Back into the bathroom this weekend for some DIY, this time the shower in the shed – or ‘studio’ – where I have my office. We noted months ago that the silicone sealant around the junction between wall and floor was mottling with mould, and it seemed like the kind of simple job that’s within my scope. We obtained the necessary mould-resistant silicone in its tube, plus an Uzi-like applicator, and checked the how-to videos on YouTube.
Thus equipped, yesterday morning was the moment to dive in and start removing the mouldy stuff. Twenty minutes’ slashing at it with a Stanley knife and I was back on the web looking for the prequel to the previous video I’d watched: ‘How to Remove Old Shower Silicone’. The answer was surprising: apart from WD-40, which is difficult to clean off afterwards, good old white vinegar was the winner.
So off it was to the IGA with a shopping list. You know how it goes: “I’m nipping down the IGA to get white vinegar.” “Ooh, while you’re there, could you get some eggs? And some broccoli? And . . .?”
I hit Wallace Street, which is our main drag, and witnessed a particularly lively scene. While the border with Victoria is closed, the ACT is heading for the coast: kids are on school holidays, lockdown restrictions have been slackened, and the winter sunshine is bright. Utes towing boats, and caravans, cars carrying bikes, canoes, surfboards; black flocks of bikers.
It’s a cavalcade of Aussie outdoor lifestyle paraphernalia – conspicuous consumption in service of sunshine, big skies and sporty good times. People stopping and shopping with dogs and kids for pies and period bibelots, pot plants, handicrafts, and local produce: this traffic is the lifeblood of the town.
There was a queue outside the Albion Café and the tables on the pavement outside the Concept Café were all occupied. People were looking in the windows of the estate agents and checking out the contents of the Braidwood Quilt Store. Weaving through the slow walkers, I was suddenly struck by the sonorous strains of Brahms’s Cello Sonata no. 1 emerging from the open doors of the National Theatre Braidwood.
It was unexpected; it was incongruous; it was unexpectedly, incongruously lovely. I had a squiz through the open doors, where the only other onlooker was a tiny schoolgirl, and there in the cavernous interior was a small silver-haired man applying himself to his interest in the dim light. I took a couple of speculative photos, and then he noticed me and stopped for a chat. Turns out he’s a blow-in from a few years ago and a near neighbour – and we’re going to go around for dinner sometime soon.
Onward past the racks of Camo jackets outside Braidwood Outdoors and the rubberneckers at Provisions Deli & Grocery; a quick how-do to a friend from the old folks’ home, who was at a table outside the Lolly Shop chatting on her mobile (for non-Australians, ‘lollies’ are sweeties – acid drops, aniseed balls, jelly babies etc.), and the IGA loomed.
Once inside, I ran into a niece’s boyfriend, who’d been sent out shopping while niece tidied house ahead of a dinner with the parents that night – a serious relationship milestone. We exchanged slightly sheepish comments, in the manner of men out of their preferred environments, and I headed home with vinegar and the other stuff.
Anyway, I won’t bore you with a deep meditation on re-sealing a shower. Those tiled floors are cold, infrequently a frigid drop of water plops on you, the extractor fan’s drone gets into your head – and worst of all, kneeling there applying vinegar to the mouldy old silicone makes you smell like chips. That’s even before you get into it with the oozy stuff in the Uzi: it gets everywhere and making it look smooth and professionally-applied is frustratingly time-consuming.
So in the space of a few hours I’d gone from mellifluous Brahms in the bustling winter sunshine to acetic acid and muscle cramps on the shower stall floor. It’s this kind of contrast that makes life in Braidwood so rich and rewarding – a tapestry of sight, sound and smell that’s unmatched for its ability to surprise.