HALLS AND BATHROOMS

Today feels like an endurance test. I have a box of Lemsip on my desk and I'm currently rattling a Halls Soother around my mouth.

I don't want to go on about it.

-

The Intrepids are away on their Ireland trip. In a clever attempt to avoid any workman-related-stress (and trust me, there is always workman-related-stress), they've decided to have the bathroom refitted while they're away. It's very sensible - if all goes to plan they'll come back to a showroom-shiny bathroom, exactly the way they wanted it. No troublesome decisions, no hassle, no trying to clean your teeth in the kitchen sink, no bootprints on the carpet and no grumbling about the lack of hot water.

Good for them.

-

I just did a bit of research into Halls Soothers. I don't think there's anything in them that helps with a sore throat - no menthol, no pectin, no nothing: just water, sugar and a load of acids! They're just sweets aren't they? Yet there they are in the shop, next to the Beechams and the cough linctus and the indigestion remedies and the unmentionables. If I survive this flu, I might just write to Halls about how their product is actually worse for me than the thing I'm using it to counteract.

I don't want to go on about it.

-

I went home for lunch. There was a man sitting on a toolbox with his back against the cupboard. He was eating crisps.

"Alright?" I said.

"Alright," he nodded, munching away like Gary Lineker. I peered around him into the bathroom; the door was half open. The bathroom floor was covered with fragments of broken tiles. There was a jagged, ugly hole showing old plaster where the sink used to be and an electrical cable was dragged over the toilet seat.

"How's it going?"

"Yeah alright, mate. Had a bit of a problem wiv gettin' the towels off." I must have looked puzzled momentarily. "Someone's laid 'em on, free layers, mad! But when they're off your room'll be 'alf an inch bigger!"

It took me a while before I realised that he was talking about tiles and not towels. I hadn't even realised that that was a thing, tiling on top of tiles! He assured me that he would 'keep going' anyway. I asked him what I'd be left with tonight. He said the shower and 'maybe' the toilet. I said that that was quite an important 'maybe'. He nodded.

I hope the Intrepids are having a good time anyway... in Ireland...on a jolly... while I'm breathing my last in a freezing bathroom...

I don't want to go on about it.