Magnolia paint, beloved by Cypriots

Today, I painted a room. Not one of ours, but a bedroom in the flat which some friends have been renting for a few years. As happens in Cyprus, people come for a year or two, stay a while longer, and then very often decide to return from whence they came. For various reasons, this family is soon returning to the UK.

Was the room really messy after their stay? Not at all. But they had painted it pale yellow when they arrived. A rather pleasant colour, I thought. It brightened the room considerably. But for some reason, Cypriots like their houses painted magnolia. Everywhere. When we move to the house we bought, the first thing we did was to paint the rooms, anything BUT magnolia. The problem with rental houses, however, is that they have to be returned to the landlord for someone else to rent. And when that happens, if anywhere has been painted, it must be covered over in magnolia once more. Even if the next renters would have preferred yellow.

So I had quite a pleasant walk - it's around a mile to our friends' apartment, I suppose, or a little more - and it only took me about an hour and a half to repaint the room. They had already done the edges, so I just used a roller. Since I can paint walls with my left hand almost as well as with my right, I get along fairly fast. I don't have to move ladders as frequently as single-handed painters, nor do I have to rest quite so often since I simply switch hands when one starts to get tired.

By the time I was home again, after the walk back, I was pretty tired. My feet were aching, too. That's because although I took my painting tee-shirt and jeans with me, to change into once I got there (not wishing to walk the streets of Larnaka wearing heavily paint-splattered clothes) I walked there and back in an old pair of trainers which are also designated for painting. Unfortunately, the heel has pretty much gone in one of them.

I was very glad that the weather broke in the last week. Painting when it's around 22C is considerably pleasanter than it would have been at 32C.