" I'll come back when the owners are home "

'The font' has returned from Stockholm. The fridge is full of suspicious looking dried meats, dill has reappeared, big time,on the menu and a copy of Dagens Nyheter is lying on the hall table. Wilf is on his best behaviour, delighted that he won't have to face another night of my cooking and hoping that a stray elk sausage will come his way.

The painting is almost, but not quite, completed. Much thought and effort was required to stop the relentless drizzle of emulsion from coating my hair and brow in a patina of Farrow and Ball Old White . Finally , a Eureka moment. I raided 'the fonts' cupboard in the bathroom for one of those bizarre shower caps that hotels always provide for their permed guests. Five minutes of scrambling around amid old bottles of perfume and a prize example of 'Adlon Hotel Berlin 1998' headware was located . Hair and brow protected.

Progress, in the early stages, was rapid but a constant stream of visitors slowed me down. At one stage I came down the ladder, brush in hand, to see why Wilf was barking only to come face to face with a woman I'd never seen before. She'd opened the front gate and foolishly let herself in. One look at me, paint can in left hand, paint brush in right ,speckled shower cap on top and a 'Yale Ruggers' sweat shirt dragging along the ground and she retreated. I heard her call out in French as she scurried to her car : ' I'll come back when the owners are home'. Gone before I could even say hello. Guess the pretty clear inference was that I didn't look like an 'owner'.

Wilfs advice to avoid any possible embarassment. ' If ever you see her again claim it was your long lost twin brother Callum from Mull. On second thoughts make that your long lost twin brother Callum from Mull who's a bit simple and a tramp'.