Look at the Windowwwsh!!

Back in January I might have mentioned that in the course of the regular social club revelries, our bathroom window was sadly dispatched to the great recycling bin in the sky.

Since then, it has become a neat little shelf for passing clientele to place unwanted glasses and cigarette butts and even for one brave soul to think it might be an easy way into the house: that was until he had opened the secondary glazing and come eyeball to eyeball with a rather intolerant rotter.

We've taken these intrusions with fairly good humour, mainly because the new landlord of the Social has been good enough to move the smoking area away from their back door which means that our garden is not permanently filled with butts, and a fug of smoke - which is a blessing when you have a nose like a bloodhound, as I currently do - and he is generally doing his best to be a good neighbour, which we really appreciate.

Anyway, I digress: Last week we took delivery of a fine specimen of a window, kindly paid in full by the good folk of the SC Arlesey and last night I woke up from a doze on the sofa to find the dogs sulking out in the garden and two men lumping the living bejeesus out of what used to be a bathroom window.

This was less than helpful to my rather full bladder.

And I must admit that I was dubious about the sensibility of the proposal put to me by two grinning, mallet wielding lads with the good sense to keep a brick wall between them and a tired pregnant lady.

When your husband and his friend tell you they are going to replace a window in 2 hours and not to worry, quite frankly the first thing I want to do is reach for the hard stuff. That not being an option I did the second best thing and took myself off to collect some Freecycle items for Maybe, who I must say, is really doing rather well for someone who isn't even here yet!!

It was a risky strategy, one that could have resulted in me returning to find half a wall missing, but I chose to have faith that fear of reprisals would keep one or both of them in check.

When I returned home about an hour later, I was nothing short of dumbstruck at what I saw: It was a blinking miracle! There was a frame, in the hole in the wall, and it wasn't upside down, or at an angle. It was however being held up with a plank of wood.

*sigh*

Apparently, while we had measured the visible parts of the window very accurately, what we had singularly failed to notice was the that old window sill was vastly thicker at the window than it was on the other side. I believe the technical term for this is tapered.

The other slight flaw in the Great Window Plan was while the new window looks like a positive beacon of shining newness in a bathroom of doom, it is also in desperate need of some of the other vital elements that the bathroom is missing - like plaster for example.

As a result our bathroom now takes advantage of the amazing acoustic properties of the alleyway beyond and provides a delightful soundtrack to any ablutive activity. The culprit for this are the numerous tiny nibbles around the frame through which fresh air can not only be seen, but can be felt gently caressing any skin foolish enough to become exposed.

It may be summer dear friends, but believe me, it's not that warm at 9 o'clock at night when you've just stepped out of the bath!!

A massive thank you to Fish though, for giving up an evening to come and help Keith, I won't forget it .....