The Paints bright-the future's orange

 During to the Paralympics, one of the students at the special school where I work, a keen table tennis player with hemiplegia, asked me which was my Paralympic sport. I explained that the Paralympics were for people who had some form of disability and I wouldn’t be able to take part as I didn’t have a disability. He looked puzzled and then said, “You have sir, you’re colour blind.” Although I laughed at the idea he was evidently quite serious and thought such a condition was a definite disability. We then discussed what sort of sporting event people with colour blindness might compete in; striking matching coloured bulbs flashing on a light-wall perhaps. I suggested stepping on a predefined sequence of colour-coded floor-tiles that light up like those you found in some discotheques in the 70s; he had no idea what I was talking about.

Over the years it has amused numerous students when I have coloured leaves brown or the sea-water purple. Some imagine I see things only in black and white or ask me such questions as what colour is the grass? When I say, “Green of course” the response I get is usually, “Well you’re not colour blind then.” It’s as if I was trying to stir up some compassion by posing as a victim of colour blindness. Describing colour blindness to someone who isn’t is pretty difficult. It was only after I picked up a copy of “Ishihara’s Tests for Colour Blindness” in a second hand book shop that my own kids finally realised the extent of my disability. It’s all a question of shading and context. In certain lights certain shades of brown, red, green, blue and purple prove hard to distinguish. My wife still likes to tease me about some trousers I once bought, before we were married, which I thought were a subtle beige cheque but which she tells me were mustard and made me look like Rupert Bear. I cannot say it is a handicap but it does raise problems. Electrical wiring can be tricky and clothes remain a bit of a dodgy area in relation to any attempt at coordination. My own children have remarked on occasions, “Did you put those things on together or has mum had to sort you out.” Choosing and matching items in the décor around the home has never been easy for me which brings me to the subject of DIY. Leaving colour blindness to one side I have never been adept at DIY. Drilling holes normally results in a series of test bores before one is achieved that is of the right size and diameter to fit the screw and raw-plug. Shelves usually have a habit of sloping at a jaunty angle. Even furniture from a well-known Swedish superstore that’s all about clean, straight lines in my hands ends up looking rather less than chique when I have constructed them. Once I managed to mank pieces together in such a way that empty screw holes remained visible on the exterior when none should have been showing; and my Billy bookcase looked more like a Kevin. My wife and I do share painting tasks; she doing everything up to a height of 5ft 2 and me using all of my 6ft 4inches to finish off everything above her height. This normally gets us over any difficulty with colour matching. However recently I came unstuck.

  We own a small chalet about 4 miles in from the Norfolk coast. Our family refer to it as the ‘shack’ so you may infer it is nothing grand, more like a garden shed really. It stands with others on a small holiday park out in the marshes surrounded by willow trees. About fifty years old it is constructed of what I believe is called shiplap; lengths of planed, overlapping timber strips. Waterproofing is essential in any location so near the North Sea and this is achieved using a paint treatment which also stains the timber. There is understanding on the site that the chalets are painted every 5-8 years using one of a range of 5 natural colours. These come with such names as rustic oak, forest green, autumn brown and red cedar. Having discovered an old can in the chalet labelled ‘red cedar’ we assumed that this was the colour used by the previous owners.



So after nearly ten years without painting we were obliged to visit our local hardware store to buy a new supply of preservative. It wasn’t an easy task as there were dozens of products to choose from. After some close scrutiny of the colour chart my wife plumped for a can of ‘Rich cedar’ as the one she thought resembled closest that used previously.

 

Chalet Before 'Orange' upgrade


I was a little nervous at being sent to carry out the repainting mission on my own.  I was doubly unsure after opening the tin and observing the bright orange liquid within. I then thought, ‘No its your colour blindness it must be brown.’ I painted a panel about two feet wide on the rear wall of the chalet and then paused. It still looked orange. I was losing confidence so I decided I needed a second opinion. I went and knocked at the open door of a chalet nearby. An old boy of around seventy emerged and I asked him if he could spare a moment to help me out of a dilemma.  I asked him to glance over my handiwork and reassure me that what I was using was the right colour of wood preserver. He followed me to the rear of our chalet during which time he informed me that he was a retired painter and decorator; I knew I had the right chap for the job. Around the back of our chalet the professional took a sharp intake of breath before saying, “Oo-yer that’s a bit orangey.” My heart sank. I showed him the tin and even fetched the empty can from out of the rubbish bin. He agreed that although the names of the shades were similar my paint was distinctly more orange than that which had gone on before. He then launched into a lecture about burnt sienna and ferric oxides which lost me. We decided that I might do better taking a sliver of painted wood showing the original colour down to the local ironmongers’ to see if they had any alternative timber stain. I was pretty peeved having already splashed out on one expensive tin of stain but decided it was the only option. My visit to the ironmongers’ proved a little confusing as they had another range of fancy-named products; American walnut, harvest brown etc. Using the wood sliver I’d taken we found one that seemed to match. Fortunately the shopkeeper told me I could return the product unopened if I decided it wasn’t right.

Returning to the chalet I was confused. The patch of timber wall I had painted two hours earlier was now darkening. My expert from the chalet next door was equally puzzled how the orange seemed to be ‘fading back.’ What was I to do? I decided to plough on with the original treatment. But things did not get easier. I continued painting whilst sensing the perplexed glances of the odd passer-by. This was all right as no one commented until a precocious child came around the corner holding a football, he looked up at me and without hesitation said, “Why are you doing it orange?”

I retorted, “It’s rich cedar, but it’s not dry yet.”

“Cedar’s a tree isn’t it, is it an orange tree?”

“No, It’s not orange it’s got a magic ingredient in it that makes it go brown when it dries.”

“Oh” said the brat and vanished.  In response to a, “How are things going with the painting?” text message from the wife I sent a reply to say all was fine and I’d finished one side of the chalet. I decided against sending a photograph.

After a night’s sleep I rose early to see if the colour had subsided. It wasn’t as bright anymore but there was still a definite glow to the newly painted rear wall. I proceeded to paint the front wall but had only been at it twenty minutes when the first group of local critics hove into view. Comments included, “Gosh that’s bright you’ve been tangoed….well that should make it stand out among the rest …isn’t that the colour they use on the Happisburgh lighthouse?” I simply smiled. I was anxious to finish so that the sun could do its work drying out the timbers thereby allowing the orange paint to ‘fade back’ to a warm brown. I returned the unopened can of timber paint to the local ironmongers, they were very understanding and nipped into a local café to have an all-day breakfast as my reward for a job well done. Who should come into the café but the decorating expert neighbour from the other chalet plus wife. “See you stuck with the orangey stuff then.” I smiled and explained that I thought it would probably be all right when it dried. Whilst he went off to the counter to place his order his wife turned to me and made her first and only contribution to the conversation. “It looks fine, me duck, I shouldn’t take too much notice of what he says anyway, he’s a bit coloured blind!

The Princess, the Railway and the Donkey

Recently I heard a most curious tale about a polish princess, a railway crossing and a donkey. No, it’s not a joke but a true story dating back some 50 years. By the banks of the river Stour in the hamlet of Rodbridge there stood a railway crossing. In the early sixties the small white cottage nearby was occupied by a crossing keeper with a pretty unique history. She was a middle-aged polish émigré but what was unusual was that she was descended from royalty. Her name was Her Royal Highness Princess Madelein von Dembinska. Since the end of the First World War her family had been exiled but her mother had continued to fight to try and reclaim property in their homeland of Poland. Unfortunately they had not succeeded in their fight and when their mother died the the princess and her brother (Prince Eric) and sister had fallen on hard times and had been forced to take up employment in order to live. The princess was a well known local character in the villages around the railway crossing and she got on well with her neighbours.

Until that is the day that a local farmer called at her cottage to say that one of the shafts on his donkey cart had broken and he needed to leave the donkey in the meadow adjacent to the level crossing whilst he took the cart to the local blacksmith to be mended. He wanted to know if the princess minded just keeping the donkey’s water topped up whilst he was gone. The princess agreed. A couple of days later the farmer returned to collect the donkey. He called in the crossing cottage to thank the princess. He found her in a bit of a tizzy and asked what was the matter. She told him that she had not slept well for two nights. She explained that at four the previous morning she had rushed down to open the crossing gates, her alarm had not gone off, in fact she was only alerted to the fact that the express mail train was approaching because she had been woken by the strident two tone warning siren of the train. But when the train didn’t arrive she realised she had risen an hour and a half too early. After returning to bed she went back to sleep until her alarm went at the correct time and she opened the gates. She said for the 5:30 train. The same thing had happened that morning aswell. She had been woken by the train siren in the early hours. Again she had rushed down to open the gates. The farmer commented that she was very diligent to react in such a quick and conscientious manner. But the princess explained that this time she soon realised that it was not the siren of the train that had been waking her but the donkey heehawing in a similar fashion. Consequently she was insisting the farmer removed his donkey as quickly as possible.