Tram Trauma

Right it's nearly Halloween and have I had a gutfull of ghouls already. Channel 4 forums aside ;-) things had been pretty harmonious at home. Had over 2 weeks off work and although all my excursion plans and trips had to be cancelled due to building work in my kitchen the end result was worth it. Lovely kitchen and a pretty chilled Steps!

I hardly recognize my kitchen now and find myself gliding around in there with a Dettox surface wipe far too often than is healthy for a 6'3 bloke with a No1 crop and tattoos.

Only a few bits need doing now. Housemate has volunteered to do the tiling. Very nice of him and I am appreciative but he's one of these DIY Dangers that starts things but never finishes so I'm cautiously delighted.

He bought a huge shed/garden workshop kit to put up the end of the garden. Had it delivered, started to level off the ground where he was going to build it. 2 years later the level ground is a cat litter for the local felines and when I look out my bedroom window all I can see is 2 tons of pine rotting under a bright green tarpaulin.

Anyway he made a start and the tiles were looking magnificent. Perfect match. Very butch if I say so myself. You may remember that I'm getting quite blaze about going to the DIY sheds after recent expeditions. So when housemate says he needs some tile edging I leap to the rescue and tell him I'll nip over to Tile Base and get some. I could see the slightly unsure look crossing his face and after much silent shuffling he agreed that I couldn't do much harm with such a task.

Feeling dead chuffed and almost like a pseudo-builder's mate I pop down the road and catch a tram to the Tile Base Superstore just in time for school's out! Tram was packed with kids in baseball caps, polyester and arses hanging round their knees. There's a lot to be said for school uniforms.

Gets to Tile Base at last after suffering the stench of a sweaty kid who looked like he'd come straight off the basketball court after a marathon match and was stuffing his face with 2 Big Macs. Not a smell I care to encounter again. Must be on the look out for the McD/Acrylic combo in future.

The place has what I need. 2 lengths of tile edging in black. Perfect! Leave the shop looking even more pleased with myself and head for home. Whilst waiting for the tram I suddenly noticed that the other people waiting were giving me strange looks. I pretended not to noticed and shuffled around looking at my mobile phone for no reason and reading the barcode on the tile edge strip. Some people are so rude I thought. 2 minutes before the tram arrives.

It's at this point I suddenly look up to the end of the 8 foot long pieces of tile edging. Yes. I said 8 foot. OH SHIT!

As the tram approaches I can see my fellow waiters whispering to each other and a pushchair Mum with greasy hair and equally greasy child rolls her eyes at me and inspects her false nails. I return her eye rolls and throw in a screwed up nose into the bargain.

The tram's here. Doors open. It's quite busy. SHIT! I lower the edging strips and edge in the door almost knocking the cap off an old bloke who's dancing around in the gangway trying to get out the way. I try and pull up and the strips smack against the ceiling making a noise like the electricity lines have snapped. 2 old dears obviously headed for bingo let out a shriek and before they have time to wallop me with their bag of bingo markers an Inspector appears. 'You can't bring that on here mate' he says. I look indignant and desperately trying to maintain my cool blurt out ' Well how do you expect me to get get this home!'

I could have crawled into the old blokes cap. Why did I say that? The whole place was now a mix of sniggers and tutting and my face was beetroot.

I got off the tram pretending to be furious at the way I had been treated. Probably looked a bit like Diana Ross after being frisked at Heathrow. Stormed back to the shop who very kindly gave me a refund whilst I ranted on about public transport and pensioners traveling during peak hours. By the time I got home I was quite calm again and told housemate what had happened.

He looked at me in disbelief and said 'Why didn't you just get the shop to cut it in half'.............

Calamity Cuisine

Well the big weekend is here. My kitchen is being installed and I'm surrounded by enough cardboard boxes to house the Croydon homeless and there is so much dust around that it looks like the day after a nuclear holocaust. I've been sneezing so much that my nose has bled twice and my eyes look like Marty Feldman with a hangover.

Things started well yesterday morning although it was a struggle for me to get up in time for the builders 8am start. There's builder Dave with the nice legs and a chain-smoking, chubby youth with cropped hair with tram lines. Chubby youth has the job of building the cabinets and drawers whilst Dave does the more complex stuff. He has a really loud and annoying hacking cough and for some reason the dog growls every time he does it. That lad needs to cut down on the weed and suck a couple of fisherman's Friends. I was only on 5 Embassy Regal a day when I was his age. He got through a whole pack of Superking Black yesterday.

Everything was going smoothly until lunchtime when Dave asks me where some joining thing is? Apparently there should be some metal thing that covers the join in the 2 bits of work surface. I'm clueless about all this stuff but we checked through the inventory and.........bugger.........I haven't got one. Housemate sends me out to Homebase to get the missing bit. Me on my own in a DIY shed is a bit like the Pope at a Jewish wedding. Up and down the aisles I go trying to look butch and like I know what I'm looking for. In the end I give up and ask this lad who looks like the lead singer of Good Charlotte where the elusive 'thing' can be found. I'd only walked past them 3 times. None of them look right but hey......what do I know. Just to be safe I buy 3 different types. One is bound to be good.

WRONG! Dave says 'they're crap' and I'm dispatched again, to B&Q this time. Have the same problem there finding the 'thing' and once again it's located in a place you would never dream of looking. Miles from the rest of the kitchen stuff. This time there are bits that look more right but I'm not confident after the last failure so try phoning home. Try both home numbers, both of housemates mobile phones (don't ask) and Dave the builder. No one answering. Tried neighbour but she's engaged. 20 minutes later and still no contact can be made. Why the hell do people have mobile phones and keep them turned off. I decide to be brave and buy what I think is the correct one but have to get 2 cos I'm not sure which is the correct colour match. Tram home and Dave says I got the correct 'thing' this time. Feeling dead chuffed. Me getting it right at all is a bit of a miracle.

Things back on track but can't get the sink working cos the connector not right. Rather than trust me to another shed trek, Dave says he'll go to B&Q on Sunday. They finish for the day and chubby youth coughs his guts up on the way out.

Can't cook so we had McDonalds for lunch and had a couple of large Chicken Shish kebabs and twister fries for dinner. Was belching and farting all night. Even a Green Tea and White Lilly candle couldn't disguise the smell in the lounge.

Woke up early again stinking of garlic sauce and the boys start work on day 2 of the transformation.

I'm not a morning person as you know and was therefore sent into a blind panic when Dave tells me that there are 3 more 'bits' missing. No left hand fixings for 2 drawers and the wrong drawer box. I'm gutted but start to think that he's lying to me. How come the same 'bit' would be missing from 2 different kits? I'm thinking he's cocked up and buried the evidence after realising his mistake. I wander around looking a bit paranoid and searching for the 'missing' 'bits'. Anyway I pretend to believe him and we wait for MFI to open. I give them a call and the sales guy is bemused and sounds like he thinks I'm some sort of nincompoop. Which I probably do sound like as I'm trying to relay what Dave is saying whilst trying not to sound like I don't believe a word he's saying. Anyway nice salesman finally realises where we've gone wrong and points us in the right direction. The 'bits' are found. They just don't look like the 'bits' Dave was looking for. I point out that if he'd looked at the instructions he would have seen the 'bits' and what they looked like. I'm getting cocky now and chubby's cough is getting worse. The dog's ignoring it now but it's starting to really piss me off.

Dave's just asked me if he can borrow my iron? WTF. Has he brought his laundry to test drive the kitchen?????