What a weekend

We have a pretty good weekend, which consisted of lots of things, including Maggots doing swimming and tennis respectively, me doing a lot of tiling (more of that later), and a sleep-over and David and Samantha's, which was fantastic.  We had a rather panicked call from David mid-afternoon, when I was on my siesta, to say that they had knocked the wotsit off the water tank in the airing cupboard, the wrong side of the shower pump, and had sprung a high-pressured leak.  Much issuing of loud instructions, a few red faces, and all was under control.  Scobi took his trunks just in case, but the indoor pool was closed for maintenance.

On the tiling front, I need to clarify that when I say "lots", the amount of time was "lots" even if the rate of tile application was not.  Put another way, I think I am pretty good at tiling, but to get that good result I go about about a fifth of the speed of your average pro, and you may not be up to speed on tiling pro speeds, but I can assure you that I am a one legged tortoise on sleeping pills compared to their hare.

We have chosen massive white tiles, 70cm x 23cm if you are interested, for the main parts, with small 3cm x 3cm glass mosaic tiles in shades of black and silver for the "trim".  The former obviously cover the ground in no time at all, the latter not so fast.  The former, however, are also v. tricky to put up coz you need a very flat surface, plus you need a very level amount of cement on the wall - a job for the notched spreader - and you also need to "butter" each tile before putting up, a process of applying a thin layer of cement on the back of the tile, to ensure that the whole tile touches all the cement which is attached to all the wall.  In short, so that you get 100% contact with a tile that is the size of two cricket bats.  So, while each tile does cover a lot of wall, you need to also give it a lot of attention.

The little tiles have their own problems.  While they are on backing sheets, which lull you in to thinking that at least the tiles on the 30cm x 30cm sheet will stay equidistant from their neighbour, in reality, the little bu$$ers move up, down, left, right, dip in one corner and generally behave about as well as a platoon of cats trying to march in line.

What I have done so far looks really good, and it is just a matter of keeping it going to finish it off, which should be this side of Easter.  Hopefully.

Anyhow, enough already of the tiling stories.

Have a good week, speak soon.