So I should have learned. I mean especially with this, right? When we moved into Moselle Avenue – previous house in London – I spent two days lifting cork tiles from hall and bathroom and kitchen. “Lifting” is a bit of a misnomer, I was hacking at them with a floor scraper, with the result that my hands developed such huge blisters in the centre of them that I literally couldn’t move my hands by the evening and had to discover the joys of elastoplast gel plasters to do anything the next day.
So here I am faced with another kitchen floor, ceramic tiles laid on top of cork tiles…
Following the cue of the man from the flooring shop I have been scraping the tiles with the small end of my crowbar. When flooring shop man did it it looked so easy,. but he did only do 5cms before stopping. My efforts are a bit larger scale. This is what happens when you scrape it:
cork tiles helpfully leaping off the floor and saving me the bother of having to do any work at all. Not.
And just in case there’s any doubt as to what we’re dealing with here’s a piece with my hand to scale:
my hand and a piece of kitchen floor, earlier today
Alas, poor hand it looks so old! I shall never be Mr Pear’s Best Hand 2009! The plasterer took pity on me and leant me a scraper that performed somewhat better. And with the addition of steam from the wallpaper steamer things were fun fun fun till the plasterer took his scraper away and went home. (If I can make that scan it could work in a song lyric, or something.)
On my way home tonight I bought a floor scraper from Wickes for £10.99.
“You’d think I’d have though to buy one of these this morning,” I said to the cashier.
“I don’t want to know about what you did this morning,” she replied.
Fair enough.
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