Today was the first of the dreaded Half Days. We started at 12:30 rather than the usual 9:30AM. This may not sound too bad - you may even argue that it's a good thing, allowing for a lovely lie-in rather than the frantic dash to get breakfasted, dressed and out to the bus. This was, in fact, the general feeling.

For me, however, the half day was a nightmare. This was for two reasons. Reason the first: I hate dawdling. I'm the kind of person who likes to get stuck in and attack a project with explosive force. Reason the second: we're working to a deadline. Quite a strict one, at that. There'll be no bargaining for extra days, here. And we certainly can't have the Mayor of St. Helens walking into an unfinished youth club. Because of this, even an hour lost feels like a huge step backwards.

Anyway, now for the day's work. Despite the loss of half a day, we did spectacularly well. All the surfaces were sanded and the polyfiller applied yesterday. Today the only sanding we had to do was to smooth off the polyfiller which took about half an hour, and then we could start painting. Vicky told us we could start with the first coat on the pink walls, and that there was the required paint in the sports hall. While the others finished off sanding, I scuttled off to get the pink paint...

Except it wasn't pink. It wasn't terracotta, either, which was my first thought. It was more like a peachy salmon colour, which was miles away from what we wanted.

Thankfully, though, this was just the first coat going down. The pink we wanted would go over the salmony peach quite well, and so we used it for the first coat. Using brushes, we tackled the corners of the walls first, and then Anna, Laura and I whipped out the rollers and did the rest that way. While we were using the brushes, progress was quite slow. As soon as we got rollers, we became paint rockets. We blitzed those walls. They didn't see it coming. Because they didn't have any eyes. Though they may have heard us coming...

I got paint in my eye while we were working, and it bloody hurt. It was when we'd just started using the rollers; I was attacking the wall with such force that droplets went everywhere; my overalls, my hair, my face... and my eye. It didn't half sting! My vision in that eye was a bit funny for a while afterwards, but it cleared up. I decided it would be wise to give Vicky my glasses to look after, so they wouldn't get messy. It's not such a problem now, with us using water-based emulsion paint, but later on, when it comes to glossing the woodwork, we'll have to be quite careful.

Later on, we were joined in our painty adventures by Katie and Jane. At the end of the day, Ryan offered his tallness/services to paint the unreachable bits, while the rest of us cleaned up. At the end of the day, we'd done the pink walls, ready for the second coat. Tomorrow, if we don't put the first coat on the white walls, then we'll definitely be doing the second on the pink.

Personally, I've got high hopes for this project, now. All we're waiting on now is for Tim to finally contact A & B Paints and Barton's Carpeting for the donations they're offering. A & B have piles of paint and rollers/brushes for us, which will be great for the main room, and Barton's are offering to supply carpet (and hopefully underlay) for the Boys' and Girls' Rooms. There was a bit of a faff at the end of today because he was meant to contact them a few days ago, but hopefully he'll get round to it now we've told Vicky that we need the stuff as soon as possible.

Tomorrow we have a full day's work ahead of us. Yes, it will be knackering, but at least we'll have an hour's break in which to recover. Plus, we'll have all that time to our advantage. If anything, I reckon we could get two coats of paint up. It all depends on the resources we have available.

Tell you what, though, I've been paid. So if we're struggling for resources, I could always pop round to Wilkinson's during our break to get a few bits and pieces...