My passion for spring projects continues unabated. Our new garden furniture arrived last week via an enormous pantechnicon which pulled up outside and no doubt had curtains twitching up our end of the road. It was delivered on a wooden pallet, which the delivery chap helpfully wheeled up to the top of the drive on a little forklift machine, and deposited by the door. Three huge boxes of flat-packed sofa set which we managed to womanhandle into the hall, where we unboxed then stacked the eleventy hundred individual sections in the dining room.
Then yesterday, the exact same pantechnicon, driven by the exact same delivery chap, pulled up outside again. The hydraulic lift lowered another pallet, piled high with the rubber tiles for our patio, which was again deposited by the front door and we laboriously carried them all, two at a time into the back garden where they're now stacked outside the patio doors.
All we need to do now is borrow a shovel and a bolster chisel, and wait for the weather to warm up a few degrees in order to begin clearing the area of all the shingle. It's been bone-chillingly cold the past week or so, which gives working outside limited appeal, but next week things are due to warm up so we'll make a start in a few days time. It will likely take weeks, as due to advancing decrepitude we can only do short stints of about an hour at a time. But we keep reassuring ourselves that it's a small area and shouldn't be too bad, plus the sense of achievement we'll have when it's finished will be its own reward. I'm cautiously hoping that it might be finished in time for my birthday next month, but I'm not holding my breath.
In the meantime, we've been finishing the small jobs in the newly painted kitchen, including fitting the new made-to-measure blind, which was also delivered last week.
PP and I are veteran blind fitters, having hung every blind in the house, and subsequently replacing our original venetian blinds with vertical blinds in three rooms, and new roller blinds in the kitchen and bedrooms. I say this to emphasise the fact that we are completely competent DIY blind fitters, having hung dozens of the buggers.
Hitherto we'd always bought roller blinds which required cutting to size ourselves, and every single one was fitted perfectly. However, the exact colour I wanted for the new kitchen blind wasn't available off the shelf and had to be ordered made-to-measure. We thought that this would be a nice change from having to mess about cutting the roller and the blind fabric.... fiddly and time consuming tasks. With a made-to-measure one, all we had to do was fix the brackets and slot the blind in place.
Bish. Bash. Bosh. Done.
*insert eye rolling emoji here*
Having checked that it was the exact size we'd ordered.... after measuring the width umpteen times.... we decided to double check the size of the blind against the window to assess where the brackets should go.
*insert wide-eyed surprise emoji here*
The blind was about 6mm too short.
There followed a brief flurry of two-way recriminations, where we each blamed the other, before we pulled ourselves together and rose to the challenge of coming up with a solution. The obvious one was to fit the brackets against the top of the window recess, but previous bitter experience had taught us that the lintel above the window was akin to tempered titanium and resisted all attempts to drill into it, testified by the trail of broken drill bits whenever we'd attempted it over the years.
So we decided to opt for Plan B and mount the fixing brackets onto two small pieces of wood, each 3mm thick, and screw both bracket and wood into the sides of the recess.
I have a big box of wood offcuts in the workroom, so set about searching for a piece of wood 3mm thick. Of course, I had every thickness from 1mm to 15mm but no 3mm. So I made a composite piece using 1mm and 2mm, which when we drilled into it, split in two.
Back to the drawing board and I found a piece with was just under 3mm which we thought might do. By this time we'd been at it for almost 4 hours, and were flagging. Then, stepping backwards off the kitchen worktop onto the chair, my right leg slipped and my knee 'popped' alarmingly. After a few agonising minutes of manipulation (and swearing) it sort of clicked back into place, but my climbing efforts were ended for the duration.
I was all for throwing in the towel and going back to it the next day, but PP had a glint in her eye which signalled that she was in it for the long haul, so I performed the role of limping tool attendant. Our full size electric drill was too big so we resorted to using my mini drill, and broke three small drill bits. Nothing we tried was working..... our mounted brackets were flexing and the although the blind would fit in the holes, the slightest tug on the cord was yanking it out of the housing on the left hand side.
We were tired, we were annoyed, both with the blind and with each other. We were frustrated, it was getting late and I was in pain from my knee and PP was in pain from her back. We were getting tetchy with each other and were within a whisker of having a full-blown row. It could go either way.
It was at that point that I suggested knocking in a wedge to stop the bracket from flexing. As soon as the words were out of my mouth I knew we'd reached tipping point. We hate resorting to bodging jobs, and will do anything to avoid it. The look on PP's face was the very picture of a mix of disdain and disbelief.
That did it.
I dissolved into a fit of giggles, which quickly morphed into howling hysteria, with tears running down my face. Fortunately, PP followed suit, then we were hanging onto each other, roaring with laughter. The kitchen looked like a bombsite.... tools and mess everywhere, detritus from our failed attempts, and the blind was on the windowsill, still resolutely defying all attempts to hang it.
In the end, in desperation, we added another thin piece of wood on the left hand side which seemed to do the trick. OK, so there is now a slight discrepancy in the centring of the damn thing, but if you have the light in front of you and squint when you look at it you'd hardly notice. I'm going to make some new bunting to hang over the window, which will hopefully both conceal and distract from any wonkiness.
I always say you can't go wrong with bunting.
We have also now sworn a solemn oath, never, ever to hang another blind as long as we both shall live, and putting the whole sorry debacle behind us are bracing ourselves looking forward to making a start on the patio project.
After all..... what could possibly go wrong?
