I had a whole sack full of small pebbles that I have collected from all over the beaches and lochs of Scotland, so I decided to do the shower floor with that, making a kind of mosaic. My husband used to call me Christina klip (stone) as wherever  we went, I always came back with a few big and pretty rocks, or some pretty pebbles. Rocks had such a fascination for my mum too, and she had a lot of fights with my grandma about being up in the mountain behind the houses, while her housekeeping skills were just about nil! I remember how, when we were small, she would just wait for my dad to round the first bend to see to his cattle and crops, and she would pack a picnic basket, and creeping slowly passed Grandma's house we would climb up the mountain and spend the day on the banks of one of the many streams that cascades down the mountain, which was called Waterberge (Water Mountains) as water just came out of the rocks everywhere. My mum would keep herself and us busy by looking to see who found the nicest stone, and we would swim and collect wild fruit like the now famous Marula. I think the Amarula liquer is known all over the world today! Once when she shirked the arduous job of the annual soapmaking, which was done with pig lard and caustic soda, I think,  my Gran was furious, and when my dad came back there was one heck of a row, with my mum standing there looking so innocent, her green eyes like that of a child, and my dad's heart would melt, telling Gran that she had only forgot! We all knew the truth, and Gran would errupt like a volcano, and Mum would fake a bucket full of tears!
I got some tile cement from the co-op shop, and started on the job of arranging my precious stones in a pleasing way into the tile cement that I had spread on the back part of the shower floor, then some more tile cement, more pebbles, and so on until I covered the whole floor. It looked beautiful, and I felt elated as now I could see my pretty pebbles whenever I had a shower. I also found later that it was wonderful as

a foot massage, as it was of course not flat and smooth, and that combined with the nice hot water running over my body, made for a pleasant experience indeed!
Just one wall of the shower was tiled, with the same orangy, garish designs as the rest of the bathroom, and I decided to paint it white. As I had not spent a lot of time in the bathroom yet, the hideous green bath sending me out feeling quite nauseous every time, and that bath, combined with the orange decorated tiles made for one uncomfortable bath. So I got the right paint from my adviser at the co-op, and was stunned at the difference it made. With the little bit of green in my floor design, and the white tiles, the ugly green of the bath didn't look quite so horrid anymore, and I decided to later paint the walls above the tiles a soft khaki green to go with the bath.
In the meantime Irma and the girls were working away painting their sittingroom's walls, as we would have our xmas dinner there if it rains, so it had to be dolled up, according to Irma. It was so funny to see Irma in action, she not very keen on mundane jobs, but just want to beautify!