I fitted a new toilet seat today because the old one was broken. To be pedantic, it was the lid over the seat that was actually broken. It would appear they don’t support the weight of a 56 year old man who is reaching for a rubber ducky. However, the complexities of the circumstances leading to the lid breaking are ultimately irrelevant. The problem needed to be addressed as there were dangerous sharp edges. Therefore, to make things easier, I ordered the exact same make and model of toilet seat that I had previously bought in April 2021. Upon subsequent reflection, I do wonder how often the average person changes their toilet seat? Is three years considered a high turnover by the toilet seat statistical community? Who knows? But I digress. The new seat arrived today and in a fit of hubris I thought I’d quickly install it in the morning after showering. I reckoned it would only take half an hour or so. How foolish of me.

During the seventies there was a boom in DIY (do it yourself) in the UK and a surge in interest in interior design. It was a decade of home extensions, loft conversions and open plan living. Social attitudes were changing and the formal layout of the family home that had prevailed since Edwardian times was giving way to ideas of a far more informal living space. I experienced this cultural change first hand between 1975 and 1985, as my Father spent a decade renovating the family home, room by room. The time and pace of this decade of DIY were dictated purely by the costs. My Father was working as a teacher and so the school holidays afforded him the time and opportunity. The practical benefits of DIY made the cost far more affordable. Plus, my Father was a mechanical engineer by trade and therefore could competently undertake woodwork, building and basic plumbing.