Timeless Paint

Another early start (for a Sunday), and the topcoat of Timeless Dulux Kitchen+ paint has gone on the kitchen walls. It's looking good: so too is the white silk on the ceiling. After the kerfuffle with the undercoats, the final coats went on really well. We still need to do the gloss work and make the curtains (next weekend?), and obviously the floor needs to go down (starting next Friday), but it's looking almost complete.

I forgot to say yesterday; once we'd finished the bulbs in the bank and verge, we were left with about 100 daffodils, and about the same of each of the puschkinia and scilla. We're putting the daffs in groups in the copse, and adding the others in two (discrete) swathes.

Finally, we've potted up the perennials from Van Meuwen:

• Echinacea
• Aquilegia
• Gypsophila
• Hollyhock (Alcea rosea)
• Chinese Lantern (Physalis alkekengi)
• Lupin
• Kniphophia (Red Hot Pokers)
• Sea holly (Eryngium maritimum)
• Delphinium
• Liatris

I think we're just about sorted for the return to work tomorrow, though everything's finished a bit late. That's because we discovered that the central heating plumbing had a slow leak (radiator at the top of the stairs), which has affected the sitting room ceiling. After getting the floor up, it looks like the connection from the 15mm leg of the radiator to the 8mm supply hasn't sealed. Plumber out tomorrow, and in the mean time a bodge repair (silicon sealant and PVC tape: crude but reasonably effective).

Merry's still not doing well; we've been making her hot water bottles to make sure she's warm (she considers this a fine, and long-overdue, plan), and she's been getting plenty of attention. Poor girl probably doesn't have long, though; but at 17½, she's done alright.