Lumpy Fingers.

The sea mist was back again today but not as severe as yesterday. It's not cold either and I noticed that although we have the thermostat set at 18C the central heating has been off for most of the day. We had an oil delivery yesterday and we've only used half a tank (about 700l) over the whole winter. As long as we don't have a long cold spell before spring this current delivery should last us right up to next winter.

With no culinary disasters to clear up ( apart from a final scrub of the saucepan which after three soaks is now back to normal), I was able to get on with working on the hall cupboard. I removed by prising, unscrewing or simply snapping off, all the nails and screws sticking out of the plaster. The glass shelves only had to be lifted off some supports and are out the back ready for the dump. Next came the removal of the wallpaper from the top section. Having already destroyed the edge on the biggest of my cheap wood chisels I didn't worry about using it to scrape away at the paper. Then came the bit I really don't like, wetting the paper still stuck to the wall before scraping it off, this time with a proper wallpaper removing blade. I don't like that job because I find wet paper quite disgusting, it really makes me cringe, not sure why. I got that all done and was thinking about starting filling in the holes with Polyfiller but decided to leave that for another day. My work did not come without a cost. I wore work gloves but forcing my hand against the wall when I was taking out the nails damaged the joints on a couple of fingers and they now have sizeable lumps on them. The fourth finger has a lump the size of a large pea and there are two! smaller lumps on the joint of the little finger.  I've got them pressed into an ice pack but fear the lumps may be here to stay. Only the other day I was feeling a similar lump on the joint of my middle finger on that hand thinking how nice it was I didn't have any others. A good think I don't wear any rings. (I got out of the habit of wearing my wedding ring when it kept getting scratched from the reins when I was riding most days and then from my gardening tools.)

It sounds like a nice walk tomorrow which includes a visit to a walled garden so there should be some interesting photos.