Westacre Day minus 39 today, but let me tell you about yesterday…

It was all going very well, better than I had expected. Even though I’ve had a bad experience with tiling before, I had said I was going to have a go at tiling the bathroom in the bungalow, and I was doing OK. I prepped the walls. I measured and measured again and made some decisions. I had got the scary tile cutter out of its box and got it going. I cut some tiles. I mixed some tile adhesive.

When it came to stick the tiles to the wall, my prejudices against this job were confirmed: I truly, passionately and without reservation hate tiling. There may have been tears.

You need to get the things on the wall straight and level. The adhesive needs to be of equal thickness. There has to be enough of it but not too much. You have to get the lines straight, of course. And you have to somehow keep the front of the tiles clean of adhesive. Tell you what: It is impossible. Alex had to rescue me.

In the evening, I travelled back to Harrow on the train. Everything was going well, and I got off at Watford Junction for my last connection. I got on the wrong train, that hurtled straight past my stop to London Euston. Where there was no way to get back to my stop except on a slow train that terminated way short of my destination, plus a tube train, plus a rail replacement bus service.

I arrived home 1.5 hours after I should have done, thoroughly miserable and stressed.

By contrast, today the boiler was installed in the bungalow, which now has full central heating. We won’t have to work in the cold.