Happy half-birthday

After boasting in my first post about how many photos I take, today I took hardly any. Typical.

It's been a quiet day of unpacking, shopping, keeping in touch with my people (Nina and I might spend Christmas and New Year in Panama!), writing my first and now second posts on Blip, along with all manner of small computer-based tasks. I've sat down a lot.

I took a few photos out of the window, but I won't resort to choosing one of those yet. And I took a few photos in the supermarket as reminders.

Otherwise, the only other photo with even the slightest bit of visual interest is the one you see above. Let me explain what's going on.

This year I've spent quite a bit of time painting the wooden structures in the back garden here. Mostly fences, compost heaps, and a pair of sheds.

None of it had been painted for many years, and it was all starting to look rather worse for wear. I cleaned the wood where necessary and scrubbed away green algae, made whatever small repairs I could, and then applied several layers of a water-based fence paint. I'm hoping to protect the wood somewhat from rain and sunlight, and extend its life as much as I can.

I started off with the cheapest paint I could find, but I ended up using a more-expensive wax-enriched paint. I figured the greater water-repellency would justify the price.

In the photo you can see the paint in action.

The vertically-arranged planks form part the door to a shed, and are in reasonable condition. The horizontal wood is the so-called “weatherboarding”, which forms the outer shell of the shed, and is in much worse condition.

I've painted the door with several coats, and you can see the rain beading on its surface. The wood itself has, I hope, stayed quite dry. However, I intend to replace the weatherboarding soon, so I have not repainted it, and there is a complete lack of water on its surface – the wood has soaked it all up. Not good.

I'd better get on and finish the job soon, before winter really sets in.

In other news, today is my half-birthday (six months since and until my actual birthday). I also realised that, exactly two months ago, I should have celebrated my ⅓-birthday, since it marked the day on which I had lived for exactly a third of a century. But I missed it. I guess I'll just have to wait till I'm 50 for the next such excitement.

Fingers crossed.

(I realise I'm giving away my date of birth here, but I reckon the secret's safe with you guys.)