Cold Knees

Cold knees!

Not, as you might imagine, an advanced state of the better known analogy of fear, but the first symptom of a less than perfect “hot, deep bath”. There are so many factors at play to ensure the perfect deep bath experience: children's impeccable behaviour or better still children's absence; Stress free environment; Very hot, deep bath; No interruptions, Gorgeous bath products. The likelihood of achieving all these conditions in one sitting is about as likely as a lottery win. I have, in the past, worked it like a military operation, everything precision planned from start to finish, only to be scuppered by Jehovah's groupies at the door just as I am sliding into a paradise of bubbles. An elusive experience at the best of times.

As I lay here surveying the paint peeling off the tiles and the gaping hole over the soil pipe, I realise I have been kidding myself. For indeed, the perfect deep bath experience would in fact involve the complete refurbishment of our decaying bathroom. How were two, fairly well educated, intelligent people so utterly fooled by the splash of white tile paint and the hideous shell stencils? This bathroom is a train wreck. Nothing matches anything else in the house let alone in the bathroom. The suite must have been the original from back in the sixties. I think it had some elegant title like ”champagne”, alluring to opulence and luxury which the previous owner made his life's work to dispel by covering every remaining surface with laminate flooring: the floor, the end of bath shelf, the over the toilet shelf, the under the sink shelves and his piece de resistance the side bath panel; beautifully jigsaw cut to fit over pipes and finished with non-matching brass effect handles and so ill-fitting that if you perch on the edge of the bath you are in danger of receiving a blood blister the size of a bar of soap!

The soil pipe was boxed in but is currently exposed after an aborted attempt to replace the toilet ourselves. We have been talking about 'doing the bathroom' since we moved in 5 years ago. Things came to a head last year when the flush started to go on the loo and we had glued the flush handle back on for the third time. He attacked the soil pipe cover with gusto and rash statements about seeing “what we were dealing with” and “don't worry this way it looks like a work in progress”. We dashed round the DIY store filling our trolley with all things loo. We chose a weekend with a bank holiday for the project. Soil pipe exposed, all new purchases and tools lined up, tank in loft inspected, stop-cock located and DIY book open at relevant page, we were ready for the challenge of fitting a beautiful new toilet and the prospect of gradually working through the bathroom fitting by fitting until we were the proud owners of a crisp, shiny, clean new bathroom without a blue stencil or laminate board in sight.

That reminds me, I must check the bowl under the dripping stop-cock tap. For indeed, that is as far as we got. Apparently, according to any DIY tippers, one should check the mains stop-cock by turning it on and off every 6 months, a habit we have not acquired over the past 5 years. I suspect the laminate -wielding ex-owners were also unaware of this timely necessity, since they had boxed it in behind the whole kitchen unit. My saucepan cupboard now supports two fetching holes in it's side, both which require Houdini contortions in order to reach the stop-cock tap. The aforementioned tap never moved more than the proverbial mosquito's nether regions but now produces a slow and taunting drip into a space one would be hard pushed to fit an egg cup let alone a bucket, which I might add is already hard at work in the loft!

A long, rubber, bug-eyed caterpillar slips into the bath swiftly followed by Daphne from Scooby-Doo, an unlikely alliance but united in a campaign to undermine what set out to be quite a promising bathe. Add 'remove all children's bath toys' to the list.

As if by magic my children's seventh sense (what is/are parent/s up to?) springs to life. Inexplicably they home into the 'silence' from upstairs. That primeval cry that alerts every mother in earshot.......