The bathroom

Our bathroom continues to consume time: days and days of choosing baths and toilets and basins, going from shop to warehouse to showroom trying to buy the right bits. We assembled all the different components in the hall and the plumbing brothers A and M looked them over when they arrived - only one missing item, so that was pretty good.

There are so many variables, and it was pure luck that we bought a basin and taps that might actually go together - I hadn't noticed that the basin had a single hole for a mixer tap. It would have been quite easy for us to buy two single ones, but luckily we didn't. And waste pipes, and fixing kits, and valves... When the plumbers had looked over our water delivery system, they recommended that we replace the ancient hot water tank, and that will probably happen in November.

This meant that all of my 'spare' time last week was spent on bathroom stuff, and Tuesday and Wednesday were frequently interrupted to look after the lovely plumbers, supplying them with tea and information and porcelain-based items. We have asked a designer/decorator to help us make the room nice afterwards, so she came round too, to see what the plumbers were up to and to make various helpful suggestions.

She was having a cup of tea in the kitchen with Mr A afterwards, and it turns out, almost unbelievably, that she recognised him from when she was at the Central School of Arts and he was at Camberwell College in London in the 1970's, and they lived in the same Halls of Residence. How she could have recognised him is beyond me, seeing as how he would have had some significant hair back then, and was a couple of inches taller because he hadn't yet had his major bike accident, and he said he didn't really talk to anyone when he was there.

On Tuesday the plumbing brothers A and M ripped out all the old fittings, and managed to install the new bath and nearly the toilet. On Wednesday, they completed the toilet and installed the basin. They were tidy and polite, they put down dustsheets, they cleaned up when they were finished, and were generally a pleasure to have in the house. Admittedly they did drive me to the edge by talking interminably about bikes with Mr A - they are both keen on motocross, whatever that is.

So now we have a new bath, toilet and sink in the bathroom, although we still have to be careful because there's no flooring down and the wall around the bath isn't yet complete. It should all be over by Christmas.