Cement

Sad news

I, along with a handful of others, got a message to say that an old colleague and friend has died. I’d been thinking about them recently, although I hadn’t seen them since before Covid.

Doing tiling

The obvious choice for grouting kitchen tiles is cement, right? Wrong! Grout is for grouting with. You can tell because the noun and the verb are homophonous. But whoever did this tiling used cement. And instead of slathering the wall in tile adhesive then using a slotted trowel to draw horizontal lines in it, it seems each tile was blobbed with five blobs of adhesive and then stuck to the wall, such that the tiles are better stuck to each other than to the wall, and there are holes in the paint (at best) and plaster (at worst) where the adhesive was.

I found a packet of plaster-repairing powder that mixes with water to produce a plaster-like substance that is easier to use than actual plaster. If that's the easy-to-use stuff, I would not like to use the hard-to-use stuff.

Now it must be left to dry for twenty-four hours.

Meanwhile, the tools and tiles I went to B&Q yesterday for await use. Mr Pandammonium saved the day: at my request, he photographed the list and the measurements and sent them to me.

Mr Perkins

When Mr Perkins was having all his blood tests for his thyroid, I took his collar off so as not to irritate any more than necessary the spot on his throat where they shaved him and stuck a needle in him.

However, he has returned to his monstrous ways, so this has happened again. I hope it works.