Kitchen sink dramas

Once again, we fail at DIY. I have a rant on this subject, about how the Modern Way is that you can buy luxuries which were beyond the dreams of the recent past, but you will have to assemble them yourself. It usually complaihns of how they (yes, They; for it is All Their Fault) will sell you a computer in a box with a blithe 'there you are!' as if this were all you needed to use it efficiently. But a variant version is about DIY, and how this is sold as the favourite recreation of the Brave New World, when it is, in fact, simply the result of not being able to find anyone to D it for Y. Anyway...

There's a long-standing issue with the kitchen sink, which is that the plug fits into a sort of drainer trap, and if it isn't pressed in firmly it allows the water to drain away slowly, instead of holding it in the sink. Sometimes, if it's in that sort of mood, it does it anyway, and no amount of coaxing will persuade it to remain watertight. It's one of those eatures that you live with, that you barely notice in your own home, like the creaking floorboard and the door that has to be closed just so - but sometimes we have visitors. It was D., visiting, who remarked that the plug was very worn, that it was a standard fitting and that we would not find it difficult to replace. Which seemed plausible, and next time we were passing Homebase I enquired, but they couldn't help, and I shelved the whole thing until we were next passing a more serious supplier (and then, I admit, I forgot about it).

Then the lightbulb died in the centre light in my study. My study is the attic, and the ceiling, even in the centre, is very low, but we had found a plastic dome light fitting, designed for a bathroom, which had worked very satisfactorily until we replaced a previous lightbulb with one which must have been too powerful, for it burned a hole right through the middle of the dome. But we had found a replacement light fitting on one of our trips to Lidl - and now that the bulb needed to be replaced would be the perfect time to fit it. It was very similar to the previous one, but rather more solidly made of glass. How hard could this be? Well, too hard for us. You have to drill three holes in the ceiling (which, did I mention, is of not very substantial plasterboard)insert the plugs provided, then thread the electric wires through the hole in the fitting and screw through the three small holes into the plugs. It took two of us, with much cursing and uncertainty about which marks showed where the holes should go, and the desk chair (and old kitchen chair, nothing fancy but I was fond of it) got broken and eventually we gave up.

Since we were going out to B & Q to look for light fittings, we took the sink drainer with us, and although we couldn't find a light fitting (and I am typing now by the too-bright light of a spot light in a dark room), we did find a sink drainer and trap fitting. We had to buy both parts, of course, because the way they fit together is not the same as it is in the unit we already have. durham_rambler emptied the cupboard under the sink (because we've made that mistake before) and removed all the bits, and cleaned the sink thoroughly - and discovered that he couldn't use the new fitting to replace the old one because the piping supplied is about an inch shorted. There was some give, and he enlarged the hole in the cabinet to maximise that, but it wasn't enough: after spending most of a morning crawling under the sink, while the washing up piled up around him, he reinstated the old fitting.

Then it began to snow.

In the face of this sort of adversity, there was nothing for it but to retreat to the internet and make holiday plans, as a result of which I have made the first booking for a summer trip to Orkney. So it's not all bad news, but I hate the sense of entropy, things breaking and wearing out and being unable to fix them.