Paint Work how to damage it, lose friends and generally muck it up

Well it isn't all quite going to plan on the car or personal front at the moment. Although these things are sent to try us I suppose! With the car I had some damage to the front bonnet from stone chips, well I say stone chips, these were more like gouges and seeing as they happened in April 2011 they have bugged the hell out of me ever since. Just to highlight the problem I then managed to pick up a similar chip next to the gouges. Setting out to repair this area last year I got to grips with my fine paint brush and delicately filled the offending holes. Only trouble with this was that they (although now black) looked like stone chips that someone had filled with black paint and not as invisible as I had hoped. More a Picasso than a Turner masterpiece!

Anyway coming right up to last weekend, I decided that I would rise early and enjoy a morning of car cleaning and polishing. Maybe fix a few of 'those' outstanding jobs. Well before I started I looked at another chip in a different area that I had recently filled with a dab of paint, flattened it with some 1500 grit and mopped the area. Low and behold all was great! I could not make out where the original to the metal damage was. Hmm, thinks I, let's have a go at the real problem area... Well probably with the 4 or 5 previous attempts I had had on fixing the problem the clear coat must have been getting a tad thin, for after my mopping I had a small dull patch now, on my otherwise gleaming bonnet. Naturally at first I tried to encourage the flat area back into life but only managed to enlarge the problem! Then the icing on the cake was wiping over the area with some thinners I managed to remove the paint I had lovingly applied to the original scratches.

Nothing for it but to do it properly and find a spray shop. Although this in itself is always problematical, although speaking to my soul mate Ingrid, who knows a really good reliable mechanic, who in turn knows an excellent sprayer, I felt I was well on the way. Alas disaster struck the very next day and all fell apart into ruin. I wouldn't want to dwell on this at length here, although at times like this you do tend to stop, take stock of all sorts of things and wonder what is actually really important?

Well in my particular case, at this particular time the car is all I have left that gives me pleasure. So I found a 'good' (we shall see) paint shop and booked her in for the 18th of this month. There is an event coming up on the 10th which I am possibly planning to attend. I also think that it's probably best when you feel a bit burnt out to focus on something, so I will see what February brings with some interest.