It's the Brighton Marathon today, so I'm as shocked as you are that I'm sitting here writing a blog post instead of pounding the streets in lycra. I did consider taking part this year, but having weighed up the pros and cons, I decided I couldn't be bothered to walk to the post box with my entry form.

So I'm staying in instead. And doing something far more tiring. To be honest, I've come to the conclusion that the phrase 'make hay while the sun shines' was coined by someone whose four-year-old daughter was out of town for a couple of days. Since Amelie left on Friday afternoon, I've been pondering all the things which are difficult to do when she's here. Like having a conversation without being interrupted. And I've prioritised them into a list of jobs to get done.

So I've just redecorated the living room. In a day. With some three-year-old paint. Since the Great Flood of 2013, we've had various water stains on the walls, but in addition to that, we suffer from the kind of perennial damp problem that would be more suited to the Amazon rainforest. It's more than a year since Amelie last redecorated, and to be honest she only did one corner, so having spent twelve months battling mould damage, pen marks, blu-tac stains and the effects of Ariel Automatic on our painted wallpaper, I decided the room needed a complete makeover.

Or failing that, a quick once-over with a roller. Having been around all four walls with some slightly lumpy paint, I've now eradicated the evidence of January's flood...


... so I hope the insurance company don't want to come round for a visit. Unfortunately, having started the job yesterday morning, the weather turned nasty, and before I knew it, we had torrential rain being blown on gale-force winds through the vent in the wall, and wet paint dripping down to the skirting board. So it wasn't what you'd call ideal. But it was easily fixed. I just moved the sofa in front of it, and pretended nothing had happened.

As it transpired, however, that wasn't my greatest achievement. The crowning glory of my weekend DIY was actually the creation of a brand new coffee bar in the kitchen. Although when I say 'coffee bar', I mean 'shelf'.

Despite having two children and a loving husband, the centre of Lisa's universe is currently her Tassimo coffee machine. Over the past few years, she's successfully replaced alcohol with caffeine, and now gets more excited by a latte than a pinot grigio, so I feel it's important for me to support her in this habit. Unfortunately, since getting her hands on a Tassimo last November, the machine has been situated in the living room, where it spouts out boiling water from a height of about twelve inches off the floor. Which isn't ideal when your baby's on the verge of becoming mobile.

So having slightly rearranged the kitchen furniture to make a new home for the ironing board, I eventually came up with this...


I know what you're thinking. You're thinking "I didn't know you could buy shelves that are only 40cm wide". And that's because you can't. Not at B&Q anyway. Having browsed their entire range yesterday morning, I was forced to buy one that was two feet across, and then saw a bit off. I then painted it, fitted it, hoovered up all the sawdust, and ended up with the perfect new home for Lisa's coffee machine and her range of French syrups. It's basically a mini-bar for tee-totallers. And as a bonus, I've positioned it below the spice rack, so after a few weeks of steam treatment, we should have some home-made curry paste.