How it cost £30 to change a light bulb.

Well, I made the poker practice session a mere four and a half hours late. Everyone was liquored up just enough for it to be futile to play any more. A few hands of erratic playing to diverse and incomprehensible wimsy rules saw to that.

Still, it was nice to catch up with a few people I don't get to see very often.

In my defence, I would have been there earlier, but last night the strip light in the kitchen blew and needed replacing in daylight.

How hard can it be to replace a strip light? Done it before: easy-peasy.

Except that neither Beastie nor I are tall enough to reach the damned thing, even standing on the tallest chair in the house. He is about 6'4", while I am a mere 5'113/4". (It is a matter of great regret to me that I never made that final 1/4 inch. Grumble).

I was pretty sure, since the bulb went out after about an hour, that it was the bulb and not the starter that had blown, but since household maintenance hasn't been a priority of previous tenants (some of whom read this very journal - shame on you), I reckoned better safe than sorry. So it was of to B&Q for supplies. Half an hour later, armed with a pack of starters, a strip light and a newly purchased step ladder, I was ready to begin. Except that the strip light that looked to be four feet long from the floor, was in fact, five feet long.

Bollocks.

Happily, the strip light in the entrance, which hasn't worked since before I moved in, is four feet long. So I used it there, along with a new starter. The fact that the pillock who installed the strip light assembly in the first place secured it to the ceiling with two minute screws is another matter; the damned thing nearly came down bodily while I was attaching the bulb. After much cursing and sweat, it is now installed again, but held to the ceiling largely by the power of art and aesthetics.

Still, we now have light in the hallway. Hurrah.

Anyway, this still left the problem of the kitchen light, all the way up on the inaccessible ceiling. Back down to B&Q, and home again with a standard five-foot strip light. Ten minutes of wobbling and cursing from the top of a step ladder later, and we again have light in the kitchen.

It was only afterwards I noticed the sticker on the step ladder advising all comers that the maximum safe weight is 15 stones. Well, they build some leeway into these things don't they?

Cripes.

How it cost £30 to change a light bulb.

Well, I made the poker practice session a mere four and a half hours late. Everyone was liquored up just enough for it to be futile to play any more. A few hands of erratic playing to diverse and incomprehensible wimsy rules saw to that.

Still, it was nice to catch up with a few people I don't get to see very often.

In my defence, I would have been there earlier, but last night the strip light in the kitchen blew and needed replacing in daylight.

How hard can it be to replace a strip light? Done it before: easy-peasy.

Except that neither Beastie nor I are tall enough to reach the damned thing, even standing on the tallest chair in the house. He is about 6'4", while I am a mere 5'113/4". (It is a matter of great regret to me that I never made that final 1/4 inch. Grumble).

I was pretty sure, since the bulb went out after about an hour, that it was the bulb and not the starter that had blown, but since household maintenance hasn't been a priority of previous tenants (some of whom read this very journal - shame on you), I reckoned better safe than sorry. So it was of to B&Q for supplies. Half an hour later, armed with a pack of starters, a strip light and a newly purchased step ladder, I was ready to begin. Except that the strip light that looked to be four feet long from the floor, was in fact, five feet long.

Bollocks.

Happily, the strip light in the entrance, which hasn't worked since before I moved in, is four feet long. So I used it there, along with a new starter. The fact that the pillock who installed the strip light assembly in the first place secured it to the ceiling with two minute screws is another matter; the damned thing nearly came down bodily while I was attaching the bulb. After much cursing and sweat, it is now installed again, but held to the ceiling largely by the power of art and aesthetics.

Still, we now have light in the hallway. Hurrah.

Anyway, this still left the problem of the kitchen light, all the way up on the inaccessible ceiling. Back down to B&Q, and home again with a standard five-foot strip light. Ten minutes of wobbling and cursing from the top of a step ladder later, and we again have light in the kitchen.

It was only afterwards I noticed the sticker on the step ladder advising all comers that the maximum safe weight is 15 stones. Well, they build some leeway into these things don't they?

Cripes.