Decorating Day 5

Well it may not look like much but we are almost finished with the living room. We have put the first coat of pale green on the walls, it only needs a very thin second coat now. I've been able to fill the hole under the window now that I've had the council's assurance that the loose bolt in it is not in use and therefore I don't have to worry that the wall will fall off or anything like that!!! I'd been worried about that and it was annoying that I was having to paint around it but I've half filled it now and when that's dried I can fill it the rest of the way and then paint it. The bedroom is ready for painting now and when my tall friend is next available I've been given the go-ahead by the council to rip the old falling out whatever-it-is out of the top of the bedroom wall cupboard. I hope that won't be too messy. It's apparently just part of an old boiler which has since been changed and the wall between the cupboard and the immersion heater has been filled in but for some reason the bit in the cupboard never got taken out. When the council man was round he pushed it a bit and it was really loose so it looks like it shouldn't be a problem. But as it's so high up I think I'll ask my friend to do it, I can't reach that high! And there may be spiders. Yuck.

The hall's almost ready for painting too but it still needs a bit of a sand, still it's nothing that would take very long. The floors need a clean but as long as I don't mind living in one room while doing up the rest of the flat I should be able to move in soon. I would have it done by now but I keep having to stop for homework! I know it's also very important but it's very frustrating! Still I only have this week and next week left for actual college then I'm off to do my work placement in July.

Decorating Day 2

Today I didn't get that much done, we moved some of my stuff in in boxes to put in the middle of the bedroom under a dustsheet got a microwave/grill combo and I also painted the undercoat onto the forth wall in the living room as the filler had dried. I was calling it putty yesterday as some of it was this 'no more cracks' stuff in a tube which wasn't that great and some of it was Wicks all-purpose filler which was actually really good! I did a second coat on the other three walls and sanded all the walls in the bedroom, I'm determined to get this done ASAP!

Best part of today by far was when I heard that my brother's girlfriend had given birth to a beautiful baby girl, all 6lb 13oz of her! I know everyone always says this but she really is the most beautiful baby in the whole world. I can't begin to put into words how happy I am for them. It has been a very good day.

Decorating Day 1

Today I started decorating with the help of my friend Simon. Between us we managed to get the undercoat very roughly onto the three of the four walls in the livingroom (we left the last wall because there were quite a few holes in the plaster which Simon had just filled with putty) and the first coat of paint on the ceilings of the living room, hall and bedroom and got all but four of the holes in the walls of the flat filled (of the last four three had old screws left in which we couldn't move as we had no screwdriver and one was so large we had to fill it half way and leave it to dry). As you can see from these pictures the walls are by no means perfect yet!!! But at least they're not a dark murky green any more.

I can see for miles and miles....

I've never had a head for heights but I think this view's as good as it gets around here! And this is the view on a cloudy day (earlier today) and it has been raining solidly since just after I shut the window so you can imagine how much further you could see on a clear day. I really need a better camera, the tiny digital camera I used for these pictures really doesn't cut it with distances.

This is the view from my living room window:

Far left:

This is the view to the not-so-far-left:

This is the center view:

This is the view to the right:

And this is where I'd be if I forgot that I don't have a balcony:

My own home!!!

I have a home of my own at last! It needs a lot of work done but I intend to get cracking on it even though I'm not allowed to use my council voucher in Homebase until next Monday. I'll start sanding the walls and things like that, and working out what colour schemes I want, and generally de-spidering the place... I love the view from the flat! The living room has these lovely double windows which you can see in the picture on the left but my camera is rubbish and couldn't cope with the lighting to give you a picture of the view.

My kitchen is really good too, it's a fair size and a good lay out and a SERVING HATCH!!!!! I've always wanted one of them. It doesn't have any doors on it but it has screw holes so it must have had them before and I could always add them again. It's a much better kitchen than I'd been expecting, especially after having viewed a bedsit and seen how rediculas the kitchen was for that. This kitchen even has room for my bike! saves me having to step round it in the hall all the time, it's quite a narrow hall so that wouldn't have been good.

The bathroom's good too, small but without seeming crowded. When I viewed the flat originally there was a clothes dryer thing above the bath, you know, one of those string jobbies which stretches from one wall to the other but they've taken it down and got rid of it! Very unhelpful! But I've checked and they sell them in Homebase for about £8 so I could probably get one quite easily. I checked that it fixes to the wall properly after advice from my sister who quite usfully has 'first flat' experience already.

The bedroom's good too, a fair size and it already has one of those built-in-the-wall cupboards already so I don't have to worry about storage space as much as I would have otherwise although I'm quite happy to have a stack of boxes in the corner of the room as I wouldn' know how to fill the room otherwise! I'm sure I'll manage it before too long though.

About time!

Finally! I've got around to doing my first blog! I would have done it sooner but I've been busy with college and things, and I've only just got my Internet connection set up recently. I didn't want to use the library computers as it's not very private or secure!

Well it's nearly my birthday and although I'm not usually one for stressing about getting old when I looked in the mirror yesterday morning I suddenly noticed a whole host of new lines on my forehead, I swear they weren't there before! I remember being very young, probably only about three, and I asked my dad what those lines on his forehead were for. "Worrying" he told me, I didn't really know what he meant but I decided I liked them and wanted my own lines. Well I've changed my mind! OK I know I'm over reacting it's not that bad. It's not like I suddenly look like a shar-pei or anything! To be totally honest I don't think things like that matter, it's all part of getting older, nothing to change your life over. Maybe moisturise a bit more.......

In college on Thursday we were given an article on health care in prisons to read and discuss in next week's lesson. The article is basically saying that an additional punishment for the prisoners is a difficulty in accessing health care and a lack of control over their own health. The article goes on to say that when prisoners have to go to hospital they quite often have to wear handcuffs and have a police escort which can be humiliating and distressing for the prisoners.

Maybe I'm missing the point here, but these are prisoners we're talking about. They have broken the law and are being punished for it, and they should have a police escort and be handcuffed when they have to go outside the prison! Surely if the prisoner finds it humiliating it might make them think twice about braking the law again! I agree that everyone should have access to health care but this is not something like an old peoples home: it is a prison. Why should they have total control over their health? As long as they are able to exercise and eat enough why should they have the option to eat as healthily or unhealthily as they want? Prison is meant to be a punishment, it is meant to be unpleasant and the hope is that having experienced it the criminals will be reformed because they don't want to go back to prison. If it is made too pleasant for them it won't have the same effect and they won't see it as much of a punishment. That's my opinion anyway, I'm sure not everyone would agree!