Tag Archives: madness

The Farrow and Ball Obsession

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Mention the words Farrow and Ball to any decorator and they will shake their head with a derisive snort, claiming it’s average-quality paint with a hefty price tag, marketed for foolish, middle-class women, with too much time on their hands.

So naturally, being a foolish woman and having too much time on my hands, I developed a craze with Farrow and Ball that very rapidly spiralled out of control.

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It began with a simple task to paint the bathroom of my rental flat; the last tenants had moved out after three years and it needed a lick of paint to smarten things up. I pottered down to Homebase, naively thinking I’d just grab a pot of any old paint and slap it on. But when I headed down the paint aisle, my eyes were inexplicably drawn to the enticing brown sample pots of… Farrow and Ball.

I’d already had a taste of F&B in the past, having painted the chimney breast of my beloved flat in the strangely-named Dead Salmon, a kind of pinky brown colour – which now I come to think of it, actually does resemble the colour of out-of-date fish.

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For the bathroom, I wanted a shade of blue. But what was it to be? Parma Grey, Lulworth Blue, Blue Grey? The choice was boggling.

After much deliberation, I plumped for Borrowed Light – a  beautiful pale blue. I loved it.

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It was at that moment that I crazily decided to paint my whole flat in Farrow and Ball – a decision that would go on to cost me several hundred pounds, many hours of labour, and untold exasperation to the long-suffering husband.

F&B connoisseurs will tell you that there’s a depth to the paint that Dulux and Crown just can’t compete with. I’m not sure this is strictly true but this is what I kept telling myself, in order to justify the paint pot splurge.

I began carrying around a colour chart of F&B and would sit studying it several times a day, with all the intensity of a Truly Crazy Person. Friends, long since tired of my painting patter, attempted to stage an intervention. But when they snatched the paint chart off me, I began rocking in the corner, muttering ‘Elephant’s Breath, Elephant’s Breath’ repeatedly, until they reluctantly placed it back in my palm.

Remember that 90s game show called You Bet! hosted by Matthew Kelly, in which contestants had to complete unlikely challenges such as memorising all of the road signs in the UK? Well, I could easily recall all 132 Farrow and Ball colours, in order, and come away with the star prize.

Some evenings, I would roar off on a whim to the Harrogate F&B shop, to stare dreamily at the paints on display. The shop assistant there became my new best friend and I started phoning her at all hours of the day just to chat about paint: ‘Do you really think Rectory Red would go with Oval Room Blue? Really? I was thinking that too! Ha ha haaaa!’

I was clearly unstable.

The spare bedroom was painted in probably my favourite colour: Light Blue (a kind a blue-grey that changes with the light of the day), complemented by Slipper Satin on the woodwork.

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Manor House Grey framed the landing, while the main bedroom had a palette of purply Brassica and Calluna – the colour of ‘Scottish heather’.

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Finishing the walls, I was in too deep to end things there – so I began feverishly painting the furniture. Any wooden item that wasn’t nailed down was at risk of being ‘Farrowed’ in my upcycling mania.

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The worn church chairs were painted Oval Room Blue and Chappell Green respectively, and a tired, old dresser enjoyed a new lease of life with a hearty lick of Dove’s Tail.

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Even the front door didn’t escape – acquiring several coats of Blue Green and a shiny new number 5.

My irritating neighbour Greenclaws came sniffing around and was so taken with my efforts that he gaily skipped off to Homebase himself and returned clutching a tin of Middleton Pink (probably to match the garish plastic lobster that adorns his kitchen wall).

And then it was over.

The paint pots were stacked in the attic, a colour scheme was thrust in the hands of my new tenants, should they feel the need to so some touching up, and I reluctantly trundled home with my paint brush.

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For about a week, I had to go cold turkey, tossing in my sleep and chanting, ‘Mizzle… Mizzle – it’s reminiscent of a West Country evening mist…’

Two months on, I think I’ve just about recovered.

I passed a F&B shop in Marylebone last week. And even though every bone in my body wanted to rush in, ambush the woman and yell, ‘Do you really think Arsenic goes with Brassica?!’, I managed to keep on walking.

My Father… and his ‘Boat’

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One of my parents’ greatest pleasures is chugging down Fowey estuary in Cornwall in their ancient dinghy. They bought the dinghy in 1973 whilst ‘courting’ and named it Chrismick (a hybrid of their names).

The original Chrismick was upgraded to Chrismick mark II in the late 80s – and to this day it lives on, travelling down to Cornwall each year, with occasional ventures onto Lake Windermere.

But whatever you do, never call it a dinghy. In my father’s eyes, it’s a boat: his pride and joy. Better still, it fits into the boot of his car. And nothing gives my father greater joy then driving down the M6 to Cornwall knowing that he has a WHOLE BOAT neatly tucked into his trunk.

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Arriving at Cornwall, my father begins the routine of inflating and launching Chrismick – with his trusty foot pump. As children, my sister and I thought this was a great adventure.

As adults, inflating a boat with feeble puffs of air while pumping your foot up and down repeatedly seems a long and tiresome process.

After about an hour of pumping and puffing, Chrismick is finally launched into the water – and we all pile in.

There follows an audible holding of breath while my father yanks the chain on the rusty engine several times, a pause – and then subsequent cheers when it miraculously splutters into life. The trusty Suzuki engine has never let them down yet.

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The maddest part of this saga is that after a day on the river, my father then begins the long-winded process of deflating the dinghy and folding it back into the boot of his car – ready to relive the arduous process the next day. (He doesn’t trust Chrismick to be left on the water overnight).

My dad loves the challenge of studying his tide times and channels. On a good tide day, you can make it several miles in-land to Lerryn (of Wind In The Willows fame) and stop off for a Cornish cream tea.

This is another of my Dad’s triumphs in Chrismick: Venturing Places Where Real Boats Cannot Go.

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My father proudly claims that Chrismick is a six-man dinghy but five adults is about its limit. Even then, it’s a cosy affair, with my father at the helm and the rest of us perched precariously on its sides, ever fearful that the whole thing might just pop and suddenly deflate.

Occasionally, my father shouts ‘bale’ and one of us has to start scooping out water using a baling device that my father fashioned out of an empty milk carton.

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My father has a long-held dream of taking Chrismick out to sea, quashed only by my mother’s annual protests. Apparently they met a sailor in a pub down there in the 80s, who warned them that the coast in these parts is a perilous place – a story which my father still scoffs at.

But judging by the amount of puncture patches adorning on Chrismick’s faded grey sides, I think my mother’s fears are justified.

The place that my father wants to get to is called Lantic Bay – a secluded cove around the cliff of Polruan. To achieve this dream, my father would need to head out to sea, navigating choppy waters that definitely aren’t meant for an ailing dinghy.

He has been Weighing This Up for the last 40 years – more seriously in the last couple of years (egged on by The Foolhardy Husband).

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In a week’s time, we’re heading down to Cornwall for our annual family jolly.

And I fear that 2013 could be the year that my father, Chrismick – and the husband – finally set out to sea.

My Mother… and her Telephone Voice

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Remember in the 80s, when parents used to answer the landline by saying the area followed by their phone number ie. ‘St Albans 233915?’

Well, my mother STILL does that.

The husband didn’t believe me so I told him to call my mother. She answered with a trill, ‘Hello, Preston 7437**’, as she always does.

Sometimes, I try to cut her off somewhere between the 7 and the 4, by announcing, ‘It’s ME!’

But she always persists with saying the full number, in her poshest ‘telephone voice’, of course. I think it’s something to do with her former days working on the switchboard at BT, before she became student landlady extraordinaire.

My sister and I were always drilled to answer the telephone in our best secretarial voice,  just in case it was Someone Of Great Importance (it never was).

I love that the age of mobile communication has done nothing to dampen my mother’s habit.

The husband’s late grandmother took things one step further – answering the telephone not with her number but with her full postal address.

I almost wish I had a landline so I could carry on the tradition.

‘Hello, Orange 07956 2666**, somewhere in North Leeds…’ just doesn’t have the same ‘ring’ to it.