Whatever happened to the heroes?

Well, one of them lives at Genie Towers. A bit of background; several years ago we noticed that the paint on the fascia of the gable at the front of the house was starting to flake and, because it's very high and we don't like going very high we started contacting decorators and asking them for quotes to do the job. How many do you think responded? That's right, none at all. Year after year we searched for a tradesman wanting work but obviously they've all won the lottery and don't need customers. It's not even as if it was a very big job - just very high. No way on this earth would you get either Ned or me up a ladder that high even though the painting would be a POP.

So the job was left and left, with the paint getting shabbier and shabbier, until a friend bought a scaffolding tower which he offered to lend us. We borrowed it, hoping to do the work over the May bank holiday, but it rained, and whenever we were free to do it the weather wasn't co-operative. But this week the sun shone, so we got the elements of the tower out of the garage and started.

If there was a flat, solid surface in front of the house the job would have been much quicker, but there's lawn and flowerbeds, so first we had to find bits of timber and blocks for the legs to stand on securely. A second problem was that the platform was too narrow to do the whole lot at once, and, when fully constructed, the tower was too heavy to move. So each complete coat meant the tower had to be constucted, the work done on as much as could be reached, deconstructed, moved a couple of feet, reconstructed and the work done, deconstructed, moved again, reconstructed, the last bit of work done, then deconstructed for the last time that day because the paint had to dry before the next coat could be applied.

Occasionally we had the base fractionally too close to the house when we built the tower, only to find we couldn't put the topmost sections on because of the eaves and had to take it down and start again. Those were not happy times.

But at last it's finished! Those of you who went GoAping with us know exactly how pathetic I am with heights, but few realised that Ned's only marginally better. So for him to go that high, even with a reasonably steady platform to stand on, took a huge amount of courage. He's my hero.


Of course, the problem is that now the guttering looks shabby, and could really benefit from being taken down, sand-blasted and repainted before being replaced. I'd better not mention that yet.