The debonair Basil Marigold's

 For many years now we have had a tiny mirror that we bought with us when we moved. We put it up in the hallway of our new house. The hallway swamped it, and I was the only one who could see in it, because that was were the hook went. We have been in the house for nearly two years. I found myself in B&Q this week. I have been on annual leave and we have been doing some DIY. Before I went I mentioned to my wife that I'll have a look at mirrors while I remember! And I did remember! There wasn't a huge selection available in all fairness and after I thought long and hard I found one which seemed really good.  Here, therefore is the start and the finish. I can now safely say that my entire can fit within the mirror. Indeed, according to my wife, most of the street would fit in! And I quote my wife here with the following quote, 'Do you think we would have bought a mirror that big if I had been with you?' hahahahaha Here is the old mirror sat underneath the new hallway m

 I had forgotten to mention that a few weeks ago we required some plumbing work to be done outside. A pipe had been caught by a piece of falling masonry and seemed to have got cracked, when another piece of pipe was sliced through. Hadn't noticed the crack until we experienced a smell in the bathroom. We then discovered that there was a u-bend on the end of the pipe outside. When taken off and cleaned out the pipe cracked some more and then began to leak. The issue was the pipe was just a fraction to high for me with our current step ladders. We bought them when we moved in. They have been useful, but they were never the tallest stepladders. In the end we bit the bullet and looked at buying some more practical ladders that would allow us to go higher if needed. I found ladders of the telescopic variety. They are lightweight and push down to a smaller size than even the step ladders we own!  Like the vast majority of items that are physically made nowadays they arrived from China, a

Yesterday, the nightmare scenario happened to my wife. She went to turn on the heating and...Nothing. It was dead. The thermostat wouldn't communicate to the boiler. We had water, we just had a sullen, non-responsive white box refusing to 'engage'. Her poor little face. Within 5 hours she'd been out the house to see a friend. Clearly leaving me to cope in sub-arctic conditions while she sat in a warm house. When she returned home, a portable, three bar heater was in her possession, like some artful dodger! It helped, but the drawback of an open plan living and dining room is the difficulty to heat that kind of space with a portable heater. It is, however, better than nothing.  Fortunately the plumber came out fairly quickly and fixed the transmission issue between the thermostat and the boiler. Hey, Presto! we have normal heating back and the joy of having the warm under floor heating in the kitchen was wonderful. All for the bargain price of £40. At some point we'l

 Friday afternoon, after work we were surprised to discover an ambulance parked outside of our home. Right outside. W e couldn't figure out why, or for whom it had been called. It remained here for a good 20 to 3o minutes. A mystery to us all. We looked out of ground floor and upper floor windows to get a better view, or to try and figure out what was going on! All to no avail, sadly.  However, my wife was due to return relatively soon. This was noticed by one of my children who used their ingenuity and suggested that what I should do is go and lie down, prostrate on the drive when we spotted my wife's car in the distance. On her arrival past the ambulance she will then immediately see me lying on the ground. We put this to a vote and agreed that this was a brilliant idea! One of our very best in fact!  Sadly things went wrong; 1) The ambulance drove away about 10 minutes before my wife arrived  We thought this a shame as we felt this would have been an amazing prank. Unless of

 I think with my poor mental calendar my daughter, the first born, has been in secondary school for 5 weeks now. Maybe 4 full weeks and a couple of days. It is the beginning of the most crucial period of her growth as a human being. 11-20 is quite a time of fundamental change. From child to adult. For most that is. I have stretched mine out a bit longer than that, some would argue. Here she stands on this monumental threshold, the shadow she casts now is very small and not so far into the distance, but it will grow and then stretch further as she becomes a woman. It's a brand new start for her. I think she is currently enjoying it. I think, personally, that this current pandemic has helped her by keeping the older children away. The school will be less of a bear pit than they inevitably are, or can be if you are in someway timid, weak, or daft. Teenage children can have a proclivity towards being hurtful. You kind of want to keep them safe and protected from it all, don't you?