly drippy paint on the side of the roof, which will have to be done again]
with that side completed, apart from a few edges and awkward bits round hinges and locks, i moved onto the prepping the front for painting. i removed herman’s bumper and number plate and gave his fizzer a good scrub down with sugar soap. while cleaning round the indicators i noticed they looked full of skank, so i undid them and found out that - for the second time in recent history - i was going to be called on to destroy a thriving ecosystem.
how the primitive lifeforms must have run screaming and praying for forgiveness to their orange flashing gods as soapy vengeance was wrought upon them!
before - mmm… swampy goodness!
after - sparkle city!
tune in next time for more exciting adventures - which will almost certainly involve soapy water and black hammerite!
today was spent pretty much as yesterday was; mazza carried on scrubbing away at the gluey remains of the vinyl lettering, with hammerite thinners and sandpaper - while i decimated the alien lifeforms on the side of the roof that i had spared the day before.
so not much to report really. however herman now has a roof which is spic-n-span enough to start painting on.
white enough to paint black now
about an hour after i finished scrubbing down the roof and came upstairs to put the dinner on, it started raining with the odd lonely snowflake in amongst the wet stuff
PEDANT: it’s called ‘sleet’ you idiot
ME: no it’s not. i know what feckin’ sleet looks like. this was rain with the odd snowflake in the middle of it OK?
PEDANT: oh. OK then. sorry for interrupting. please feel free to continue with your rivetting meteorological discourse
ME: dinnae worry. i will
where was i?… oh yeah. it started ‘not-sleeting’ about half an hour ago and the weather forecast has promised snow on its way. so i’m torn between hoping it stays fine, so i can get started on painting herman’s roof tomorrow and hoping it snows like mad - coz i’m such a big kid at heart, i still get really excited when it starts snowing.
this morning my super optrel solarmatic welding helmet arrived. so, assuming it works properly [not tried it in anger yet] i’m almost fully tooled up for many a forthcoming bout with herman.
abovementioned helmet arrived with postie at half bloody seven on a saturday morning! methinks the post office are running some extra shifts to cope with the backlog caused by the snows of last week - coz my drill came at about six o’clock last night.
anyway - today, after a bit of random tinkering and firing herman up and letting the engine run for about an hour to get the juices flowing. i embarked on the cleaning task i’ve been dreading; namely giving the roof a ‘brisk rubdown with a wet flannel’. i thought it looked pretty grotty seen from the distance of my upstairs baclony, but when i climbed up there [via a wheelie bin, for lack of a ladder] i found a landscape like that of an alien planet. the whole roof was covered in green lichen and dotted with mysterious round black ‘beings’ which, given a few more millenia might have evolved into sentient lifeforms.
unfortunately for this nascent civilisation, their god [in this case me] is a jealous god and lo he did smite them and with hot water, sugar soap and a pan scrubber from the kitchen, did cast them asunder. and there was much wailing and gnashing of whatever passes for teeth if you’re a lump of lichen.
and two hundred and forty minutes did the lord scrub. and three hours did he scrape and the lichen and the mysterious round black lifeforms were cast into the outer darkness and light did shine upon the face of the half of the roof that the lord could reach. and the lord looked upon that half of the roof and saw that it was good. and the lord sayeth unto himself “fuckin hell! - that was a ball-ache of a job. i’m off indoors for a spam, cheese & pepper sauce butty - and a nice bottle of ruddle’s county!”.
AMEN
meanwhile back on earth a tiny smurf was spotted, scrubbing valiently away at the gluey remnants of that fecking lettering on herman’s side - which is still not completely gone!
