Blue Paint

Our front door in London is coated with Oxford Blue paint. It is good paint, and one to be used with great care because it is so penetratingly blue, and thus hard to be rid of if falling unwanted on any surface. For that reason I handle it in surgical rubber gloves and with apprehension.

With it I aim to obtain that lovely crusty surface that adorns the streetside woodwork of Berry Brothers and Rudd, those venerable wine merchants in St James' Street, London, where the paint and overpaint may have been applied since the 18th century.

On a summer's day, when watching cricket, I sat next to a house painter who gave me the great tip of how to prevent a dried surface from forming on the top of the contents of a tin of opened paint by simply storing the closed tin upside down. This has stood me in good stead, that was, until the following episode.

After I last painted my front door, I stored the blue paint, for some unknown reason, not right side up and next to my household tools as usual, but with other paints in the loft that were all stored upside down. 

It was springtime, and possibly after our 2019 red wine harvest had passed its malolactic fermentation

in our loft, we decided to bottle the modest vintage. After using a ladder to recover the demijohns behind the pots of paint, I found that the lid of the blue tin had not been closed adequately and that some of its contents had not only leaked out but almost glued the lid to the boards beneath. So, when moving the pot, the lid stayed behind where it had become stuck, allowing what paint remained in the tin to flow out and all around the place. I had to think quickly. 

Perched on the ladder it would have been almost impossible to tackle the disaster on my own. So Margreet brought me some surgical rubber gloves, a basket lined with a refuse bag liner and countless balls of crumpled newspaper. So the mopping up was under way. Tins were wiped and moved, a bag of painting kit put on newspaper to dry, and the paint mopped up.

Bottling the wine had to be abandoned until a later date when the spilled blue paint would be dry.

And we managed it all with only a dab of paint spilled on my wrist and another on Margreet's hand - both of which were dealt with using white spirit.

It was quite a colourful saga I can tell you. 

What do you want to do ?

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