Discoveries, disappointment and murder

As Dad (Chief aka Dad) has grounded me, because of The Weed's giveaway, I thought I would continue with the decorating this weekend as I'm not allowed to go out and enjoy myself.

I've discovered I am pretty good at this painting and decorating business. And ok, all the insinuations that "I get paint everywhere" and have never been taken up on the offer to help paint (yes I somehow managed to get covered in paint just doing the paint run to the shop and bringing it back for my sister) may have some truth to it... I'm sure my painting attire isn't too badly covered, well no worse than a professional painter's overalls (ok they paint all day every day, I paint when the mood takes).

I've discovered carrying a damp cloth while painting is a great way to clean up spills and no one will ever know how messy a painter I really am.

I've discovered paint effect paint is good fun and not that hard to apply.

I've also discovered that when fixing the cracks in the ceiling, where the plaster boards have moved, you need to use flexible filler, not the normal poly filler, as you get disappointed when the cracks reappear and the time and mess spent sanding back poly filler, to have to apply correct flexible filler can drive one mental.

I've discovered that when tidying up paint job and mopping slate floor, the slate looks really great when wet... which means yes I'm going to seal the floor.

So, it was while in the process of prepping slate floor, that the vacuum dislodges a plastic covered package from behind the fire. The package had been tucked away, deep at the back, where the metal was bent to form the stand. I have a gas fire, which looks like a slow combustion wood fire, with glass front, logs and coal.

I drag the package out with the vacuum. I've never really considered myself to be a drama queen (that is my mum's forte), or to have an over imaginative imagination, unless of course messing around with friends.

But here lay this package.

As I continue to vacuum I keep looking at. It keeps drawing my eye to it. Not sure really what is in the package. Not sure whether I really want to know what is in the package. But it keeps drawing my attention to it.

There is of course a reason for this hesitation to open the package and find out.

The previous tenant of my house is a friend. Now I know friend well enough to know he is not into drugs or trafficking, or the like, and there would be no reason for him to hide anything. However, prior to my friend getting married, he had a housemate.

His housemate was a quiet, introverted person. Not like the previous one that was accident prone and nearly managed to burn the house down. When my friend had people around for a bbq, although housemate was welcome to join us, he would often than not make himself scarce back into his bedroom or would go out.

It wasn't long after the housemate had broken up with his girlfriend that he began to act strange. One evening when my friend had a female friend over the housemate started to get quite abusive to the female friend. So my friend told him to pack his things and to leave, otherwise he would get the police involved. As a precaution my friend had the locks changed to deadlocks. Not only because of the violent tendency, it was discovered in the bedroom the housemate had used, was evidence of ritualistic type going-ons. A few weeks after this incident, the now ex-housemate murdered his ex-girlfriend. He is fortunately locked away.

So the reason for my hesitation at not opening the package straight away, and yes my mind was going a little wild as to what could be in the package, I will admit. Drugs? a knife? a left behind ritualistic type item? And what was I going to do when I found out?

Eventually, curiosity out won the initial hesitation. I slowly unwrapped the carefully wrapped item. I'm not sure whether immense relief or immense disappointment washed over me at that moment. In the package were spare pieces of fake coal for the fire place.... mmmm maybe my imagination is a bit wilder than I first thought.