He said 'let there be water'. And two weeks later, there was water

Ohhh yeah!!! Qui est ton père?!

Today, I've actually accomplished something by way of manual labour and I feel like I could walk on water. Water from the newly gushing font in the bathroom which for the last two weeks has been dry and sorrowful, that is.



You may recall two weekends back when I had the most worrying of dilemmas; riverside pub or Homebase, as I had a basin flex to replace? Two, actually.

Well, only 14 days or three hundred and thirty odd hours later, visits to 14 individual DIY or plumbing stores, encounters with 14 acned teenagers posing as experts, with only three of them failing to hide their superious snarls, I have only gone and finished the job!

Hot on the heels of painting walls and mixing cement for a month in the summer of 1996, I now have my next DIY cap feather: Tap Flex Changer Extraordinaire.



Would you like to see my spanners?

So while I have a little time before the inevitable call comes in from Nick Knowles or close personal friend, Kirsty Alsop (I know someone who once met her) about my daytime-primetime-home-improvement TV show, I thought I'd impart some newly gained wisdom to save you the pain:

If you're dismantling a tap and then plan to remantle it, buy some of these.

You will not regret it.

Now I must leave as my work here as done. Also because Raj is coming round in an hour to talk about plastering so I've got to quickly dash to Homebase to buy a tiny pot of paint and a pencil. The pencil is to go behind my ear and the tiny pot of paint is so that I can accidentally drip a little in my hair and on my jeans; all to give the impression that I am some sort of DIY-expert who knows what plastering probably costs so that I won't be ripped off by Raj and chums. Cannot wait to spend an hour talking about and making out that I know about 'skimming', 'PVA' and a variety of other daunting words which I like the sound of but have no idea of their meaning.

This post would not have been possible without the invaluable input of the following stores (in order) and their teenage staff: Wickes, Homebase, Wickes (again), Homebase (again), B&Q, Screwfix, Screwfix (again), Plumb Centre, City Plumbing, Plumb Centre (again), City Plumbing Supplies, Bath and Plumbing Superstore, Screwfix (yes, again. I like it there, alright?), Homebase (again again).