That title to this post reminded me of some thing that us lads, so a million years ago, used to sing. We had a competition whilst riding our bikes, singing as loud as we could what we considered a very naughty song,

"I painted it, I painted it
up her belly and down her back
in every ........"

No, you will have to guess the rest. Anyway, it was the kitchen that I painted, it wasn't too bad but the ceiling showed the joins in the ceiling boards, B&Q had thick ceiling emulsion paint, now I have a sparkling white ceiling that shows the joins covered with plastic paint.

Turning my attention to the walls that now looked grubby, and knowing that I had some magnolia left over from a previous job, I set to work, opening the magnolia it didn't appear to be quite enough, I don't give in, I have a full tub of white emulsion, so add a bit, a good stir, now I have off-white, but, too similar to the ceiling, O K I have other stuff that I can add, a bit of Taupe, left over from the front bedroom, mix well, and stand back in amazement.

I now have a shade that doesn't even appear amid the thousands on the Dulux paint chart, "Trade colours for 2005", if it was there, it would probably be called, "Yuk".

The closest that you can get to this shade is probably that mess on the pavement outside the pub on a Sunday morning, often being eaten by seagulls.

Back to the paint, I did try a little test patch and when it dried to a shade that I am calling, "Light Yuk", I gave up on it. There was still enough white emulsion to do the walls, I now have a kitchen that looks like an operating theatre, when the light is on it can probably be seen from outer space, and on Christmas eve there may be a bright shining star hovering over it and shepherds and kings knocking on the door.

It will stay like that until next year, and in the mean time I will wear sunglasses.

Happy Christmas.