Painting by numbers . . .

Just in case anyone should get the idea that I'm some sort of Holy Joe (Joanna? . . . I'm not quite sure what the feminine equivalent is!) who spends all her spare time on her knees (not that I couldn't do with it) I thought I'd tell you what I else I did with my day off . . .

We're not the sort of family that makes changes often in the way of decorating schemes so when recently we needed to patch up some slight cracks in our hallway and 'make good' the repairs, I knew it wasn't going to be easy to find a match for the paint that we used, probably at least ten years ago - I told you we don't decorate often!

I am one of those annoying 'a place for everything and everything in its place' people so it was fairly easy to lay my hands on the original paint colour chart from those days. It must be bordering on obsessive to keep things like this - worrying!

Well, the paint colour in question was one of these 'mixed to your own specification' jobs purchased at a local DIY store. So, off I trotted clutching my colour chart expecting to have to search through umpteen near matches.

Imagine my surprise when I asked the colour-mixing chappie - Just call me 'Shakey Jakey' - who said, let's see if it's still on the computer? And, lo and behold, it was!

Next exciting part of the day - you've heard the expression 'like watching paint dry', well watching paint being mixed I found quite interesting.

Taking a plain base colour and pressing a few buttons on the computer and, hey presto - the exact amount of other colours - in this case small amounts of 4 other colours are added to the base paint. Then the exciting part - this mixture is placed on the shaking/mixing/stirring thingamabob and whizzed around until perfectly blended. As people who don't understand things are often heard to comment, 'It's amazing what you can do with computers nowadays, isn't it?'

Looks like this couple forgot to put the lid securely on the tin before they put in on the shaking/mixing/stirring thingumabob!