+ more than just brushes and paint +

Being a practical sort of chocolategirl it's not often I call in people to do 'jobs' around our little haven.

Plumbers = yes, electricians = yes ~ it goes without saying, leave that kind of thing to the professionals.

Decorating is mine.

I love it.

Most happy with a paintbrush in my hand, pod on shuffle, windows flung wide.

But my new kitchen renovation was a bit too much to tackle alone, so I called in Kevin.

He'd been recommended to me ~ I'd seen his excellent work and it was to my picky standard.

I left him to his own devices, with teabags + kettle + home baked banana loaf at his disposal.

Kevin filled and sanded and filled and sanded and undercoated and filled and sanded and painted and sanded and fat coated and tidied.

Three days later = a beautiful job of a real tough canvas.

What I wasn't expecting was the good conversation when I did see him.

We were the paintbrush appreciation society as he showed me his collection ~ most people would think that odd but I was interested to see what he used and how it compared with my own selection of brushes and fitches.

He offered tips as I watched him cut-in and I photographed his dust sheet.

Jackson Pollock like drips of past clients ~ history on a cloth.

Apart from inherent anorakness, he told me about a friend who had said that people think of time as ending now.

He explained, if you take a timeline ~ say from caveman to viking to present day, that timeline ends in the now.

What about the future?

Then the timeline would be infinite surely.

Deep and thought provoking indeed.

How good it is to make new connections.

Perhaps we gravitate to people of our tribe because they are similar and we recognise a likeness.

It's not often that a stranger comes into your home and you find he or she's a friend you didn't know you had.