A Day of Sport and Wallpapering

I'm not a great sports follower but today has been a sportfest so far as I was concerned. I wasn't able to sit down and plonk myself in front of the television because I was wallpapering the newly installed kitchen. I don't have a choice either because my visitors start at the end of the week until mid September. 

Today was the day for the final of the Cricket World Cup between England (their first final for 27 years - a title they have never won), the British Grand Prix, the final day of Wimbledon, and the Tour de France. All are available on UK free-to-air television. Four of the rooms in my house have televisions but I can't be in more than one at a time.

Prioritising seemed as if it could be a challenge. So I decided to have the cricket on the television  in the kitchen until the Grand Prix and then after it I would watch the Wimbledon simultaneously on an iPad. I recorded the Tour de France highlights. 

As it happens that  decision was inspired because the tennis and the cricket were cliff-hangers and the British Grand Prix was actually interesting for once.

The cricket World Cup Final ended in a draw which had to be decided by a Super Over which ended with a win for England by 1 run.

The Grand Prix was won by Lewis Hamilton for the seventh time making him the most successful winner of the British Grand Prix in its 70-year history. 

Djokovic beat Federer in the fifth set after it had gone to 12 games all in the final set and had to be decided by a tiebreak making the final set 13:12 to Djokovic.

I have no idea what happened in the Tour de France.

However I did get the kitchen lining paper hung which just leaves the wallpaper and the painting to be done before next weekend. Oh. And the kitchen re-filled with everything I took out which is sitting in the garage in boxes.

Yesterday: Change

Last Wednesday I suddenly decided to replace the wooden internal window ledge in my kitchen with a while plastic one.  I'd started the job about ten years ago but abandoned it temporarily when I realised I couldn't fit the new one on top of the old one because there wasn't quite enough clearance for the vertical blinds.  So what I though was a nice quick job that would be finished in time for morning coffee turned out to be a day's work finishing just before 5pm.

However by this time I was in change mode.  So ordered the new bed that I'd been thinking about for several years.  Then I decided that although the bedroom had been recently decorated (in 2002 - I'm not a great one for change for change's sake) it could possibly do with a new coat of paint before the new bed came.  So I emptied it and prepared everything for the painting to start yesterday.  I was just intending to do the ceiling.  I ended up doing the ceiling and the walls.  Job finished.  (It's all the preparation and masking that takes the real time).   By 5pm my back and paint-brush-holding hand were aching so preparing dinner for Pat and Dave was a welcome relief. 

We had a cracking evening and eventually stopped eating and talking around 11.30pm. All my tiredness and aches had gone with the food (possibly the wine helped too).  It was a beautiful evening and I had no lights on in the house so we hadn't realised how late it had got.  

So this is yesterday and this morning in pictures taken from the front of my house (unfortunately those at 3.40 am were taken through my windows because the midges were just too bad for me to be bothered going outside with so much flesh exposed).

Yesterday morning - 0750 - flat calm sea

Yesterday evening - 2327 - almost the longest day

This morning - 0344 - a beautiful morning in prospect

This morning - 0709 - the mist and rain's set in.  This is Scotland after all.