The Handle of Fate.

Well as there’s no rest for the, lets not say wicked lets say capable, I’ll be doing next doors kitchen shortly. Mothermouse thinks it needs “new energy”; that’s new age speak for two weeks work putting in new units, worktops, tiling, re-plumbing new sink, taps and dishwasher, tiling, screeding floor in preparation for new flooring. Unfortunately new age energy doesn’t extend past an hour in B&Q. We enter kitchen psychology land. Where a glorious garden consists of a wonderful variety of flowers and shrubs in a beautiful panoply of colour, in Kitchen Land everything must match. If for example one breaks a handle off a unit and finds the design discontinued one cannot screw in a handy nut and bolt. One must replace all the handles to match. If then one subsequently finds no handles that have the same hole centres, and would thus leave unsightly holes that multitudes of germs would colonise and jeopardise one’s future health, one must buy all new doors. Which don’t fit the old carcasses thus requiring new ones. The slightest re-design requires all this and more. Worktops don’t fit, appliances don’t match and so on. As in my case, the one-inch lip at the back of the old stainless sink reveals a lack of tiles when fitting a new surface sink. This requires hammering off all the old tiles and sticking on new ones. By this point the old flooring will be lacerated to buggery so a new one will need to be laid, probably requiring a screed of levelling compound first.

And then what happens? You stand back to admire your beautiful new kitchen and break off a handle.