Slapdash Bodgeit & Co.

After the previously trailed trip to Homebase as well as an extra trip to B&Q, Gareth and I have been hard at work assembling and putting up bathroom cabinets, hanging pictures, hanging an antique overmantle, picking up the picture that we knocked off the wall when we were hammering on the other side of it, plastering our wounds as well as the cracks in the walls and generally making a bit of a mess. I bought a new thingy to fix the loo handle which, having dismantled the old one in a way that would make a trained plumber weep, I discovered did not fit. At least I can now see that the old handle was broken anyway (well that is my story and I am sticking to it). Tools are strewn everywhere along with small bits of rawlplug, brick dust and other detritus and somewhere a dessert bowl full of Polyfilla is going hard - I was sure I put it on the window sill in the bathroom. In short we have been having a lot of fun.

Helen and her mum have been keeping a low profile as the swearing intensified, but periodically we could hear the low hum of the hoover as Helen's mum surreptitiously cleared up some of the carnage we had left behind as we moved from room to room.

Gareth has also turned his excellent restoration skills to repairing three broken sculptures, in one case building two new ears for a soapstone cat from jam and spit or a mixture of Polyfilla and Araldite anyway.

Tomorrow, after we have done the shelves in Emily's room we are going to sit down and solve the crisis in the Middle East.

Molly ? Oh she's fine.