Painting and time travel

Yesterday I became slightly side-tracked from the research by needing to get started on my other summer holiday project - painting my house. Painting one side of it anyway - the master-plan being to paint one side every summer. I meant to start last summer, but procrastinated my way into winter. The weather over the intervening months has removed a large quantity of old paint for me, so being down to bare boards in a number of places, I really have to get on with it.

I spent yesterday morning and this morning, while that side of the house was in shade, water-blasting and scraping. And of course, most of the time I was thinking about what great-great-grandad William, the professional house-painter, would have thought if I could have zapped him through time to lend a hand. Once he had got over the shock of time travel, not to mention the sight of a woman in t-shirt and shorts, he would probably have agreed with me that the previous owners of this house did an appalling job last time they painted it (and possibly the time before that as well). I have to assume it was the owners - I hope nobody got paid to do a job this bad! Anyway, I think William would like the power tools. I am sure he would love the water-blaster, because I sure do - in fact, I might have to fight him for a turn with it. I just love blasting away and seeing great chunks of really bad paint come flying off. Scraping and sanding is not quite so much fun, but there is clear evidence of progress being made. At least it now looks like a work in progress, rather than the neglected dwelling of a slothful home-owner.

It's funny how I have more of a sense of William as a person than I do of Sarah. Maybe it's because I've spent most of the last week chasing him through old newspapers. Maybe it's because I'm more like him than I am like Sarah - not in the sense of looks or characteristics (I'm very much my father's daughter!) but in how I think, and what I do. I have absolutely no idea what it would be like to be a married mother of ten with no life outside the home. I have very little idea of what Sarah's views on her life and her world were. If I zapped her through time, instead of William, how would she react? What would interest her about life in 2008? It might be a good idea to exercise my mind with that next time I get back up the ladder to scrape and sand.