No run today. I did get in 3km early yesterday morning, because I wanted to make up for the Wednesday post-SML fasting run disaster – so figured it would be wise to have a rest day.

I was up at the usual ridiculous hour to feed the ravenous kitties, then back to bed for a snooze. Despite all of this, I was still up and about proper at 8:30am. In the spirit of Actioning All The Items I decided today was the day I attacked the wretched tags on the front of ThePalace(OfLove).

Truly, the ‘ham is a veritable hive of tagging. Prior to living here, I thought taggers were simply poor, wee, disaffected, maginalised yoof who were simply exercising their creativity and expressing their disaffectedness. I considered those who had an issue with this were curmudgeonly old people who just did not understand either artistic expression and/or yoof.

Now I want the little bastards to be thrashed or horsewhipped or something, perhaps dipped in boiling oil? Truly there is not a vertical or horizontal surface in this suburb that is untouched. And even more galling, it is not even clever, or attractive – just repetitive and annoying.

A very small sample:

Yes, I am now a curmudgeonly old person. If I had a lawn, be assured I’d be insisting you remove yourself from it.

Anyway, ThePalace(OfLove) is on a main street and it has a very appealing large canvas right on the footpath and so we (and all of the neighbours) are a prime tagging target. Even though several terraces share this common frontage / building, we are not on a strata plan and don’t have a body corporate – which really is painful at times like this, because everyone has to take care of these things themselves, with varying levels of interest. To make things just that bit more challenging, the frontage is heritage listed and so no variation permitted in exterior colour.

Anyway we’ve pretty much let the tags slide for a long, long while because one of our neighbours kept promising “I’ll organise the paint and we’ll have a painting party!” every few months … and every few months … and every few months. Finally in the spirit of being grown-ups, getting a bit weary of the lack of action and with the party-promising neighbour now moving on, we sourced paint last weekend and I got out there this morning.

I only painted our frontage (and the neighbours either side where we have frontage in common), but it was amazing how many people in the neighbourhood walked past and congratulated me. Someone from a couple of doors down came out and asked for the paint colours, so I’m hopeful I’ve started a trend.

I have absolutely no confidence that the pristine surface will last even to New Year, but the key is apparently to attack early and often.