IN an effort to save some money, I decided I would decorate my bathroom myself.

“Mum, you’ll regret it.” my daughter stated.

“Jenna, it’s only a small bathroom and I’ll save a wee fortune if I do it.”

“How difficult can it be?”, I thought.

Friday night and I was all set and raring to go.

Music was blaring, I had my protective apron and rubber gloves on, with paint and various brushes and rollers at the ready.

I climbed a rather shoogly set of ladders and began to roller the ceiling.

However, before long, the white paint had splattered thousands of tiny white gloss spots over my face as I worked away. Despite this I was determined to carry on.

On to glossing the window frames and all was going great until my mobile rang.

Attempting to answer it, I forgot I still had my rubber gloves on which were covered in gloss paint, so next minute my newish shiny phone was covered in white gloss too!

“I’ll clean everything when I am done,” I thought.

Reaching the top of the window frame, gloss started trickling down the paint brush and down my right arm and on to my clothes. When I looked down from the shoogly steps, I noticed splatters of white gloss had also covered my bathmat, which I had forgotten to lift.

Knackered, I leant back to admire my work and gloss paint from my arm stuck to the bathroom mirror.

“Mum, look at the state of you,” my daughter arrived to scrutinise my efforts.

“Your face and hair are completely covered.”

“There’s paint on the bathmat, toilet, bath and the floor.”

“In fact," she ranted; "There’s barely anything in this room that does have bloody gloss paint on it!”

On hearing of my futile efforts, my pal Raymond, who has 30 years’ experience as a decorator offered to help.

“I would have helped Janice,” he said.

Attempting to cheer me up he continued by telling me about an old man he visited recently to chat through his decorating needs.

“Have you a specific colour in mind Jack?,” he asked the pensioner who was redecorating every room in his house.

“Oh, yes son.

“I’ve had a look at the hundreds of colour charts you left and decided to go for the same cream colour in every room in the house.”

“Brilliant," thought Raymond.

“That’s what I like to hear.”

Raymond knew that this paint job would be a doddle.

“So Jack, what colour are we settling for then?”

Rummaging through the paint charts, Jack held up a small sample.

“I’ve finally decided to go for that Mongolia colour son.”

“Mongolia?,” Raymond thought he was hearing things.

“Yes son," he nodded enthusiastically.

“I’m going to go for a creamy shade throughout and Mongolia is the one for me.”

Raymond hadn’t the heart to correct Jack at the time and painted his entire flat Magnolia because, funnily enough, Mongolia wasn’t on any of the paint charts!

A week later and we were out trekking with our walking group when our chit chat was interrupted by one of our fellow walkers, David who was also seeking Raymond’s advice about his impending efforts to decorate his large living room.

“Well David," Raymond suddenly sounded very professional.

“Do you have a particular colour scheme in mind?”

“Colour scheme?,” David seemed rather bewildered.

“What do you mean colour scheme?," he asked my pal.

“Well …….. usually people choose colours to match their carpet or sofa, or curtains.

“So that everything in the room co-ordinates.”

Shaking his head David retorted:"Co-ordinates?

“Oh no, I’m not going in for any of that girlie stuff.”

“The living room just needs freshened up with a lick of paint.But I do have a colour in mind.”

Now, over the years Raymond had spent hours with customers deliberating over colour schemes, and just couldn’t understand why anyone wouldn’t want to colour co-ordinated their room, especially when there were hundreds of colours to choose from.

“I can lend you some colour charts," he offered.

By now the three of us were walking through a dense forest when suddenly David stopped in his tracks and pointed to a tree.

“No need for charts Raymond because that’s the exact colour I’m going for.” He plucked a very dark green leaf.

“Eh?” Raymond examined the leaf before stating the obvious.

“David, your living room will be very dark and dreary if you paint all four walls dark green.”

I nodded in agreement, but decided not to offer what David would assume was my ‘girlie’ advice.

“And what colour are you planning to do your ceiling?”

“Grey.”

“Grey?”

“Yes, I found an old tin of Dove Grey non-drip gloss in the cupboard under the stairs and thought I might as well use it up.”

“Grey?”

“Gloss?” Raymond couldn’t get his head around David’s decorating ideas.

“Maybe he’s colour blind,” I whispered to my pal.

“I hope for his sake he is Janice," he laughed.