Lino Day.

I've had a whole day working at home which has mainly been spent laying lino tiles. Getting the first row done took nearly all morning. The tiles have a faint squared pattern so it was a matter of much adjustment so that they look reasonably straight as the walls aren't straight and the corners aren't 90 degrees. Also I found that there are advantages and disadvantages to using lino tiles that have been sitting in a cupboard for many years. The advantages are that you don't have to spend more money and also you are not wasting the planet's resources. The disadvantages are that either the glue on the back is dried up completely so they are not sticky at all or the paper backing is very difficult to remove. Having twisted into awkward shapes to carefully draw around all the fixtures in the room I then found that the remaining adhesive is not enough and the tiles will need to be glued down. Not to panic, there's a tin of tile glue in the cupboard. 

Tiling and a couple of rest breaks took up most of the day but I have made a start of cutting out the pieces for the unit that will hide and protect the various pipes running across the corner. Just 2 pieces to cut tomorrow and once the tiles are glued down I can assemble the unit. Hopefully that won't be too hard a job.

Sadly the General Election did not go the way I hoped and there will be another 5 years when the working poor (who after state pensions are the biggest group of people needing public assistance) will still be forced to agree to having zero hours contracts. Once you are on one of these contracts you are deemed to 'be in work' so miss out on some statutory state benefits or have to claim in arrears, yet you can be contacted by text 20 mins before your start time to say you are not getting any work that day. Or you arrive at work to be told you will only be working for 2 hours and you can't have a second job during the hours that your exploiter, sorry employer might require you. What an evil system. No wonder the number of people needing to use food banks has increased dramatically over the last few years.