Well, I forgot that I needed to go to the post office when I was making my list. Having put it up I instantly realised that my first job of the day was postofficing. So of I wandered. My original plan, such as it was, was to go into town; collect my contacts, my parcel and post stuff. But then I realised that I was knackered and really didn’t fancy it.
So I wandered there, and I wandered back. I read some of Makers, and I chatted to James, and then finally poked myself with the giant get-off-your-arse stick and went and dealt with the shower. The hot supply of which had managed to develop a very slow drip. I’m suspecting this is a case of thermal expansion/contraction because it’s been fine for over a year. A quick tighten and it seems to have stopped. Should have done it ages ago, really.
Then I decided to take on the kitchen tap. This was, I believed to be a simple disconnect and unscrew old tap; assemble, put in and connect new tap. Ye-es. I also believed that taps had a standard size hole in which they fitted. Apparently not. Because this tap was bigger than the hole. A bit of filing later and it fitted, but by then I’d munged the top-ends of the threads, which is where the “no, it definately isn’t a wiggle-it-and-it’ll-fit” realisation came to me. Thus I spent an inordinate amount of time under the sink turning the brass retaining nuts 1/8th of a turn with a spanner because they were just slightly too tight to turn by hand.
Knowing that I was tired I very carefully followed the instructions, checking each step of the way that I had done exactly as described. I turned on the water. No leaks. I turned on the tap, the cabinet under the tap became the new and exciting Slough Swimming Pool with added water features (Be amazed by our wet pile of tiles in what was once a cardboard box!); yes, it turned out that the instructions lacked a vital note.
Having done much mopping and cleaning, I discovered that in one of the bags lain unnoticed were two small washers. Not in the diagram, not in the instructions. No. It comes with 4 hoses, this tap. 3 of them have all the sealing washers built in. One, it turns out, does not. Thankfully it’s an easy to reach one. Having reassembled it, and switched the hot-and-cold around so that they were the right way round (doh!) the tap now doesn’t appear to leak. But I think that’s me for the day.
I’m now resorting to contemplating the rearrangement of the office and more pressingly the larder.
