Kitchen

Matching laminate wall means retiling is inevitable

You can see Beau grazing on the lawn

Kitchen dilapidation?

"Stars in Their Eyes": This week Yorkshire Pudding is... Bob the Builder! Well, perhaps not. Maybe Terry the Tile Remover.

Her majesty has decreed that we shall have new work surfaces (counters) in the kitchen. The others were only put there a short time ago (thirteen years to be precise) and seem perfectly serviceable to me. But the project is about to commence and a fellow called Gary (are all tradesmen called Gary?) will be here nice and early on Thursday morning to perform his skilful duties - ripping out the old surfaces and inserting the new.

Lady Pudding had not anticipated that the kitchen makeover would involve the removal of existing tiles. If I had been able to acquire a couple of boxes of our current tiles then full removal would not have been necessary but as the guy in the tile shop said, "You've no chance mate!" (How dare he call me "mate" when I'm obviously a "sir"!)

So instead of wasting time tapping away at this keyboard, I suppose I should really be showering and finding my safety googles ready to get chipping away at tiles that I imagine will have been welded immovably to the walls. Though magazine kitchen makeovers always look very easy - moving magically from "Before" to "After" - in real life such transformation is usually accompanied by blood, sweat and tears and exasperated cries - "Oh God! Why am I doing this?" etc.. We'll see.

Meantime, she who must be obeyed will be in Sheffield City Hall tomorrow afternoon, receiving her masters degree. Ian and Frances have booked days off to be there. It is a magnificent achievement. Shirley has always been an excellent nurse - dealing compassionately and effectively with many thousands of poorly people over the years but she was never what you might call "academic". For her nursing is essentially a practical job - a bit like renewing kitchen work surfaces. The fact that she has been able to advance through the necessary academic hoops as a distant learner and part time student these last six years verges on the remarkable and it is certainly one of the best achievements of her life. We will all feel very proud tomorrow afternoon. Perhaps she deserves her kitchen makeover.