Boots and nail varnish

Having retired at the age of 43, I'm regularly asked what do I do all day?

The answer to that today was easy - nothing. This is because today was the first "really nice day" of 2010 (it's been a shocking winter and spring, weather-wise on Flores) and it seemed rude after lunch not just to sit out all afternoon and enjoy it, reading books.

That was our garden at the back of lunchtime today and I hope you'd agree that the prospect of sitting in it reading was a very enticing propsect. However, there was a slight disappointment around 2.30pm when it came on rain. It was not heavy enough to force us inside but it was enough to make me change reading material. That's because I didn't want the pages of my book (about the British Fisheries Society 1786-1893, since you ask) to get crinkled in the rain so I swapped it for the Economist magazine.

We subscribe to the Economist, a British weekly news magazine which believes that democracy and an unrestrained free market will sort all the world's woes from mobile phone coverage in the Horn of Africa through climate change to volcanic ash clouds. But the book reviews are good - so good that they save you the trouble and expense of actually buying the book.

Anyway, I've digressed - where was I? Oh yes, reading about Yemeni politics rather than British fisheries in the rain to save pages being crinkled.

It later brightened up again but - after a wander with my camera during which our neighbour invited me into her back garden for the best view on Flores (above) - I decided to attempt to make a bit of a dent in the backlog of Economists with the result I'm at the end of January (2010) and am fully up to speed with the Haitian earthquake. (This reminds me of the moment in Blackadder when he's got to re-write Dr Johnson's dictionary in 24 hours and, having done "a", the indefinite article, says "Good. So we're well on the way.")

Anyway, after the sun goes down behind the hill behind our house, about 5pm in April (the current month, not the issue of the Economist I'm reading), it got a bit chilly so I repaired indoors for a spot of my other favourite leisure activity which crowds the hours of the day - making model aircraft.

   

I'm currently embarked on a 1950's Air France Super Constellation but have become bogged down in its "boots". To explain, the "boots" on 1950's airliners were devices along the leading edges of the wings and tail etc. to prevent ice build-up. They were rubber hoses which could be inflated periodically to cause the accreted ice to crack off. Anyway, Minicraft, the makers of the kit, have chosen to represent the boots by supplying black transfers you stick on and wrap round the leading edges. I could have told them this was impractical ... I'm losing you aren't I?

Long short, I felt a bit like the proverbial one-armed paper hanger asking Carol to bring me nail varnish as a last ditch attempt to apply something that might make these boots stick. But to no avail and I'm now embarked on a complicated masking job to apply the boots by paint - almost as egregious as sticking the broken propellor blades back on: how I suffer for my art to get an authentic 1950s airliner ...

Anyway, that's what I did today and it's 23.35. I'm off for a delayed chapter of British fisheries by way of relaxation before bed.