Painting Houses

Many holidays were spent painting houses for family or friends, some with Mark. The ideal painting job was the family cottage in Norfolk, near the coast. We'd arrive, sometimes by hitchhiking, and then paint day in or out, sunshine streaming through the windows, and Radio 1 blaring out. Conversations could easily continue all day, punctuated by long visits to the pub or the trek down to the sea where the waves waited at the end of a very wide, shingly beach. Once in the pub were darts games, against two apparently experienced players. The more we drank, the more the darts seemed to glide exactly where we wanted them. We were as astonished at our amazing victory as were our opponents, it took two or three days of amazement before we gave up trying to understand our brief moment of darts brilliance.