But not for long. This tired bathroom was on our list of things to fix when we moved in. Four years ago. For once apathy wasn’t the strategy here, many other expensive priorities came first; heating, windows that didn’t let in anything but light, a garden that wasn’t merely a 1/3rd of an acre of pea shingle, my workshop* and all sorts of other stuff nefariously stealing cash and time.

Until now. Now being a week away from the spare room being occupied by our pal Jason for the next four months. This was the only way I could persuade young Jas to come and work on this rather vexing project that’s 83 working days away from being finished** was to offer him free board and lodgings chez Leigh.

Said lodgings come with the only working shower in the building, other than having to cross the threshold of either of the kids rooms. And spending a shed load of cash on a new bathroom pales into absoluteinsignificancecompared to the horror of even contemplating something as fatallycourageousas that.

So in normal al&carol fashion, we waited until the absolute last moment before scheduling a bevy of tradesmen to come fit baths, showers, tiles, sinks and all manner of – what I’ve come to understand is amusingly called -sanitarywear. The original quote for this pantheon of drilled, white MDF put me in mind of NASA’s budget for a moonshot and put us in front of a keyboard for internet scourage.

Aside from some taps fantastically shaped like a pair of WWII gun turrets***, all major bathing items have arrived on pallets from various anonymous warehouses. Not so the tiles that have taken almost an entire Bank Holiday weekend to procure. If there’s anything moresoullessthan an empty tile barn peopled by desperate salesmen, it’d put even the most balanced individual on suicide watch.

Eventually tiles were procured, loaded into the now suspensionally challenged Yeti and unloaded by a man with more than a hint of a back injury. Fourteen massive boxes of something soon to be wall mounted currently sit creaking on the kitchen floor. Taking them upstairs was clearly about 12 steps to far especially as any remaining energy had been expended on destroying the current bathroom.

The space previously occupied by a massive immersion tank and some accompanying damp will soon house a new bath with a proper shower. From there loveliness shall expand outwards to new floors, sinks and bog. I care little for these but am childishly excited by the prospect of a LED movement activated mirror with ‘a full length demister pad’.

I’ve no idea what that might be, but it must surely be linked with the word ‘sanitary’. Chances of all this being done by next weekend? No idea, but those who have to work close to me might smell the answer a few days after that.

* well obviously. In fact that was done before the heating. Like I say, priorities.

** Not that I’m counting or anything. Or panicing. Oh now, not a seasoned professional steeped in the art of impossible deadlines. No, instead I’m in denial.

*** I am already thinking of the bath as my personal ‘Atlantic Wall’.