I'm thirsty. I shall have to drink some water in a minute. That's a good cure for thirst. Beer would also be good. I might check to see if I have any in the fridge. That would be a nice way to celebrate a busy night.

Work took me across Berkshire (well, from one office to another 10 miles away) and into discussions on how to use inspiration to solve a problem we just don't get. Here is an important fact: if you keep an open mind and look at a lot of things before drawing any firm conclusions, your conclusions may well prove better. Also, if you involve a lot of people in thinking over a problem, you may get a better overall view. Bear in mind, though, that people come with pre-conceptions and if they are arguing their theory, it may just be a way of arguing some personal grand-theory-of-everything, rather than something which relate to the matter in hand.

I'm not suggesting that I suffered the potential problem I highlighted above, more than the above is a thing and that tonight, before coming home, I did a related thing for which the above is interesting side-commentary.

Anyhoo, back-pedalling aside, I came home, had some pasta and then, after a few minutes around 8pm where settling down on my sofa in the living room in front of the TV would have been bliss (but I don't have sofa, living room or TV in it), I stopped messing about on the computer and went to start work on the decorating.

I started with something easy - I knocked some excess plaster out of the radiator I painted yesterday after work. It's hard to believe from this vantage point, a mere 30 or so hours after the fact, that I actually did a gig AND got an hour's DIY done yesterday. I'm clearly shitting it about never finishing this house. I have graphs and they tell me that I could do 9 hours more work this week and then I'd be back on track for today. By the time those 9 hours have been done, I'll be behind even more. But I digress.

After the easy job, I decided to do some electrical work. I put up a new light fitting. It was straightforward enough and it worked first time. In fact, it was probably the easiest bit of electrical work I've done in the house. Nothing was tricky or awkward, it just went up.

Then I got down to some sanding. I'm not a fan of sanding, but it needs to be done. The results after sanding are always a lot better, and the first coat I'd put down had a number of flaws in it that I really didn't like. More importantly, sanding is the way to get the paint to look right and last longer, so I did the necessary.

I then continued where I'd left off with yesterday's painting. Following this there was a hell of a lot more painting. I'd started with a door frame. Then I did a skirting board with lots of corners, then I did both sides of a door. The result, a lot of paint all over the necessary places, and a fair bit over me.

Since I'd now reached the last of my clean brushes, the rest of them sitting in a jar of white spirit waiting for cleaning, I went and spent some time cleaning my brushes. Then, with the dregs of my hot water, I had a shower. This is as rock and roll as DIY gets. However, the process of doing these tasks has moved me onwards towards my target and I'm feeling optimistic that a bit of DIY push this weekend will see things moving even more forwards.